First Nations

I am Magaskawee and am 13 years old. Just recently, the government has opened residential schools for the sake of “education.” Residential schools operate on a half-day system, in which we have to spend half the day in the actual classroom, and the other half at work. The theory behind this idea is we will acquire the vital and essential skills that are demanded to be able to earn a living as adults. We wake up to the deafening sound of the bell in the very early morning before sunrise, which…

Throughout Canada, there are different types of cultures that are interdependent within an entire society. Many cultures have different ways of thinking, and acting with the material objects that come together to form a person’s way of life. In the movie, Eskimo’s Way of Life, the audience is able to observe the physical environment the Inuit people reside in and how their surroundings shape their inclusive culture. Inuit communities are found in the northern parts of Canada where winters last…

effects on the Indigenous community. One of the initiatives of the IRSSA is the Common Experience Payment wherein survivors are given monetary compensation for the time they spent in Residential schools. An amount of $10,000 is given for their first year, then an additional $3,000 for every year after. In special circumstances, additional money is awarded to victims of severe physical and sexual abuse. This gives…

There is one new understanding covered in class that I struggle with the most. Listening to your personal survival story along with watching the movie We Were Children opened my eyes. Although residential schools were brought up in classes while I was high school we never went into any depth and were only given a general overview of how the schools were ran. My previous understanding of the events that took place in residential schools began and ended with children being forcibly removed from…

Statistics from the 2004 General Social Survey on Victimization show that 40% of Aboriginal[1] Canadians have been victims of criminal activities and/or hate crime. This number is almost twice the number of non-Aboriginal Canadians who were victims of crime. Indigenous women make up a high percentage of this number. As the class and power struggle between Indigenous[1] and non-indigenous Canadians intensifies, Indigenous women are burdened with both gender and race based abhorrence. There have…

Seeing where I was before this course and where I am now, I can see that there is a huge difference. When I opened my envelope, I found out that my Idea on what I knew about Indigenous people then and now are so different. In my envelope, I wrote that as an Immigrant who is knew to Canada, all I knew about Indigenous people was the Residential school and the Idea that they were the real owners of Canada. But after taking this course, I have come to realize a lot about the Indigenous peoples and…

European settlers claimed native land in Canada since the beginning of the eighteenth-century. However, in the mid-seventeenth century, the King George's Royal Proclamation of 1763 formed the Native land rights in Canada. The land non-granted to the Hudson's Bay Company or unoccupied by settlers became reserved for the indigenous people, according to the King's Proclamation. This unilateral declaration meant that settlers ask the king's permission to acquire native land. The goal was to protect…

Until the recent election campaign, many people had not known about missing Aboriginals. Although the Aboriginals are the first people in Canada’s history, little is taught about them in school. The lack of recognition is reflected in the way that Canadian media diminishes how Aboriginals are poorly treated. At the end of the walk, some Aboriginal women working with the exhibit…

My redesign of the Canadian Coat of Arms focuses on what makes Canada the beautiful land of freedom that is it. Firstly, I put the Canadian flag as the biggest flag on my design and on top of it the flags of the four territories of Canada. Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are the flags overtop of the Canadian flag. The idea of this flag is to show that Canada is multicultural and diverse so the best way I felt I could show that was by putting the world overtop of the Canadian flag.…

For this research paper I will look at the history of residential schools in Canada and how they affected aboriginal culture, individuals, and communities. A key component will be to assess the Canadian government’s reasons for cultural genocide and how the term genocide can be applied to this situation. This paper will assess how the government has tried to amend the treatment of aboriginals in these schools through a public apology and reimbursement programs, but also how the legacy of…