And written by academic too. How lame. Nothing specific of course, just stuff in the air.
Yes, many bad things have been done to aboriginals, but we can't change the past. Previously, aboriginals were excluded from society, now they are included. That's the only reconciliation that is going to happen over the long term. It'll cost billions, but that's what money is for.
Aboriginals live in Canada, so they're Canadians. That's the context for Canadian multiculturalism. Anything else and there is confusion, pain, and isolation. The govt gives some people a special deal, but the public does not because it demands equality, such things occur in a democracy. Tough, but fair.
Reconciliation must occur between aboriginal people and all other Canadians - thestar.com
Reconciliation must occur between aboriginal people and all other Canadians
June is National Aboriginal History Month and June 21 is National Aboriginal Day, and for the first time I’m celebrating as a “status Indian.”
A few weeks ago, I received my status card. I got home from work one day and there it was in the mail. It has my number on the Indian Register of Canada (yes, there is such a thing) and the name of my Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation in western Newfoundland.
It’s the end of a long struggle by the Qalipu. After decades of lobbying, internal disputes and waiting for the wheels of the federal government to turn, we finally have our recognition as aboriginal people, as “Indians,” the very heritage my ancestors spent decades trying to suppress because for them it was a source of shame.
Of course, it is no longer proper to use “Indian,” since Canada’s colonialist, racist and assimilationist past are packed into the word. “Aboriginal” or “indigenous” are preferred. Even the name of the federal department has been changed to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.
But the Indian Act still exists, as does much of the injustice that has faced our peoples over the centuries. All you have to do is read the newspaper to see that — the lack of safe drinking water in First Nations communities, unresolved land claims, inadequate housing, appalling rates of suicide and addiction.
But the conversation is starting to change. “Reconciliation” is in the air, due in part to the work of the commission set up to study and make recommendations regarding the issue of residential schools, a government system in which aboriginal children were kidnapped from their families and forced into church-run schools whose purpose was to destroy their cultural identity, often through violent means.
As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has observed, building a new relationship is not only the work of aboriginal people but of all Canadians. Until non-aboriginal Canadians are able to relate in a visceral and emotional way to the evil of residential schools, we cannot move on.
Inevitably, much of the work of reconciliation will have to be done in cities. First Nations people are increasingly living off-reserve — in fact, some figures estimate there are more off than on. Indeed, Toronto is one of the largest aboriginal communities in Canada — some estimates indicate the size at 60,000 people but even that may be low.
Cities are the site of conflict, misunderstanding and intense social needs and where the legacy of residential schools lives on in multiple generations of broken lives. But they are also the sites of possibility in a new era of reconciliation.
Until now, cities have been but an afterthought in aboriginal policy-making, in part because Canada’s indigenous people are constitutionally a federal responsibility while cities are a creature of the provinces. But the challenge for the future will be to visualize what reconciliation would look like in an urban context.
Certainly, we aboriginals would be a more visible part of the community. Despite our numbers, we are not part of the Toronto mainstream. Our presence is felt by our social needs rather than the contributions we can make to all the people of Toronto, not only to a better understanding of the past but also in how to live in the present. The circle, at the core of aboriginal spirituality, offers a powerful model for the conduct of urban affairs.
But before we can make our contribution on the city level, there is some internal work that we urban aboriginals have to do, particularly those of us in the large and growing aboriginal middle class. As the Toronto Aboriginal Research Project (TARP) reported last year, we are “individuals who have attained economic success, high levels of education . . . and participate in all the amenities that a large cosmopolitan city has to offer.”
Many of us are part of a “new wave” of urban aboriginals who have come to our identity part way through life as the result of legal changes and the rise of Métis consciousness. Like many in my situation, I feel a sense of loss as well as pride at this profound personal moment. Racism robbed me from knowing who I really was until I had lived half my life. We try to change into our new selves by helping change the aboriginal reality around us.
Unfortunately, relations between the various segments of the urban aboriginal community are strained. The lack of organizations serving the “cultural, social and recreational needs of middle-class individuals coupled with the divisiveness within the aboriginal community has led to a real danger that economically successful people will leave the aboriginal community,” the TARP report stated.
Internal squabbling over authenticity should be seen as another unfortunate consequence of a history of assimilationist government policy. We have maintained our aboriginal identity, though some of us took longer to learn who we really are. Our cultural survival should be a cause of celebration.
The reconciliation project has work for many hands. Let’s tackle it together.
Glenn Wheeler is a Toronto lawyer and a June Callwood Fellow in Aboriginal Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2012-13.
Yes, many bad things have been done to aboriginals, but we can't change the past. Previously, aboriginals were excluded from society, now they are included. That's the only reconciliation that is going to happen over the long term. It'll cost billions, but that's what money is for.
Aboriginals live in Canada, so they're Canadians. That's the context for Canadian multiculturalism. Anything else and there is confusion, pain, and isolation. The govt gives some people a special deal, but the public does not because it demands equality, such things occur in a democracy. Tough, but fair.
Reconciliation must occur between aboriginal people and all other Canadians - thestar.com
Reconciliation must occur between aboriginal people and all other Canadians
June is National Aboriginal History Month and June 21 is National Aboriginal Day, and for the first time I’m celebrating as a “status Indian.”
A few weeks ago, I received my status card. I got home from work one day and there it was in the mail. It has my number on the Indian Register of Canada (yes, there is such a thing) and the name of my Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation in western Newfoundland.
It’s the end of a long struggle by the Qalipu. After decades of lobbying, internal disputes and waiting for the wheels of the federal government to turn, we finally have our recognition as aboriginal people, as “Indians,” the very heritage my ancestors spent decades trying to suppress because for them it was a source of shame.
Of course, it is no longer proper to use “Indian,” since Canada’s colonialist, racist and assimilationist past are packed into the word. “Aboriginal” or “indigenous” are preferred. Even the name of the federal department has been changed to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.
But the Indian Act still exists, as does much of the injustice that has faced our peoples over the centuries. All you have to do is read the newspaper to see that — the lack of safe drinking water in First Nations communities, unresolved land claims, inadequate housing, appalling rates of suicide and addiction.
But the conversation is starting to change. “Reconciliation” is in the air, due in part to the work of the commission set up to study and make recommendations regarding the issue of residential schools, a government system in which aboriginal children were kidnapped from their families and forced into church-run schools whose purpose was to destroy their cultural identity, often through violent means.
As the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has observed, building a new relationship is not only the work of aboriginal people but of all Canadians. Until non-aboriginal Canadians are able to relate in a visceral and emotional way to the evil of residential schools, we cannot move on.
Inevitably, much of the work of reconciliation will have to be done in cities. First Nations people are increasingly living off-reserve — in fact, some figures estimate there are more off than on. Indeed, Toronto is one of the largest aboriginal communities in Canada — some estimates indicate the size at 60,000 people but even that may be low.
Cities are the site of conflict, misunderstanding and intense social needs and where the legacy of residential schools lives on in multiple generations of broken lives. But they are also the sites of possibility in a new era of reconciliation.
Until now, cities have been but an afterthought in aboriginal policy-making, in part because Canada’s indigenous people are constitutionally a federal responsibility while cities are a creature of the provinces. But the challenge for the future will be to visualize what reconciliation would look like in an urban context.
Certainly, we aboriginals would be a more visible part of the community. Despite our numbers, we are not part of the Toronto mainstream. Our presence is felt by our social needs rather than the contributions we can make to all the people of Toronto, not only to a better understanding of the past but also in how to live in the present. The circle, at the core of aboriginal spirituality, offers a powerful model for the conduct of urban affairs.
But before we can make our contribution on the city level, there is some internal work that we urban aboriginals have to do, particularly those of us in the large and growing aboriginal middle class. As the Toronto Aboriginal Research Project (TARP) reported last year, we are “individuals who have attained economic success, high levels of education . . . and participate in all the amenities that a large cosmopolitan city has to offer.”
Many of us are part of a “new wave” of urban aboriginals who have come to our identity part way through life as the result of legal changes and the rise of Métis consciousness. Like many in my situation, I feel a sense of loss as well as pride at this profound personal moment. Racism robbed me from knowing who I really was until I had lived half my life. We try to change into our new selves by helping change the aboriginal reality around us.
Unfortunately, relations between the various segments of the urban aboriginal community are strained. The lack of organizations serving the “cultural, social and recreational needs of middle-class individuals coupled with the divisiveness within the aboriginal community has led to a real danger that economically successful people will leave the aboriginal community,” the TARP report stated.
Internal squabbling over authenticity should be seen as another unfortunate consequence of a history of assimilationist government policy. We have maintained our aboriginal identity, though some of us took longer to learn who we really are. Our cultural survival should be a cause of celebration.
The reconciliation project has work for many hands. Let’s tackle it together.
Glenn Wheeler is a Toronto lawyer and a June Callwood Fellow in Aboriginal Law at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2012-13.
