Yale Belanger
Dr. Yale D. Belanger (Ph.D.) is professor and chair of Political Science at the University of Lethbridge (Alberta), and a former Member, Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists (2017-2024). His doctoral work at Trent University focused on the emergence and evolution of Aboriginal political organizations in late 19th- and early 20th-century Canada.
Dr. Belanger is widely published in various edited compilations and in journals such as Canadian Public Policy, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Canadian Foreign Policy, Journal of Gambling Business and Economics, UNLV Gaming Research and Review, Gaming Law Review & Economics, International Journal of Canadian Studies, International Gambling Studies, Canadian Geographer - Le Géographe canadien, Business & Politics, Canadian Journal Of Criminology And Criminal Justice, American Review of Canadian Studies, Canadian Journal of Native Studies, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, and American Indian Quarterly.
In 2006, he produced Gambling with the Future: The Evolution of Aboriginal Gaming in Canada (Purich Publishing), the first book-length treatment tracing the emergence of casino gaming among Canada’s First Nations seeking improved economic development opportunities. He followed this in 2011 with First Nations Gaming in Canada (University of Manitoba Press). In 2008, he edited the third edition of Aboriginal Self-Government in Canada: Current Trends and Issues. In 2010, he published Ways of Knowing: An Introduction to Native Studies in Canada with Thompson-Nelson, the fourth edition of which was published in 2021 (co-authored with Maura Hanrahan).
Dr. Belanger has contributed to the Canadian and international media, having appeared on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) National News serial Contact, The National with Peter Mansbridge, CBC Radio International, and in The Globe and Mail and The National Post, among others.
Dr. Belanger currently resides in Lethbridge with his wife Tammie-Jai, and Loki, Etta, and Bourbon the dogs.
Phone: +1(403)382-7101
Address: Department of Political Science
University of Lethbridge
4401 University Dr
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
T1K 3M4
Dr. Belanger is widely published in various edited compilations and in journals such as Canadian Public Policy, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Canadian Foreign Policy, Journal of Gambling Business and Economics, UNLV Gaming Research and Review, Gaming Law Review & Economics, International Journal of Canadian Studies, International Gambling Studies, Canadian Geographer - Le Géographe canadien, Business & Politics, Canadian Journal Of Criminology And Criminal Justice, American Review of Canadian Studies, Canadian Journal of Native Studies, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, and American Indian Quarterly.
In 2006, he produced Gambling with the Future: The Evolution of Aboriginal Gaming in Canada (Purich Publishing), the first book-length treatment tracing the emergence of casino gaming among Canada’s First Nations seeking improved economic development opportunities. He followed this in 2011 with First Nations Gaming in Canada (University of Manitoba Press). In 2008, he edited the third edition of Aboriginal Self-Government in Canada: Current Trends and Issues. In 2010, he published Ways of Knowing: An Introduction to Native Studies in Canada with Thompson-Nelson, the fourth edition of which was published in 2021 (co-authored with Maura Hanrahan).
Dr. Belanger has contributed to the Canadian and international media, having appeared on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) National News serial Contact, The National with Peter Mansbridge, CBC Radio International, and in The Globe and Mail and The National Post, among others.
Dr. Belanger currently resides in Lethbridge with his wife Tammie-Jai, and Loki, Etta, and Bourbon the dogs.
Phone: +1(403)382-7101
Address: Department of Political Science
University of Lethbridge
4401 University Dr
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
T1K 3M4
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Books by Yale Belanger
The adoption of direct action tactics like blockades and occupations is predicated on the idea that something drastic is needed for Aboriginal groups to break an unfavourable status quo, overcome structural barriers, and achieve their goals. But are blockades actually "breakthroughs"? What are the objectives of Aboriginal people and communities who adopt this approach? How can the success of these methods be measured? This collection offers an in-depth survey of occupations, blockades, and their legacies, from 1968 to the present. Individual case studies situate specific blockades and conflicts in historical context, examine each group’s reasons for occupation, and analyze the media labels and frames applied to both Aboriginal and state responses.
Direct action tactics remain a powerful political tool for First Nations in Canada. The authors of Blockades or Breakthroughs? Argue that blockades and occupations are instrumental, symbolic, and complex events that demand equally multifaceted responses.
Contributors include Yale D. Belanger, Tom Flanagan, Sarah King, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, David Rossiter, John Sandlos, Nick Shrubsole, and Timothy Winegard.
The adoption of direct action tactics like blockades and occupations is predicated on the idea that something drastic is needed for Aboriginal groups to break the unfavourable status quo, overcome structural barriers, and achieve their goals. But are blockades actually “breakthroughs”? What are the objectives of Aboriginal people and communities who adopt this approach? How can the success of these methods be measured? This collection offers a comprehensive survey of occupations and blockades, and their legacies from 1968 to the present. Individual case studies situate specific blockades and conflicts in historical context, examine each group’s reasons for (re)occupation, and analyze the media labels and frames applied to both Aboriginal and state responses.
Direct action tactics remain a powerful political tool for First Nations in Canada. The authors of Blockades or Breakthroughs? argue that blockades and occupations are instrumental, symbolic, and complex events that demand equally multifaceted responses.
Contributors include: John Sandlos, Tom Flanagan, David Rossiter, Sarah King, Timothy Winegard, Nick Shrubsole, Yale Belanger, and Whitney Lackenbauer.
Yale D. Belanger is associate professor, Political Science, and adjunct associate professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Lethbridge.
P. Whitney Lackenbauer is associate professor and chair of history at St. Jerome’s University."
At the heart of the book is an examination of the development of First Nations gambling across Canada, the resultant political battles fought in each province to establish Indian run casinos, and the kinds of agreements that were reached with provincial authorities to legally establish First Nations gambling institutions. Factors including the importance of casino location and management arrangements – which have led some casinos to become very successful and others economically problematic – are discussed in full. Finally, the author looks at challenges First Nations gambling institutions face in the future and the question of the extent to which such institutions are an important engine for economic development of First Nations communities.
Papers by Yale Belanger
Indigenous homelessness is ‘a crisis that should be considered an epidemic’ and one that ‘cannot be decontextualized from the uneven economic and community development, institutionalization, landlessness, and cultural genocide experienced in different degrees and scales’. Contemporary Indigenous homelessness is directly liked to government institutions such as the reserve system and the Indian Act, which federal officials mobilized to constrain individual and group rights, disregard treaties, prohibit ceremonies, promote urbanization, and cultivate residential schools. Grasping Indigenous homelessness starts by asking how the state, through domestic law and policy and its ongoing reliance on the aforesaid institutions, makes Indigenous peoples vulnerable to homelessness. As this chapter argues, Canada’s tactics dating to its 1867 founding remain informed by racist ideas that reproduce structural and procedural inequities that act as key determinants negatively influencing Indigenous health. Reading and Wien confirm that whereas ‘the mechanisms and impact of colonization as well as historic and neo-colonialism are similar among all Aboriginal groups, particular policies such as the Indian Act have been patently deleterious to the lives and health of First Nations people’. Indigenous homelessness is, as this chapter contends, a distal determinant of health, which leads us to conclude that Indigenous homelessness is a policy choice that we have the power to correct.
Canada’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic brought to light the complexities
involved with coordinating an on-the-ground response within a federal
system that divides government powers and responsibilities between a national
legislature and provincial and territorial legislatures. Canada’s response was
unavoidably intricate because of the exigencies of coordinating ten provinces,
three territories, and federal authorities. As other chapters in this compilation
suggest, however, enhanced federal–provincial communications were normalized
and intra-ministerial and agency cooperation nurtured, which points to
federalism’s strengths. Take, for example, the overlapping authorities for health
care that facilitated superior information sharing that led to the timely realization
of a coordinated strategy of viral containment vis-à-vis provincial shutdowns.
We submit that these processes resulted from concentrating decisionmaking
authority within federal and provincial authority. Yet, by concentrating
authority in this way, other governments, such as First Nations (Indian Act
bands) and the collection of urban Indigenous Peoples (UIP), nationally found
themselves excluded from participating in high-level discussions informing the
creation of national and provincial response strategies. That is, First Nations
and UIP frequently found themselves watching from the margins as federal and
provincial officials devised pandemic response plans. First Nations were then
expected to execute plans that disregarded UIP almost entirely.
Making sense of the UCP Indigenous policy’s contradictory features is an onerous
task. As an analytical starting point, we conducted a brief content analysis of major
news media stories from 2010 to 2019 where Kenney commented. When debating
Indigenous issues, he commonly referenced the constitution acts of 1867 and 1982 and mentioned “responsibility” to frame his observations. Actions such as condemning
the UNDRIP and the Supreme Court of Canada-affirmed duty to consult offered more
insights. The data pointed to a distinctive trend: the UCP embraced an originalist
approach to Indigenous policymaking. Considered a conservative legal ideology,
originalists do not believe constitutions require updating (Oliphant, 2015). Nor do
they deem Indigenous peoples’ claims to treaty and/or Aboriginal rights as
contemporary concerns, or legally actionable (Borrows, 2012). Instead, complex
dialogues concerning the precise responsibility for “Indians, and lands reserved for
the Indians” guide conversations that in turn demand as corroboration past examples
of Aboriginal practices that do not help to empower “present-day Indigenous claims”
(Borrows 2017, 116). As John Borrows reminds us, dependence on legal and political
originalist interpretations inhibits Indigenous peoples from proving “contemporary
rights to self-government, child welfare, education, economic regulation, and so on
because the courts have found such claims do not have strong historical analogues at
the moment of European encounter” (ibid., our emphasis). As we illustrate, Kenney’s
originalist leanings extended to most facets of his political ideology, and thus the
UCP’s legal and political tactics for developing its Indigenous file.
which to build a cycle of enhanced economic outcomes, improved education and skills, and sustainable, thriving communities. First Nations peoples in Canada, specifically, and Indigenous peoples generally, face complex barriers to employment
that are associated with the ongoing manifestations of colonization, geography, and
government policies.
The chapter offers a brief history of First Nations' wage labour activity that explains the
constraints placed imposed by both government policies and social attitudes. In doing so, the analysis reveals the toll of labour exclusion on First Nations peoples, both individually and collectively, and for Canadian society, based on what experts studying these issues have determined, and offers several recommendations for change.