Walking in Indian Moccasins

Book excerpt: Walking in Indian Moccasins is the first work to offer a different view of the Tommy Douglas provincial government in Sakatchewan: their policies, their applications, and their shortcomings. Much more than that, however, it is a careful account of the development of Indian and Metis people in Saskatchewan in the post-war period. The goal of the CCF was to 'walk in Indian moccasins,' promising a degree of empathy with Native society in bringing about reforms. In reality, this aim was not always honoured in practice and essentially meant integration for the Indians of the province and total assimilation for the Metis.