Author: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada Publisher: James Lorimer & Company ISBN: 145941067X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 545
Book Description
This is the Final Report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its six-year investigation of the residential school system for Aboriginal youth and the legacy of these schools. This report, the summary volume, includes the history of residential schools, the legacy of that school system, and the full text of the Commission's 94 recommendations for action to address that legacy. This report lays bare a part of Canada's history that until recently was little-known to most non-Aboriginal Canadians. The Commission discusses the logic of the colonization of Canada's territories, and why and how policy and practice developed to end the existence of distinct societies of Aboriginal peoples. Using brief excerpts from the powerful testimony heard from Survivors, this report documents the residential school system which forced children into institutions where they were forbidden to speak their language, required to discard their clothing in favour of institutional wear, given inadequate food, housed in inferior and fire-prone buildings, required to work when they should have been studying, and subjected to emotional, psychological and often physical abuse. In this setting, cruel punishments were all too common, as was sexual abuse. More than 30,000 Survivors have been compensated financially by the Government of Canada for their experiences in residential schools, but the legacy of this experience is ongoing today. This report explains the links to high rates of Aboriginal children being taken from their families, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and high rates of suicide. The report documents the drastic decline in the presence of Aboriginal languages, even as Survivors and others work to maintain their distinctive cultures, traditions, and governance. The report offers 94 calls to action on the part of governments, churches, public institutions and non-Aboriginal Canadians as a path to meaningful reconciliation of Canada today with Aboriginal citizens. Even though the historical experience of residential schools constituted an act of cultural genocide by Canadian government authorities, the United Nation's declaration of the rights of aboriginal peoples and the specific recommendations of the Commission offer a path to move from apology for these events to true reconciliation that can be embraced by all Canadians.
Author: Blair Stonechild Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press ISBN: 088755377X Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 201
Book Description
Post-secondary education, often referred to as "the new buffalo," is a contentious but critically important issue for First Nations and the future of Canadian society. While First Nations maintain that access to and funding for higher education is an Aboriginal and Treaty right, the Canadian government insists that post-secondary education is a social program for which they have limited responsibility. In "The New Buffalo, "Blair Stonechild traces the history of Aboriginal post-secondary education policy from its earliest beginnings as a government tool for assimilation and cultural suppression to its development as means of Aboriginal self-determination and self-government. With first-hand knowledge and personal experience of the Aboriginal education system, Stonechild goes beyond merely analyzing statistics and policy doctrine to reveal the shocking disparity between Aboriginal and Canadian access to education, the continued dominance of non-Aboriginals over program development, and the ongoing struggle for recognition of First Nations run institutions.
Author: Karen Stote Publisher: Fernwood Publishing ISBN: 1552667545 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 147
Book Description
During the 1900s eugenics gained favour as a means of controlling the birth rate among “undesirable” populations in Canada. Though many people were targeted, the coercive sterilization of one group has gone largely unnoticed. An Act of Genocide unpacks long-buried archival evidence to begin documenting the forced sterilization of Aboriginal women in Canada. Grounding this evidence within the context of colonialism, the oppression of women and the denial of Indigenous sovereignty, Karen Stote argues that this coercive sterilization must be considered in relation to the larger goals of Indian policy — to gain access to Indigenous lands and resources while reducing the numbers of those to whom the federal government has obligations. Stote also contends that, in accordance with the original meaning of the term, this sterilization should be understood as an act of genocide, and she explores the ways Canada has managed to avoid this charge. This lucid, engaging book explicitly challenges Canadians to take up their responsibilities as treaty partners, to reconsider their history and to hold their government to account for its treatment of Indigenous peoples.
Author: Kristin Burnett Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press ISBN: 1772840505 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 233
Book Description
The manufacturing of a chronic food crisis Food insecurity in the North is one of Canada’s most shameful public health and human rights crises. In Plundering the North, Kristin Burnett and Travis Hay examine the disturbing mechanics behind the origins of this crisis: state and corporate intervention in northern Indigenous foodways. Despite claims to the contrary by governments, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), and the contemporary North West Company (NWC), the exorbitant cost of food in the North is neither a naturally occurring phenomenon nor the result of free-market forces. Rather, inflated food prices are the direct result of government policies and corporate monopolies. Using food as a lens to track the institutional presence of the Canadian state in the North, Burnett and Hay chart the social, economic, and political changes that have taken place in northern Ontario since the 1950s. They explore the roles of state food policy and the HBC and NWC in setting up, perpetuating, and profiting from food insecurity while undermining Indigenous food sovereignties and self-determination. Plundering the North provides fresh insight into Canada’s settler colonial project by re-evaluating northern food policy and laying bare the governmental and corporate processes behind the chronic food insecurity experienced by northern Indigenous communities.
Author: Robert A. Milen Publisher: Dundurn ISBN: 1459718887 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 218
Book Description
This volume features differing views of past, present, and possible future roles for Aboriginal people in the Canadian political and electoral system.
Author: Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP ISBN: 0773598200 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 910
Book Description
Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities. For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. Education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers. Legal action by the schools’ former students led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2008. The product of over six years of research, the Commission’s final report outlines the history and legacy of the schools, and charts a pathway towards reconciliation. Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 2, 1939 to 2000 carries the story of the residential school system from the end of the Great Depression to the closing of the last remaining schools in the late 1990s. It demonstrates that the underfunding and unsafe living conditions that characterized the early history of the schools continued into an era of unprecedented growth and prosperity for most Canadians. A miserly funding formula meant that into the late 1950s school meals fell short of the Canada Food Rules. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a failure to adhere to fire safety rules were common problems throughout this period. While government officials had come to view the schools as costly and inefficient, the churches were reluctant to countenance their closure. It was not until the late 1960s that the federal government finally wrested control of the system away from the churches. Government plans to turn First Nations education over to the provinces met with opposition from Aboriginal organizations that were seeking “Indian Control of Indian Education.” Following parent-led occupation of a school in Alberta, many of the remaining schools came under Aboriginal administration. The closing of the schools coincided with a growing number of convictions of former staff members on charges of sexually abusing students. These trials revealed the degree to which sexual abuse at the schools had been covered up in the past. Former students, who came to refer to themselves as Survivors, established regional and national organizations and provided much of the leadership for the campaign that led to the federal government issuing in 2008 an apology to the former students and their families.
Author: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Author: Canada. Parliament. House of Commons
Author: Canada. Parliament. House of Commons
Author: Canada. Parliament. House of Commons
Author: 
Author: Blair Stonechild
Author: Karen Stote
Author: Kristin Burnett
Author: Robert A. Milen
Author: Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada