After reading the Payne article and viewing the documentary Trick or Treaty, I was able to come to the conclusion that the images of children and youth in Trick or Treaty problematize the narratives that Payne explores. According to Payne the narrative of Canada as a nation was created by the Canadian government to demonstrate the country’s harmonious cultural and geographical diversity (85). It was to show that Canadians are accepting and respectful of each others beliefs and values. However, this idea of Canada as a nation was not something Aboriginal people ever experienced. The opening of the documentary Trick or Treaty speaks volumes to this, as mentioned in the video Canada ranks in the top seventh of the UN Human Development while the First Nations rank sixty seventh. Moreover, the way that the …show more content…
That is the furthest thing from what a nation is supposed to be. Payne also describes the images of the children as markers of Canadian identity, the citizenry as a whole, and the country’s aspirations (85). After watching the documentary and seeing the strained relationship between the Canadian government and the Aboriginal peoples, I hope this is not what the country aspires for. The manner in which the Canadian government went about obtaining Treaty 9 is hard to believe. Hearing about this experience from the Aboriginal people and how they felt like they were taken advantage of just seems wrong. It really causes one to think about the Canadian government’s intentions and furthermore wonder how the Canadian government could have done such a thing and gotten a way with it for so long. Payne mentions the photo story “Canada’s future belongs to them” (88). This phrase holds much truth to it, as the future belongs to the youth. Do these youth include Aboriginals? If so, we must look for a way to repair the past before we can look
Our society was fearful of the First Nations, because their culture and beliefs were different from ours. As a result, we penalized them for that and forced innocent children to leave their traditional culture behind and force them into our society. Lyna and Glen’s perspective was about hardship, emotional, psychological and physical trauma. They wanted our society to see and understand what that experience did to their humanity. Throughout the documentary, they focused on the victims, which were the children, resulting in personal biases about the experiences of the residential schools. Through talks in class and readings from the text, they both expressed how inequality has festered through the years in different ways for minority groups, such as the First Nations. From what our society has done, we created “so much mental and emotional suffering” (Pickett, K and Wilkinson, R), as a result from creating these residential schools and forcing assimilation upon the First Nation Children.
The issue that this documentary presented was that the Aboriginal residential school process was a way to eliminate the entirety of the Aboriginal population or at least assimilate them. The process was very deliberate and often times the views of Aboriginals were not acknowledged in this whole institution. Furthermore, the language used to describe Aboriginals showed the truth of there being a deliberate attempt to assimilate and eliminate this group. Shockingly, Canada’s PM, Sir John A. MacDonald called the group Canada’s “Indian problem”. These polies instill a culture of racism as policies tend to shape attitudes. Dhiru Patel’s Public Policies and Racism article talks about Canada attempting to give retribution for this which leads to a false perception that Canada is now free of Racism. In fact, the article mentions that amongst youth 83% of Canadians think Canada treats minority groups fairly. In the movie, the interviews of all of the groups shows that
After watching the movie “Where the Spirit Lives”, I have had some strong feelings towards what was done to the First Nations People of Canada. At the beginning of the movie, it showcased the job of the Indian Agent, a man whose job was to interact with the tribes of the aboriginals in hopes of taking their children to the brutal residential schools. In this scene, the agent was trying to act friendly and tried to make a good impression on the aboriginal children. After watching this scene, I was angry because the Indian Agent made the children think that they were going somewhere nice and that they were going to be treated well. In reality, it was quite the opposite.
Charlie Angus was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2004, a role which took him to the Forgotten Children of Attawapiskat. It was his experiences prompted him to write his book, Children of the Broken Treaty: Canada’s Lost Promise and one Girl’s Dream, which tells the story of Indigenous persons of Canada’s struggles, including treaty rights, residential schools, as well as the fight for education and safe housing. The book provides a challenge to many common assumptions, and it also explores many themes which are used to explain the events which have shaped Canadian culture and policies. Angus begins his book by touching on some of the original treaties signed between the first Canadian government and the members of the bands that are indigenous to the land. One of these was Treaty 9, which promised education for Indigenous children. The book then developed into the foundation of residential schools, and the horrors that are endured there. In addition to the horrendous amounts of verbal, physical and sexual abuse which took place in these schools, the students who attended these institutions faced the mass genocide of their culture, as the unspoken purpose of these schools was “to kill the Indian in the child” (Angus, 2015, p. 14). The beginning of the book, while very dark, provides an honest introduction to some of the themes that can be spotted throughout the book, and history itself. The three themes that primarily stood out to me as a reader were: cultural
Although the Canadian government has done a great deal to repair the injustices inflicted on the First Nations people of Canada, legislation is no where near where it needs to be to ensure future protection of aboriginal rights in the nation. An examination of the documents that comprise the Canadian Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms reveal that there is very little in the supreme legal documents of the nation that protect aboriginal rights. When compared with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples it is clear that the Canadian Constitution does not acknowledge numerous provisions regarding indigenous people that the UN resolution has included. The most important of these provisions is the
Throughout Canada’s 150 years of being a country, Indigenous people were oppressed. The children were forced into residential schools, and eventually, over decades, the entire culture was lost. Looking back on it now, it is clear that what had happened was a “cultural genocide.” Cultural genocide is defined as, “the destruction of structures and practices that allow a group to continue as a group” (Moffit, Brown, 2017).
Canada has been home to Aboriginals for centuries, who play an imperative role in the history of Canada. Culture and tradition have been brought into this country with the help of millions of Aboriginals. Aboriginals have been known to be very strong supporters of their culture, and heritage and take very high importance towards it. They are very traditional people, and have been looking up to their Ancestral ways for centuries. The treaty relationship between Canada and First Nations has caused a rift and a divide amongst each other for many reasons. Although there has been so much history and tension amidst the two, there is always room for improvement. A lot of things can be done to strive towards a positive relationship, starting with accepting the culture of Aboriginals and realizing that it is something they will not be letting go. Secondly, education can play a big role in helping this situation, and bringing more awareness to the situation starting from a young age. (p. 5) Lastly, The rights and freedoms of all people in the country need to be equal and similar. Certain changes can really help the state of the situation but it is a matter of willing to try and see the change that we all want.
First off, I will tell my friend that we are all responsible, and it’s a fact and an debated opinion. Partaking in Canada’s systems and institutions is us directly contributing to the modern-day dehumanization and genocide that is happening towards Indigenous people today. Indigenous Canadians are not being treated equally; they’re treated worst. Only recently after several years of disappearance, the Canadian government has begun to discuss and bring awareness towards the murdered and missing Indigenous woman of Canada. (Anderson, 2016, p.90) While, some can only perceive that the negative stereotypes surrounding Indigenous daughters contributed to the lack of government attention, in comparison to other women. Thus, these stereotypes created
The history of Canada is the era of where colonization all began towards aboriginal peoples. Over the past decades, aboriginal peoples have been mistreated and misused by the white-Europeans. They have been oppressed by Canadian society that we are known still by today and continue to live under racism resulting in gender and class oppression. The history of colonialism has been playing a big part in the way of how aboriginal people have been constructed and impacted on how aboriginal people are treated and viewed in Canadian Society. They have been dealing with the struggles, inequality, and discrimination that we have been putting them through for over three centuries, we’ve been also failing them with Canada’s racist policies
Canada as a nation is known to the world for being loving, courteous, and typically very welcoming of all ethnicities. Nevertheless, the treatment of Canada’s Indigenous population over the past decades, appears to suggest otherwise. Indigenous people have been tormented and oppressed by the Canadian society for hundreds of years and remain to live under discrimination resulting in cultural brutality. This, and more, has caused severe negative cultural consequences, psychological and sociological effects. The history of the seclusion of Indigenous people has played a prominent aspect in the development and impact of how Indigenous people are treated and perceived in today’s society. Unfortunately, our history with respect to the treatment of Indigenous communities is not something in which we should take pride in. The Indian Act of 1876 is an excellent model of how the behavior of racial and cultural superiority attributed to the destruction of Indigenous culture and beliefs. The Indian Act established by the Canadian government is a policy of Aboriginal assimilation which compels Indigenous parents under threat of prosecution to integrate their children into Residential Schools. As a nation, we are reminded by past actions that has prompted the weakening of the identity of Indigenous peoples. Residential schools has also contributed to the annihilation of Indigenous culture which was to kill the Indian in the child by isolating them from the influence of their parents and
The impact of colonization on First Nations peoples in Canada is unsurpassable, regarding every aspect of Aboriginal life and well-being. Throughout Canadian history, the government has been aiming to assimilate and annihilate Aboriginal people by way of racist policies, ethnocentric institutions, discriminatory laws and destructive capitalist behaviours. Because of this, Aboriginal people have suffered many losses, both physically and culturally. One of the main perpetrators of enacting this loss is the education system. The education system in Canada has and continues to threaten the relationship First Nations peoples have with the land. The connection First Nations peoples have with the land is crucial to their cultures, traditions, ceremonies and beliefs. Colonization and colonialism jeopardize this relationship and that is what this essay will address.
Aboriginal persons in Canada have been facing oppression ever since colonization began. Even when Canada gained independence from the British Empire, the oppression continued and still goes on today. One major contributing factor to the oppression of Aboriginal people in Canada is the actions taken by the Government. The Government of Canada has in fact mistreated and found to be partaking in wrongdoing when dealing with the Aboriginal population in this country. With this ugly truth being revealed, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had to be tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government in the hope of resolving conflict left over from the past. (cite)
From the first contact between Aboriginal Peoples and European immigrants to the present day, the aim of Canadian government policy has been to assimilate the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. The attempted forced abandonment of their culture was perpetrated through a variety of strategies including force, aggression and legalities. While historians and politicians may disagree about the motivations of Canadian policy, the impact has been irrefutable. In efforts to create one unified nation, successive governments failed to recognize their destructive actions. In this failure, Canada has come close to shattering the sub-nations and peoples who comprise them. This paper will review the government’s effort to absorb the Indigenous peoples’ culture, their refusal to assimilate, and will also identify potential strategies for future relations.
Discrimination of Aboriginal culture and way of life has also been a pressing issue during the years between 1945 and 2010. Canada, as nation that promotes equality, has done a terrible job demonstrating it. False stereotypes and perceptions of Native American people are very common in society today and back then. It is most common in the media because it is seen by almost everyone and has a considerable influence on peoples perspective on an idea, whether their aboriginal or not. Media reaches everywhere, from movies to the new and from advertisement to literature, it gets coverage. In the media aboriginals only ever get minor roles with a lack of identity in their characters, but when they are recognized, they are seen as
Canada is a nation of opportunity and freedom. People from all around the world immigrate to Canada to start a new life, to get away from war or poverty. Canada opens their arms to them and accepts them, and gives them money to get them started. But how about those who were here from the very beginning, before anyone else landed in Canada; the ones that are called First Nation people, or Aboriginals? What is the government doing for them? Why are First Nations people suffering the worst in Canada? “55.6% of the poor are aboriginals and a lot of them live in reserves around Canada that Canadian government have put them in. For those who leave the reserves to get a better living the suffer from racism from Canadian society” (“Aboriginal”).