I wanted to share a documentary I watched about the Oka crisis.

This documentary short by Alanis Obomsawin tells the story of Kahentiiosta, a young Kahnawake Mohawk woman arrested after the Oka Crisis’ 78-day armed standoff in 1990. She was detained 4 days longer than the other women. Her crime? The prosecutor representing the Quebec government did not accept her aboriginal name.

The documentary is available to watch on Netflix or it can be viewed online here: http://www.nfb.ca/film/my_name_is_kahentiiosta

About the Oka Crisis

The Oka Crisis was a land dispute between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka, Quebec, Canada which began on July 11, 1990 and lasted until September 26, 1990. One person died as a result. The dispute was the first well-publicized violent conflict between First Nations and the Canadian government in the late 20th century.

The crisis developed from a local dispute between the town of Oka and the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. The town of Oka was developing plans to expand a golf course and residential development onto land that had traditionally been used by the Mohawk. It included pineland and a burial ground, marked by standing tombstones of their ancestors. The Mohawks had filed a land claim for the sacred grove and burial ground near Kanesatake, but their claim had been rejected in 1986.

HISTORY BEHIND THE LAND DISPUTE

In 1868, one year after Confederation, the chief of the Oka Mohawk people, Joseph Onasakenrat, wrote a letter to the seminary condemning it for illegally holding the land and demanding its return. The petition produced no results for the Mohawks. In 1869 Onasakenrat attacked the seminary with a small armed force, after giving the missionaries eight days to hand over the land. Local authorities ended this stand-off with force.

In 1936, the seminary sold the remaining territory for development and vacated the area, under protest by the local Mohawk community. At the time they still kept cattle on the common land.

In 1961, the city built a private nine-hole golf course, the Club de golf d’Oka, on a portion of the land. The Mohawk filed suit against its construction but, by the time the case was heard, much of the land had already been cleared. Construction also began on a parking lot and golf greens adjacent to the Mohawk cemetery.

In 1977, the band filed an official land claim with the federal Office of Native Claims regarding the land. The claim was accepted for filing, and funds were provided for additional research of the claim. Nine years later, the claim was rejected, on the grounds of failing to meet key legal criteria.

In March 1989, the Club de golf d’Oka announced plans to expand the golf course by an additional 9 holes. Protests by Mohawks and others, as well as concern from the Quebec Minister of the Environment, led to negotiations and a postponement of the project by the municipality in August.

References:

Obomsawin, A. (Director). (1995). My name is Kahentiiosta [Documentary]. Canada: National Film Board of Canada.

Wikipedia. Retrieved October 31, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis

Something that resonated with me in the past weeks activities was the story in Nancy Turner’s video about the Grouse. It got me thinking about the importance of storytelling and the protocols in aboriginal communities.

The oral traditions and storytelling culture are still central to aboriginal personal and community identity, and provide major means of remembering and conveying personal and community experience with university researchers. These stories describe stark accounts of betrayal and upset, as well as descriptions of positive experiences. They provide dramatic reminders to researchers of the importance of respectful and collaborative relationships with traditional community leaders and their members.

Given the history of education and research in aboriginal communities, trust is critical in engaging native people in partnerships for education and research. I read a very good article outlying the very importance of story telling and how negative experiences can effect First Nations attitudes toward researchers and education in general for generations. The Article gives examples of negative experiences and suggests that negative stories contribute to a lack of trust and motivation for educational research. Aboriginal people in Canada are still underrepresented in terms of their participation in post-secondary education, and as researchers of their own people. They are overrepresented in terms of poverty, and incidence of certain diseases such as type 2 diabetes, AIDs, and tuberculosis. They are disproportionately overrepresented in prison populations and, in the Western provinces in Canada, are the largest growing demographic group. The importance of good stories of research-community experiences should not be ignored.

Source:

The Importance of Story-Telling: Research Protocols in Aboriginal Communities

Deborah C. Poff

Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics: An International Journal
Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 2006), pp. 27-28

Published by: University of California Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jer.2006.1.3.27

I wanted to share the whole article since I had to access it through the EZproxy login it will be difficult to provide a working link. The Tobique First Nation took an interesting step in honouring the Tobique survivors of the residential school system. They made and unveiled an 8 foot tall public monument to commemorate the perilous journey of abduction, bondage and abandonment encountered by every student.

The article is below:

“So hear me brothers and sister, be not afraid to speak. They tried to keep us silent, they thought that we were weak.”

A 2003 poem composed by the late Wendell Perley is engraved in the back the of the new Tobique First Nation monument unveiled Saturday, honouring the Tobique survivors of the residential school system.

The notorious residential school system was set up to take First Nations children far away from their homes and force them to give up their language and culture.

On Saturday Tobique First Nation residents and their guests unveiled a monument to honour those who suffered and endured abuse at the residential schools. The new eight-foot high monument is located on the school grounds.

Residential school survivor and Tobique Coun. Wayne Nicholas told the crowd that the resilient Atlantic Salmon was a suitable symbol for the new monument.

“This monument commemorates the perilous journey of abduction, bondage and abandonment encountered by every student,” he said. “Our relatives, the Atlantic salmon, are an appropriate symbol of Indian residential schools.”

He said salmon encounter many dangers when they are young and finally make the difficult journey home.

Wendall Nicholas was MC for the event that took place in a large tent set up between the Health Centre and Mah-Sos School.

Tobique Elder Edward Perley spoke a prayer in Maliseet to open the ceremony as people sat at tables. As the speakers addressed the audience, volunteer servers brought dinner from the nearby school cafeteria.

Laurie Nicholas sang the opening song and Tobique First Nation Chief Brenda Perley welcomed everyone to the solemn ceremony of dedication.

“As community leaders we were humbled and honoured when we learned of your experiences at the Shubenacadie Residential School,” she said. “We truly respect your strength and determination to make Negootkuk strong.”

She paid tribute to the late Wendell Perley, a Tobique Elder who died last summer. He had made great efforts to work with residential school survivors who, like himself, had seen the experience damage his life and relationships.

The chief then asked the 15 or so survivors to stand so that she and band council members could go and embrace them.

Other guest speakers were MP Mike Allen, MLA Wes McLean, Barb Martin of the Mi’kmaq Maliseet Healing Centre, Health Centre director Roxanne Sappier, William Nevin, Chief of the White Eagle Sundance, (New Brunswick), Mike Torch, a survivor clinician, and a Shubenacadie survivor Wayne Nicholas.

“One can only imagine the strength of character for the survivors to go through what they did and come back and continue to tell their stories,” said Allen.

“The monument to be unveiled will be a testament to what happened during a sad and tragic chapter in our history,” said McLean. “We can learn the lessons of history to make sure that such a thing never happens again.”

Martin, who has been working on a project for several years to help the survivors, said that she had recently attended two similar ceremonies on June 11 and June 21.

Speaking to the survivors, she said: “It’s hard to be honoured, right? But we need to honour you; we need to say thank you for surviving and thank you for being here with us today. As part of your healing, we’re healing ourselves.”

She went on to say that Wendell Perley, as well as his family, had been important as things led up to the July 13 ceremony. His mother, Henrietta, had supported him, as did his brothers Gib, Leon, and Bernie. Bernie had been the main designer of the monument about to be unveiled. Martin also gave kudos to Gary Sappier, Allan Tremblay and the company Outreach Productions, which made a DVD about the residential schools.

Roxanne Sappier said she had spent a lot of time thinking about what the residential school survivors endured.

“Many of you are husbands, wives, grandmothers, grandfathers, mums and dads, but look how far you have come,” she said. “The resilience that you all possess and the hope and love that you give to us all – you’ve paved the way for our healing and wellness for our families and our community.”

William Nevin, Chief of the White Eagle Sundance, spoke of the “collateral damage” residential schools wrought.

“On Wednesday, I took a day off and I went to the residential school site,” he said. “I took pictures and picked up some earth and asked it to give back the spirit of our old ways.”

He said that the schools had taken away the ability of parents to hug their children and tell them they loved them because they were not there.

“That is collateral damage,” Nevin said. “I took the bowl of earth to the Sundancers and had them pray on i t… I brought the residential school to you – that earth. Your missing childhood and adulthood, I give it back to you.”

He asked survivor and Coun. Vaughn Nicholas to come up and receive some of that earth, along with other survivors.

Source:

LaFrance, R. (2013, Jul 17). Residential school survivors honoured12. The Victoria Star. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/docview/1400382536?accountid=14656

The Common Experience Payment (CEP) is one element of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The court-approved Settlement Agreement was implemented on September 19, 2007, and was negotiated by representatives from various Aboriginal organizations, church entities, legal representatives for former students, and the Government of Canada. The CEP is paid to eligible former students who resided at a listed Indian Residential School. Eligible former students receive $10,000 for their first year (or part thereof) of their attendance at a listed Indian Residential School plus $3,000 for each additional year (or part thereof).

There are survivors who were able to take advantage of this settlement. However, I am left to wonder what was the aim or purpose of remunerating survivors with cash? It seems like a blanket fix for the government to provide compensation for something they finally admit was wrong. According to the Settlement Agreement, Canada is the trustee for the $1.9 billion set aside for the CEP and accountable to the parties of the Settlement Agreement and to the courts. It is up to the survivors to come forward and provide proof in order to be approved. How much of this money is being spent on courts and administration where it could have been better spent? Why couldn’t specific First Nations be the trustees of the money for their own people? The settlement is definitely a step forward when compared to previous actions but is it the right direction?

Affairs and Northern Development Canada. (n.d.). Common Experience Payments. Affaires autochtones et Développement du Nord Canada / Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. Retrieved October 14, 2013, from http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100015594/1100100015595

Below is the abstract from a Journal Article written in 2012.

Building on a cultural studies framework, this article addresses the implementation of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement by cataloguing specific reconciliatory events, public forums, and media coverage that occurred in 2010. Revealing the contradictory nature of Canada’s reconciliation project, the author situates the IRSSA within a larger infrastructure of policies and procedures that have limited Indigenous nationhood and autonomy in the Canadian settler society. Specifically, this article identifies a need to trouble categories of trauma and victimhood that may engender outcomes of cure , which ultimately constitute a foreclosure on the past in Canada’s reconciliation process. While therapeutic language is less apparent in the IRSSA, the author suggests, it is still deployed under the guise of closure and “settlement.”

The article demonstrates that the implementation of the IRSSA has generated inequitable access to compensation and health supports (and, ultimately, health outcomes) as a result of the omission of particular schools from the official list. The author suggestes that the reconciliation process in Canada warrants further decolonization, since First Nations, Inuit, and Métis control over service provision has receded (thus minimizing the diversity of approaches to healing) with the closure of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. The IRSSA’s focus on individualized trauma experiences undermines efforts to decolonize political, legal, and educational institutions and disavows any discussion surrounding restitution. Left unacknowledged, these elisions may ultimately compromise the efficacy of the IRSSA and of the reconciliation process writ large.

Green, R.(2012). Unsettling Cures: Exploring the Limits of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. Canadian Journal of Law and Society 27(1), 129-148. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved October 14, 2013, from Project MUSE database.

I found an interesting article regarding attendants of Indian day schools. The day schools were different from the residential schools in that students returned home at the end of the school day. At residential schools, students were kept in residence, away from family. However, like residential schools, the day schools were funded by the federal or provincial governments and run by the churches. In many cases the abuses were the same if not worse, and the only difference was that in some cases, the children got to go home at end of day. Many went home hurt and ashamed of being aboriginal.

The article says that a class action lawsuit will be filed in federal court sometime this month by BC day scholars.

The article can be read here: http://globalnews.ca/news/883196/day-students-seek-class-action-for-suffering-at-b-c-residential-schools/

Source:

The Canadian Press. “Day students seek class action for suffering at B.C. residential schools | Globalnews.ca.” Global News | Latest & Current News – Weather, Sports & Health News. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2013. <http://globalnews.ca/news/883196/day-students-seek-class-action-for-suffering-at-b-c-residential-schools/>.

Historically, the fate of American Indians has been in the hands of others: politicians, the military, and varying justice jurisdictions at the federal, state, and local levels. Simultaneously, Native Peoples’ success was dependent upon functioning in a European-based sociocultural environment that was diametrically opposed to their own social and cultural foundations. The entry reviews the experience of the Native Peoples and the adaptations they have had to make in order to survive. It also examines their perception of and relationship to the U.S. criminal justice system.

It examines the history in four main categories:

• First Contact and Conflict
• Paternalism and Dependence
• Allotment and Assimilation
• Indian Rights and Movement toward Self-Determination

There is a good statement made in regards to something referred as “discovery doctrine”: The idea of Europeans justifying their dispossession and domination of Native Peoples. This doctrine was the guiding practice of dominant culture with Native Peoples and took the form of institutionalized superiority of Europeans over Native Peoples.

The entry focuses on the United states but much of the article could be applied to Canada and its relations with First Nations people. For over 200 years, the government has attempted to destroy Native societies and their justice systems. Ironically, Native methods of resolving conflict are now of interest to members of the dominant culture who want to update their courts by integrating the concept of restorative justice into their own legal system.

I find it hopeful and interesting that there can be a class such as this one today that attempts to study reflect and learn from Aboriginal culture and ideas. Some people I know feel it is “too little, too late” to make a change but I don’t think it is ever too late to change the opinions and attitudes toward Aboriginal culture.

Source:

Love, S. (2009). Native Americans: Culture, identity, and the criminal justice system. In H. Greene, & S. Gabbidon (Eds.), Encyclopedia of race and crime. (pp. 586-590). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412971928.n236

There are much higher than average rates of suicide among Canadian Aboriginals. It is sad to hear the statistics behind the research but in my experience it has been an unfortunate reality. I wanted to share an excerpt from The Aboriginal Healing Foundation on how Media can possibly influence suicide rates. As a product of the 90’s I often reflect back to when Kurt Cobain committed suicide and how it influenced so many youth at that time. I think it is important for the media to broadcast less on suicide itself and more on prevention and intervention.

Mass Media Mass media— in the form of television, Internet, magazines, and music— play an important role in the lives of most contemporary young people. Mass media may influence the rate and pattern of suicide in the general population (Pirkis and Blood, 2001; Stack, 2003; 2005). The media representation of suicides may contribute to suicide clusters. Suicide commands public and government attention and is often perceived as a powerful issue to use in political debates. This focus, however, can inadvertently legitimize suicide as a form of political protest and thus increase its prevalence. Research has shown that reports on youth suicide in newspapers or entertainment media have been associated with increased levels of suicidal behaviour among exposed persons (Phillips and Cartensen, 1986; Phillips, Lesyna, and Paight, 1992; Pirkis and Blood, 2001). The intensity of this effect may depend on how strongly vulnerable individuals identify with the suicides portrayed.

There are prevailing attitudes in some segments of society that romanticize suicide as an expression of alienation, social protest, or heartbreak. Mass media sometimes make suicide the topic of sensationalized accounts. For some, Aboriginal suicide has come to represent resistance to the effects of cultural suppression and marginalization, which may inadvertently give it heroic meaning for some youth. Suicide prevention requires strengthening individual and community attitudes that reject suicide as a viable option. Effective problem-solving, community involvement, political activism, and other forms of active engagement in protest and change, all present alternatives to self-destructive despair and powerlessness. In the hands of Aboriginal youth themselves, the media can become tools of empowerment and social change. Copyright © 2007. Aboriginal Healing Foundation. All rights reserved.

Source:

Kirmayer, Laurence J.; Brass, Gregory M.; Holton, Tara. Suicide Among Aboriginal People in Canada.  Ottawa, ON, Canada: Aboriginal Healing Foundation, 2007. p 92-93. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/Doc?id=10213044&ppg=112

I had to share this blog post from the the Canadian Education Association (CEA) web site written by James Wilson. It addresses the issues of inequitable student funding for First Nations Communities.  Something that people in Canada don’t realize is that First Nation communities have been dealing with the issue of less funding per student when providing education services in their communities. The article is short and to the point so I wont bother to paraphrase or summarize but the fact is that the Federal Government has yet to live up to the promise of providing First Nations children with the same quality and support for education that we expect in all public schools.

“Three simple pages say it all!  That’s the length, in its entirety, of the sections in the Indian Act that govern education on reserves for First Nations. Contrast this to the over 150 pages of the provincially-controlled Public Schools Act and Education Administration Act in Manitoba. From this perspective alone, is it any wonder that the most pressing social crisis facing our nation today is the inequitable state of education between students in our First Nations communities and those in mainstream Canada?

Where the Indian Act is silent, the Public Schools Act legislates critical issues such as minimum teaching days, board governance, and teacher certification. It also holds government accountable and gives parents guaranteed rights.  Even in its limited capacity, there are no such mechanisms in place for First Nations parents, thus rendering the Indian Act all but irrelevant.

Compounding this problem is a lack of adequate funding for on-reserve schools that receive between $2,000 and $3,000 LESS per student than their provincial counterparts. In some cases, schools in remote communities suffer with $9,000 less per student.  The fall-out includes:

• Higher pupil-teacher ratios;

• Lower pay and less benefits for teachers;

• Limited ability to keep up with curricular advances;

• Lack of ICT advances, and;

• Overcrowded schools.”

The entire article can be read at the link below:

http://www.cea-ace.ca/blog/james-wilson/2011/12/4/indian-act-three-simples-pages-say-it-all