Abstract This paper reports that 8.4 per cent of the total 661,730 population of Winnipeg is aboriginal, which is the second highest percentage of the 13 major Canadian cities. The author points out that the young age of the majority of the aboriginals in Winnipeg is very important because it can have a major impact on the need for more educational and welfare services. The paper stresses that the effects of poverty and housing issues may be a major cause of poor health among aboriginalpeople in Winnipeg. The author relates that the demographic profiles seem to indicate that social and economic disadvantages facing aboriginalpeople in Winnipeg have been limiting their educational achievements. The paper includes several quotations.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Aboriginal Population of Winnipeg
Income, Employment and Poverty
Housing Issues
Health Issues
Education Issues
Conclusion
From the Paper "The differences in incomes between aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people in Winnipeg can be partially explained by differences in employment and unemployment rates. The total employment rate for Winnipeg in 2001 was 64.8 per cent and the unemployment rate was 5.6 per cent. The employment rate for aboriginals in Winnipeg is only 55.1 per cent and the unemployment rate is 14.3 per cent. This would seem to indicate that the higher unemployment rate in the aboriginal population of Winnipeg is a major factor in the poverty of that population."
Abstract The paper examines the over-representation of Aboriginalpeople in Canadian correctional institutions. It outlines the statistics of those incarcerated compared to the non-Aboriginal population and explains the causes behind this, which include demographics, racism, discrimination and social issues. Sources include government commissions and reports covering primarily the Western Provinces.
From the Paper "This paper will briefly address the question as to why there is a disproportionate number of Aboriginal (native) people in Canadian institutions and demonstrate that multiple factors including population demographics, over-policing, and social conditions are partly to blame. For the purposes of this paper, the scope of Canadian institutions will be limited to jails and correctional institutions as opposed to hospitals or psychiatric institutions etc. The Problem Stated The evidence for the high proportion of aboriginals in jails and correctional institutions in Canada has been well researched and has been the subject of extensive public enquiries and commissions."
Abstract This paper discusses some of the issues that relate to the rights of aboriginalpeoples in Canada. The paper specifically focuses on achieving a deeper understanding of basic terms such as nation, property and people. The paper discusses the barriers between the aboriginalpeople and white Canadians that are caused by poor communication or differing understandings of terms.
From the Paper "In essence, terms as they are used by whites bear no comparison when they are used by natives. John Locke, for instance, exemplifies European ideas of property. He believed that property in its original form was the earth given by God to human beings. This appears similar to the view of Native peoples. People's reason enables them to make the best use of natural resources and ways of appropriating those resources. "Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men, yet every man has a Property in his own Person" (Locke, 2002, p. 60). As Locke viewed it, the concept of property actually began with the commons, or that which is owned by all individuals in common. All of this is very foreign to how Native peoples regard land and property. Indians do not even understand the idea of land tenure. In Indian culture, all material goods are held in common. There may be a commons but it is not owned in any sense."
Abstract This paper discusses the impact and consequences of the federal and provincial government policies on the Aboriginalpeople of Canada. The paper suggests that the impact and consequences of federal and provincial policies against Aboriginalpeoples have made their self-government and full sovereignty as a third partner in Canadian government the only viable means of retaining their identity and tribal cultural values.
From the Paper "The Aboriginal peoples of Canada have "a long history of the denial of self-government" (Cassidy 99). The Federal government abetted by the provincial governments with strong economic interests in appropriating and developing Indian lands are no longer viable systems of politics or the delivery of social services. Although Chris Anderson, himself an Aboriginal academic, cautions against the reliability of data from "such a blunt instrument like the census" (Anderson 2), if a national tribal council were called with the specific goal of beginning to formulate the framework of a sovereign Aboriginal nation, it is possible that a census of all Indians could be an effective part of that framework. To achieve sovereignty, the links with federalism and provincialism have to be broken; status labels have to be discarded. There are too many "policy formation mechanisms" (Cassidy 97) set up "to deal with the challenges presented by Aboriginal governments" [to provincial ones], but the challenges are presented to the Aboriginal peoples by the provincial and federal governments, not the other way around. The question is not why the Aboriginal people do not have the land, but why the Canadian government has it. Sovereignty is the unknown form but the only true answer."
Abstract This paper looks at how the AboriginalPeoples of Canada are portrayed in traditional and contemporary literature for children eight to ten years of age.
Abstract In this article, the writer explores the music of the Aboriginalpeople of Australia. The writer discusses that Aboriginal music has significant meaning and tells the story of a people throughout history. The writer demonstrates that Aboriginal music is extremely important to Aboriginal Australians regardless of which tribe they belong to. At times the music is sacred and at other times entertaining. The writer concludes that it is apparent that music serves as an anchor for the Aboriginalpeople by connecting them to their past while moving forward in the present.
Outline:
Introduction
History of Aboriginal Music
Musical Instruments
Summary
Works Cited
From the Paper "The authors further explain that clan songs are usually song openly for the purpose of entertainment alone. However cult songs are inclusive of songs for rain making, love magic and love stopping. The cult songs are meant for the purposes of either healing r harming. The authors assert that these songs are extremely powerful and only those individuals that have been initiated are allowed to sing them. In addition, individually owned songs were songs that were song by certain individuals and often were believed to possess more power when song by a particular individual.
"According to an internet article entitled "Australia Aboriginal Music", the music of aboriginal people is very much tied to their ancestors. To understand the music one must have some understanding of aboriginal beliefs."
Abstract This paper examines how Aboriginal art in Canada is often a subversive response to the colonial representations of Canada's First Peoples that produced, promoted and cemented stereotypes. It discusses how this "othering" of Aboriginalpeoples in Canada was a tool of nationalism just as much as postcolonial responses to 19th century representations were a tool of reclamation. It also looks at how Thomas King and other Aboriginal visual artists have used postcolonial responses in humorous Aboriginal art to take slices of history and place them in new and unexpected contexts to create new frontiers. The paper also shows how humour in Aboriginal visual art and literature often finds its base in the colonial past and its relationship to the postmodern present.
From the Paper "The "ethnographic photograph" is a theme that appears more than once in King's One Good Story, That One. In the title story, three anthropologists arrive, camera and tape recorders in hand, requesting stories. The narrator could be a tribal Elder; when Napiao arrives he gives the narrator tobacco, a traditional offering to Elders for their time and knowledge (SAHO 16). Evidently, the anthropologists are already familiar with the local customs; when the narrator "says to Napiao, Ka-sin-ta, in our language, and he laugh" (4), the anthropologists laugh also, although the purpose of the joke in this case, is to exclude the white anthropologists from the discourse. When Napiao finally urges the narrator to tell "old stories ... maybe how the world was put together" (5) the narrator starts with "Once upon a time. Those stories start like that, pretty much, those ones, start on time" (5). In terms of "writing back" to colonial discourse, this short introduction by the narrator is extremely problematic."
Abstract This paper presents a unit on Aboriginalpeoples of Canada for children 8-10 years old. It considers traditional tales of the Ojibway and also contemporary history books about the Ojibway for children. It examines these texts presentation of Ojibway culture and values.
Abstract This twelve page undergraduate paper examines how throughout Canadian history the traditional educational system for aboriginalpeople offered some basic benefits for their children as they sought to achieve an education that would prepare them for adulthood. The writer notes that the system like any educational system was not without its flaws mutual misunderstandings and divisive debates. The writer concludes that as policymakers have sought to improve First Nations education, a more modern educational system has evolved which is more responsive to the special circumstances of First Nations children.
From the Paper "Throughout Canadian history, the traditional educational system for aboriginal people offered some basic benefits for their children as they sought to achieve an education that would prepare them for adulthood, but the system, like any educational system, was not without its flaws, mutual misunderstandings, and divisive debates. As policymakers have sought to improve First Nations education, a more modern educational system has evolved which is more responsive to the special circumstances of First Nations children. But in the eyes of many First Nations people, modern education in Canada is still in need of further reform."
Abstract This paper discusses how indigenous people, particularly the Aboriginalpeople in Australia, were adversely affected by nation-building activities. The paper gives a short historical and social background of the indigenous people of Australia and explains how policies such as the Child Removal Policy and thy Aboriginal Protection Act 1869 were often traumatic for the Aboriginals and often resulted in adverse social outcomes. The paper also discusses what is done today for the cause of reconciliation with the Aboriginalpeople of Australia.
Outline:
Introduction
Historical and Social Background
Indigenous Australians and the Impact of British settlement (1788)
"Protection" and Segregation of AboriginalPeople in the 19th Century
Stolen Generation
Emergence of the Child Removal Policy and Policy in Practice
Consequences and Effects of the Aboriginal Protection Act 1869
Reparation
Public Awareness
Acknowledgement and Apology
Conclusion
References
From the Paper "Perhaps as no other time in history, people around the world are reexamining how their countries can into existence and what types of actions were taken to achieve nationhood. In many cases, these reexaminations of the past have required a stark analysis of how indigenous people were adversely affected by these nation-building activities and what can be done to day to make things right. This process has taken place around the world in places such as the United States in their efforts to resolve a collective national guilt over slavery and the Indian Removal Act, as well as in Canada for their treatment of indigenous people. Likewise, Australia is attempting to resolve its own collective national guilt over its notorious treatment of Aboriginal peoples throughout the country over the past 220 years, but not everyone is of a like mind concerning how best to resolve these longstanding issues."
Tags: indigenous people, aboriginals politics australia
Abstract This paper examines how, since the 1980s, the idea of Aboriginal sovereignty has been a subject of growing debate in Canada and how centrally at issue is the dispute over Aboriginal rights. It discusses how there is a contrast between traditional Aboriginal values and those of modern-day society and how within Canada there exists a prevailing tension between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals on many levels. It analyzes how the government is in need of serious revision and why some Canadians feel that the only solution to the crisis the Aboriginalpeoples presently find themselves in is some form of Aboriginal sovereignty. It shows how these Canadians believe that the best way to address the crisis is to have First Nations peoples control their own destiny through self-determination in order to confront current challenges successfully and ultimately lead to a greater state of well-being for its peoples.
From the Paper "In addition to the Indian Act, which was subsequently amended multiple times, other influential policy documents were developed including the Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy (1969), also known as the White Paper and Citizens Plus (1970) which "presents a counter-policy written by the Union of Alberta Indians, a treaty Indian group, in reaction to the federal document" (41) and called for Aboriginal self-determination. The White Paper's aim "was to outline a strategy that would integrate Indian peoples into mainstream society" (43). Conversely, "The guiding principles for economic development, proposed in Citizens Plus, suggest a reliance on a combination of government assistance and private enterprise [in order to] make reserve communities into centres of profitable and productive private industry" (49)."
Abstract The paper discusses how the official policy of the Canadian government regarding the Aboriginalpeoples became one of eradication through assimilation, mainly through the residential school system. The paper first reveals the shocking abuses to the Native children and the effects on the destruction of aboriginal culture and identity. The paper then explores whether Canada committed genocide and argues that Canada's policy clearly indicated a genocidal policy towards Aboriginalpeople. The paper concludes that the failed attempts to aggressively civilize the Aboriginalpeople of Canada left blood on Canadians' hands and generations of traumatized people stripped of their culture.
Outline:
Effects of the Residential School System
Genocide
From the Paper "The European relationship with the indigenous people of North America has existed uneasily since contact. From European dependence on Aboriginal knowledge; to mutually beneficial interdependence; to Aboriginal dependence on Europeans, the relationship has been one of utility and of dominance. Very early in the relationship Europeans began their attempt to turn Aboriginals into a simulacrum of themselves by educating Aboriginal children to become European; to "civilize" them. Aboriginal resistance precluded these attempts in the early years of European occupation, and the relationship became one of complex interdependence."
Abstract The paper reveals that aboriginalpeoples in the city in Canada live under terrible conditions. The paper focuses on the aboriginalpeople in Winnipeg and explains their condition with a discussion of stereotypes. The paper also looks at the sociological perspective of conflict theory that best explains the problems of aboriginalpeople. The paper concludes that they can only improve their own conditions if they have power.
From the Paper "Aboriginal peoples who live in the city in Canada live under the worst conditions. Compared with other Canadians, they have very low social and economic status. They also have very little education. However, all Aboriginal peoples are not the same. Depending on the city, they can be very different from Aboriginal groups in other cities. This paper is concerned with Aboriginal people in Winnipeg. For one thing, these people have a higher level of education, but the level of poverty also is still high. Even when Aboriginal people in the city should be in a good position, they are not. One very important explanation for the condition of Aboriginal people in Winnipeg is stereotypes. The sociological perspective that best explains the problems of Aboriginal people in Winnipeg and the rest of Canada is conflict theory."
Abstract This paper argues that the special rights that Aboriginals are granted in Canada violate Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states that all individuals are to be treated equally, regardless of their race or ethnic origin. The paper argues that Aboriginals are one group of peoples among many other minority groups that make up Canada. It questions, therefore, why Aboriginals should be given special grants and privileges above everyone else.
From the Paper "As well, in trying to establish successful colonies, the governments did impose assimilation on Aboriginals; however, Aboriginals were not the only ones subjected to assimilation. Indeed, assimilation and discrimination against certain ethnic groups and races is not a part of history that Canada is proud of, but at the same time it is not an aspect of history that applied only to Aboriginals. Blacks, Asians, eastern Europeans and Irish peoples are just a few of the many cultural groups that were subjected to discrimination upon their immigration to North America. Yet, it is only Aboriginals that are currently granted special rights and benefits in Canada."
Abstract This paper explains the complex interaction of the social determinants of health, which have resulted in the very poor health status of the aboriginal Canadian people. The author points out that the broadest issues, which impact on native communities, include little control by natives over their own economy, their ability for self-government and unfair decisions about use of resources. The paper relates that these issues are linked with the loss of native language and culture, especially because of the government's and religion's involvement in residential schools. The author underscores that homelessness for Native people is sometimes viewed as a problem that the poor bring upon themselves; however, the mainstream society forgets that native people have lost their resources. The paper concludes that native people are capable of solving their own problems as long as they are given some degree of support, autonomy and justice.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Practice Experience and Issue
The Root Issue Explaining Native Homelessness
Analysis of Practice and Community Connections
Conclusion
From the Paper "During the project, we learned that all the Native people on reserves live under conditions of poverty and despair. It is to escape those conditions that many Aboriginal women as well as young males leave reserves. Aboriginal homeless women are faced with racism and discrimination. Unlike other Canadian women, there are very few Native women who have an income; instead they exist on a welfare allowance which often does not meet basic needs. Because of the extent and complexity of the issues facing Native peoples, I learned that it is not possible to approach these issues without nursing theory and theoretical frameworks."
