The best source I have that leads me to a conclusion that this is an invented legend is the 1993 Master in History thesis of Joan G Fairweather at the University of Ottawa, "Is this Apartheid? Aboriginal Reserves and Self-Government in Canada. 1960-1982"

Ms Fairweather sets out to answer the still quite prevalent question of whether the Government of Canada uses apartheid type laws and policies against the Aboriginal Peoples.

In my personal judgment she correctly arrives at the conclusion that although Canada had, and still has, an appalling record in many areas with its Native Peoples it is very wrong to equate the Canadian system with South Africa's apartheid regime. And fundamentally there is little similarity.

From the late 80's to the mid 90's I was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's news specialist in Aboriginal Issues on Parliament Hill. It was during this period that the national native leaders, George Erasmus, Ron George, John Amagoalik and others, started claiming that SA had modeled apartheid on the Indian Act.

Depending on who made the statement, Ottawa had either sent Indian Affairs officials to Pretoria in the 1950's to advise on how to set up apartheid, or SA officials came to Canada. A similar story about Australia's then repressive treatment of the Aborigines being modeled on the Indian Act became current in the mid-90's.

I wanted to travel to South Africa to do a series of programmes about the supposed connection. My producers wanted some form of confirmation before sending me and so did I. Despite a good 2 years of putting the question to Government ministers, native leaders, officials, and aboriginal law experts, the South African Ambassador to Canada, and a South African native issues expert in Johannesburg, I found none.

Such a connection would have been a central point to Ms Fairweather's thesis but there is nothing in it, nor in any of the sources she cites, (I checked most of them) that even hints of a connection.

The legend has taken on a life of its own. I see from a quick Google that there are many references to the story but not one that I checked in my quick survey ever cites a source.

I think that a fair reading of the on-line material dealing with this story would conclude that it is a nice neat club with which to batter the government, depending on your political agenda.

Having said all this I would be greatly interested to be proved wrong. It would force a major rethink about Canada's Aboriginal history.

So, sorry to conclude with an absence of evidence, but if you are interested in how the two countries treated its Indigenous Peoples during that time frame then hunt up Ms Fairweather's thesis.

Rick Grant Calgary