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 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 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 explains how social determinants of health are linked and identifies the pathways by which they come to influence health. It focuses on Aboriginalpeople in Canada and how they are more affected by the social determinants of health than any other population in the country. It then discusses policy options to improve the quality of these social determinants of health. Finally, the paper discusses the barriers to implementation of the policy options.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Aboriginal Status
Income
Pathways
Social Exclusion
Gender
Policy Options for Improving Quality of Social Determinants of Health
Barriers to Implementation of Policy Options
Conclusion
From the Paper "First Nations people have been exploited and oppressed during their colonization. Their socioeconomic conditions are the worst in Canada and lead to poor health. Policy options to help these people have been devised but, for the most part, their implementation seems very unlikely. What is needed is a major ad radical change in government orientation away from the priorities of globalization. That pressure is based in transnational corporations. The future depends on how well the government can be pressured in the opposite direction."
Abstract The Assembly of First Nations represents aboriginalpeople across Canada. This report outlines their role and the best manner for them to fulfill it. It is based on Paul Pross' model of lobbyist and interest group behaviour in "Group Politics and Public Policy". It concludes that the AFN must foster its support in native communities and use this power to influence political and bureaucratic policy decisions.
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 The paper explores the situation which confronts aboriginals in Canada in the early years of the twenty-first century. Particularly, the paper provides a brief profile and/or portrait of Canadian aboriginals during the present age, as well as offering a critical assessment of Bone's aboriginal/non-aboriginal fault line. Moving forward, the paper also offers a critical commentary on aboriginal land claims and ponders their importance to the future status of aboriginalpeoples in Canada. The paper concludes that Canada's modest aboriginal population faces a number of challenges, but the land claims process may also provide it with a number of opportunities otherwise unavailable.
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 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 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 The paper discusses notions of equality as they relate to aboriginalpeoples in Canada. The paper examines a dominating group favored in distributive notions of equality and takes the approach of a corollary view, in the exploration of the disadvantaged Aboriginal population of Canada. The paper notes that "equality" itself has a complex range of meanings. The paper divides this discussion into two parts, dealing with values and potential equality in that realm, and further discussing asset equality, factoring in both goods and services. The paper deals initially with a values-based discussion and follows with an examination of asset equality.
From the Paper "Another acutely relevant area for aboriginals is equality within the realm of justice. In his theory of justice, Rawls discusses intrinsic worth: the denial that the loss of freedom for some can be made right by invoking the justification of a greater good. The Innu tradition of leaving the elderly behind with weapons to fend for themselves (when no longer able to maintain the pace of the family's hunting expeditions) would seem to be in direct contrast to that which Rawls considers intrinsic. In terms of Rawls' principles of justice, this would hardly be "to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged."
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.
An overview of the debate concerning aboriginal self-government in Canada, looking at the major issues in the debate as well as arguments on both sides of the debate.
1,125 words (approx. 4.5 pages), 5 sources, 2006, $ 44.95
Abstract There can be little question that Canada is a nation wherein group identities are a significant part of the political discourse. That is to say many of our contemporary issues revolve around group rights responsibilities and even privileges. With this in mind, this paper briefly explores the on going debate about aboriginal self-government in Canada.
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."
