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The Micmac Rights Association (MRA) held a peaceful action on March 10th, 2025 to protest the blatant treaty violations of the RCMP. ARC members attended the event and supported the organizers. The following is our statement:
Prior to the RCMP, there were two major police organizations: the North-West Mounted Police and the Dominion Police. The NWMP was a paramilitary force whose goal was the subjugation of Indigenous nations and the securing of stolen land bringing it under the control of the settler state. The NWMP were responsible for, among other atrocities, carrying out massacres to end the Red River Rebellion and the murder of Louis Riel. The Dominion Police was the force responsible for protecting the capitalist economy imposed on the stolen land.
The Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 shook the colonial capitalists to their core. Their response was the formation of the RCMP in 1920 which amalgamated the NWMP and Dominion Police. Their primary role is as protectors and perpetrators of the colonial theft and destruction Canada visits on Indigenous nations and their people. Their secondary goal is the infiltration, sabotage, and suppression of labour movements which pulls double-duty by keeping Indigenous nations and movements isolated.
Settlers benefit from colonial exploitation. This is plain fact, whether settlers like it or not. The RCMP reinforces this exploitation through state violence, and in the past decades, this organization has attempted to paint themselves as allies of settler-workers often via calls to Canadian nationalism. Their true role is that of the violent arm of Canada’s colonial interests.
The RCMP has no inherent right to police Indigenous communities. They have throughout their history proven to be a danger — not only to Indigenous bodies — but to their cultures and economies as a whole. Violence against women, kidnapping children, and otherwise destroying Indigenous communities are part and parcel of the RCMP. Progressive settlers, especially those of the settler working class, must reject the legitimacy they’ve lent them, and recognize the RCMP as the paramilitary police force it very clearly is.
As Communists, we believe in and demand recognition of the right of all Indigenous nations to self-determination. In practical terms, this means Communists believe in the right of Indigenous nations to have an independent national state on the totality of their land. Self-determination cannot be limited by conditions imposed by colonizer governments, like Canada. Settlers have an obligation to support and advance Indigenous self-determination through solidarity between the Mi’kmaq nation and exploited settler workers.
Canada is a settler-colony which means the question of national liberation for Indigenous nations is of primary importance. Communists do not believe that national self-determination of colonized nations is possible without liberation.
Canada and the Province are clearly in opposition to Mi’kmaw self-determination and the self-determination of all colonized nations. Right now, federal and provincial politicians are pushing for more resource extraction. Governments are attempting to build public support for these extractive activities by offering social democratic buy-offs. Extraction which happens on stolen land, gives Indigenous nations nothing, and so often includes increases in colonial violence.
Just the other day, out-going PM Trudeau proudly called himself a Zionist. And what are Zionists doing in Palestine? How many videos have we seen and stories have we heard of the struggle in Palestine? How much colonial violence has been done to the Indigenous people of Palestine by the Israeli state? We can see the same type of struggle throughout the colonization of Mi’kma’ki up to the modern day.
Trudeau’s words only underline what colonized nations around the world have known for generations: settler-colonial states will support each other to further their shared goals of exploitation, land theft, and violence. This solidarity of the oppressors and exploiters demands a solidarity of the oppressed and exploited.
Settlers: you do not owe Canada any loyalty. Canada does not care about you. It does not represent you. Canada does not have your best interests at heart. What the Canadian state does represent is colonialism and the interests of capital. We cannot build lasting solidarity with the Mi’kmaq without first understanding this.
If you’re in an organization, like a union or advocacy group like an environmental org, start agitating to support Mi’kmaw self-determination. Connect with Mi’kmaw rights and liberation groups and offer the support they request. If your union or group leaders don’t like it, expose them as traitors to oppressed nations and drive them from the labour movement. Boot ’em out! If you don’t have a group, build one. Enough with sitting on our hands!
Study the history of Mi’kma’ki. Study organization strategies. Form relationships with other groups and grow. Isolated actions done by individuals won’t resolve things. Convert spontaneity into a sustainable rising tide. Planned collective action, and settlers allying with Indigenous nations to fight for Indigenous self-determination is the path forward for the liberation of all!
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