Weaving Knowledge Systems Resource Materials

This study employed a critical narrative approach to examine the experience of Aboriginal Veterans in Canada adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop. The objectives of this study was to: 1) understand lived experiences of Aboriginal veterans adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop, 2) investigate health needs articulated by this population, and 3) provide suggestions for the creation of health services to aid Aboriginal veterans adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop with their health needs. Individual interviews were audio-recorded and conducted with eight participants from across Canada. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the holistic-content model (Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach & Zilber, 1998). Data analysis of the interviews uncovered three overarching themes: a) sense of belonging, b) racism: experienced and perceived, and c) resilience: not giving up in the face of adversity. Two main health needs conveyed by the participants included mental health care and support to fight substance abuse. More awareness regarding the historical realities experienced by this population and the impact this may have on their overall health is needed. Increased coordination between Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), Royal Canadian Legion (RCL), National Aboriginal Veterans Association (NAVA), Aboriginal Veteran Autochthones (AVA), and Aboriginal agencies is needed to address the mental health needs experienced by this group of veterans. [From Author]

An edited volume. It comprises selections from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation’s Truth and Reconciliation Series: Vol. 1 From Truth to Reconciliation; Vol 2. Response, Responsibility, and Renewal; and Vol 3. Cultivating Canada.

This paper examines issues concerning First Nations peoples and the child welfare system, and their implications for social work today. It explores the Sixties Scoop to illustrate the devastating impact such policies and practices had on Aboriginal children, families and communities. Cultural genocide is part of this legacy. To deliver more culturally appropriate services, awareness about and acknowledgement of these mistakes can assist social workers to incorporate a social justice perspective into their practice with Aboriginal clients. As well, implications for social work education regarding professional training, curriculum content and course delivery by Aboriginal faculty members are highlighted. [From Author]

In Keetsahnak / Our Murdered and Missing Indigenous Sisters, the tension between personal, political, and public action is brought home starkly as the contributors look at the roots of violence and how it diminishes life for all. Together, they create a model for anti-violence work from an Indigenous perspective. They acknowledge the destruction wrought by colonial violence, and also look at controversial topics such as lateral violence, challenges in working with “tradition,” and problematic notions involved in “helping.” Through stories of resilience, resistance, and activism, the editors give voice to powerful personal testimony and allow for the creation of knowledge. It's in all of our best interests to take on gender violence as a core resurgence project, a core decolonization project, a core of Indigenous nation building, and as the backbone of any Indigenous mobilization. —Leanne Betasamosake Simpson Contributors: Kim Anderson, Stella August, Tracy Bear, Christi Belcourt, Robyn Bourgeois, Rita Bouvier, Maria Campbell, Maya Ode'amik Chacaby, Downtown Eastside Power of Women Group, Susan Gingell, Michelle Good, Laura Harjo, Sarah Hunt, Robert Alexander Innes, Beverly Jacobs, Tanya Kappo, Tara Kappo, Lyla Kinoshameg, Helen Knott, Sandra Lamouche, Jo-Anne Lawless, Debra Leo, Kelsey T. Leonard, Ann-Marie Livingston, Brenda Macdougall, Sylvia Maracle, Jenell Navarro, Darlene R. Okemaysim-Sicotte, Pahan Pte San Win, Ramona Reece, Kimberly Robertson, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Beatrice Starr, Madeleine Kétéskwew Dion Stout, Waaseyaa'sin Christine Sy, Alex Wilson. [From Publisher]

In this video, we hear from Lorna Andrews, Teaching and Learning Indigenization Specialist, Amanda James, UFV student of Indigenous Studies and Philippa Chapman, UFV Student and club member of Students for Indigenization.

This video is a reflection on the impact that residential schools had on local Sto:lo people. Learn about the role of reconciliation, the lasting impressions of intergenerational trauma, and discover how to become an ally to indigenous people within the UFV community. [From YouTube]

Welcome to GarnetsJourney.com, where you will meet Garnet Angeconeb – an Indigenous man who has survived a long journey – from the trap line, to residential school, to the city – all in his lifetime. On this site, Garnet will tell you stories from his life, in his own voice, in about 30 brief videos, plus one 21-minute biography. It’s like reading a book, except in this case the author is speaking to you. This website was created in 2012, so you will notice some differences between then and now – such as terms, names of organizations, policies, and current affairs. The power of Garnet’s story remains the same, and is as important today as it was then. [From Website]

The report that instigated the Indian Residential School system.

Selected times and events important to the history of Aboriginal People in BC from Contact to Confederation.

The health and wellness of Indigenous peoples continue to be impacted by the harmful colonization practices enforced by the Government of Canada. While the long-term health impacts of the Indian Residential School (IRS) system are documented, empirical evidence elucidating the relationship between the IRSs and the risk of offspring experiencing other collective childhood traumas, such as the Sixties Scoop (1950-1990) and the inequities within the child welfare system (CWS), is needed. Through an online study, we explored the links between familial (parents/grandparents) IRS attendance and subsequent involvement in the CWS in a non-representative sample of Indigenous adults in Canada born during the Sixties Scoop era. The final sample comprised 433 adults who self-identified as Status First Nation (52.2%), non-Status First Nation (23.6%), and Métis (24.2%). The study found that adults with a parent who attended IRS were more likely to have spent time in foster care or in a group home during the Sixties Scoop era. They were also more likely to have grown up in a household in which someone used alcohol or other drugs, had a mental illness or a previous suicide attempt, had spent time in prison, had lower mean levels of general household stability, and tended to have lower household economic stability. Moreover, the relationship between parental IRS attendance and foster care was explained, in part (i.e., mediated) by a higher childhood household adversity score. These findings highlight that the intergenerational cycles of household risk introduced by the IRS system contribute to the cycles of childhood adversity and increased risk of spending time within the CWS in Canada. This is the first study among Indigenous adults from across Canada to demonstrate quantitatively that being affected by the CWS during the Sixties Scoop era is linked to intergenerational cycles of risk associated with the IRS system. [From Author]

Selected times and events important to the history of Aboriginal People in BC from Contact to Confederation. [From Website]

Dr. Bryce reports on the deplorable health condition of the "Indians from 1904 to 1921"; the 'cover-up' and his subsequent removal from office.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission spoke to thousands of survivors and found that what took place in residential schools in Canada amounted cultural genocide of Indigenous Peoples. So what changes have been made since then? [From YouTube]

Canadians are increasingly aware of the tragic story of Indian residential schools; and the contemporary tragedy of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls shows the ongoing vulnerability of Indigenous youth. But the story of Stó:lō First Nation "boys who were stolen away by… vicious white men" during the 1858 gold rush along British Columbia's Fraser River has been lost. These boys were kidnapped by American miners and taken to California. The vast majority "were never heard from" again, although at least two miraculously found their way home forty years later; and one ten-year-old boy lies buried in an unmarked grave in his kidnapper’s family plot in Sacramento’s pioneer cemetery. Families were devastated. One Stó:lō father "searched the woods for days… [and then] died of grief." [From Website]

The story of the Métis and residential schools is not new; it is, though, a story that has been underemphasized for a long time in the realms of both residential school and Métis history. Throughout the twentieth century, the collective lives of the Métis have often been disconnected from other dominant community structures in Canada. The policies that were created for the Métis and residential schools acutely reflected how administrators felt about where they thought the Métis’ station in society should be. The Métis, in the eyes of the administration, were either to be considered Indians or assimilated as non-Aboriginal Canadians. Any future the Métis had as a nation was not given consideration by the dominant EuroCanadian society at that time. [From Author]

"The policy rests upon the fundamental right of Indian people to full and equal participation in the cultural, social, economic and political life of Canada." [From Author] An attempt to repeal the Indian Act and eliminate Indian Status.

This anniversary arrives at a critical moment: Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and other Indigenous peoples are challenging dispossession and environmental racism; the Black Lives Matter movement is demanding foundational change; Japanese Canadians are seeking BC restitution for the attempted ethnic cleansing of the province; and the fight against racisms associated with COVID-19 is broadening in response to systemic racism. 150 Years and Counting (150YC) is a new open-access, multi-media resource that documents how this recent cycle of anti-racist activism is part of a broader history of Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities challenging white supremacy for over 150 years – particularly since 1871 when BC joined Canada. Co-authored by activists & scholars from diverse communities, this resource will assist anti-racist educators, teachers, scholars, and policymakers in piercing the silences that too often have let racism fester in communities, corporations, and governments. 150YC is co-produced by the UVIC History project Asian Canadians on Vancouver Island: Race, Indigeneity and the Transpacific and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – BC Office. [From Website]

Bones of Crows is a psychological drama told through the eyes of Cree Matriarch Aline Spears, as she survives Canada's residential school system to continue her family's generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. Bones of Crows unfolds over one hundred years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future. [From Publisher]

Unfolding over 100 years, Bones of Crows is a story of resilience told through the eyes of Cree Matriarch Aline Spears as she survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic abuse. [From Website]

Presented by the SFU Woodward's Cultural Unit and the Vancity Office of Community Engagement

Glen Coulthard is an assistant professor in the First Nations Studies Program and the Department of Political Science at UBC. Coulthard has written and published numerous articles and chapters in the areas of contemporary political theory, indigenous thought and politics, and radical social and political thought (marxism, anarchism, post-colonialism). His most recent work on Frantz Fanon and the politics of recognition won the Contemporary Political Theory Annual Award for Best Article of the Year in 2007. He is Yellowknife's Dene First Nations. [From YouTube]

This consolidation contains the text of the Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly the British North America Act, 1867), together with amendments made to it since its enactment, and the text of the Constitution Act, 1982, as amended since its enactment. The Constitution Act, 1982 contains the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other provisions, including the procedure for amending the Constitution of Canada. [From Author]

This powerful animated film tells the story of Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Ojibwa boy who died of exposure in 1966 while running away from Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario. The story is told through music by Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie and illustrations by graphic novelist Jeff Lemire. The Secret Path acknowledges a dark part of Canada’s history — the long-suppressed mistreatment of Indigenous children and families by the residential school system — with the hope of engaging all Canadians in the reconciliation process. [From Website]

“The Stranger” is the first full chapter and song of The Secret Path. Adapted from Gord Downie’s album and Jeff Lemire’s graphic novel, The Secret Path chronicles the heartbreaking story of Chanie Wenjack’s residential school experience and subsequent death as he escapes and attempts to walk 600 km home to his family. [From YouTube]

"A bold and profound work by Haudenosaunee writer Alicia Elliott, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is a personal and critical meditation on trauma, legacy, oppression and racism in North America. In an urgent and visceral work that asks essential questions about Native people in North America while drawing on intimate details of her own life and experience with intergenerational trauma, Alicia Elliott offers indispensable insight and understanding to the ongoing legacy of colonialism. What are the links between depression, colonialism and loss of language--both figurative and literal? How does white privilege operate in different contexts? How do we navigate the painful contours of mental illness in loved ones without turning them into their sickness? How does colonialism operate on the level of literary criticism? A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is Alicia Elliott's attempt to answer these questions and more. In the process, she engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, sexuality, love, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, writing and representation. Elliott makes connections both large and small between the past and present, the personal and political--from overcoming a years-long history with head lice to the way Native writers are treated within the Canadian literary industry; her unplanned teenage pregnancy to the history of dark matter and how it relates to racism in the court system; her childhood diet of Kraft dinner to how systematic oppression is linked to depression in Native communities. With deep consideration and searing prose, Elliott extends far beyond her own experiences to provide a candid look at our past, an illuminating portrait of our present and a powerful tool for a better future." [From Publisher]

Jane Elliott presents a controversial workshop designed to show the systemic racism and discrimination suffered by First Nations people and other people of colour in Canada. Putting people with "brown eyes" in a position of power over a group of "blue eyes" to turn the tables on racism, Elliott then treats the "blue eyes" as "persons of colour," confronting and browbeating them, while treating the "brown eyes" with respect. Includes interviews with First Nations participants about their racist experiences, with the "blue eye" participants regarding their feelings about the workshop, and what insights participants from both "sides" brought away with them. [From Publisher]

Inspired by personal experience, Métis author Beatrice Mosionier's novel In Search of April Raintree (1983) was one of the first texts written in Canada to deal with the Indigenous foster child experience. According to the late Métis scholar Jo-Ann Episkenew, In Search of April Raintree publicly acknowledges and validates the experiences of "the many Indigenous children in the care of the settler government's child-welfare system." She adds that "even though she [Mosionier] could have written an autobiographical account of her own experiences as a foster child, Culleton Mosionier made a deliberate choice to write the story of a fictional family, the Raintrees, who, like her own family, were torn apart by Canadian government policies". The novel introduces major human rights issues that subsequent narratives echo: the violent removal of Indigenous children from their parents by the Canadian government to assimilate them by placing them in white middle-class homes, the resulting identity conflicts from which many foster care and transracial adoption survivors suffer, sexual assault on Indigenous women, suicide, and intergenerational trauma as a result of the residential school experience. All of these issues arise out of systemic and institutional colonial violence, as April Raintree and the Sixties Scoop narratives that I will discuss in this essay show. [From Author]

A curriculum guide on residential schools, for grade 10 social studies.

It is an honour to be asked to write the introduction to the following listing of materials pertaining to Native Residential Schools in Canada available at the National Library of Canada. This bibliography accompanies the exhibition Where are the Children? Healing the Legacy of the Residential Schools produced by the National Archives of Canada, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Aboriginal Healing Charitable Association in collaboration with the National Library of Canada, numerous church and other archives presented at the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa from June 18, 2002 to February 3, 2003. [From Website]

The historical narrative around Métis political leader Louis Riel has undergone a extraordinary change since the 1960s—once reviled by Anglo-Canadians, Riel is now paradoxically celebrated as a Canadian hero, and this “Riel-as-Canadian” narrative has become a common trope in contemporary Canadian political culture. Emanating from the Canadianization of Louis Riel is a parallel colonial discourse that distances itself from past attempts to assimilate Indigenous people into Canada, arguing instead for the assimilation of Canadians into a pan-Indigenous political identity. Central to this dialogue is a discourse on “métissage” and “Canadian métisness” that is heralded as the founding myth of Canada. This paper deconstructs this logic, as put forward by Jennifer Reid in Louis Riel and the Creation of Modern Canada and John Ralston Saul in A Fair Country. Both works uncritically assume that Canada’s colonial problem is largely a failure of non-Indigenous people to embrace their underlying Indigenous political identity and acclimate themselves to this continent as a people of mixed political descent. This claim, however, is simply an inversion of colonization, a re-hashing of age-old colonial fantasies of unity, and an attempt to unite all the Indigenous and non-Indigenous polities in Canadian territory under a single sovereign entity—Canada. [From Author]

The impact of trauma on learning in post-secondary institutions is largely ignored. However, recent studies on how Aboriginal people experience mental health issues are bringing attention to Aboriginal students' experiences of intergenerational trauma (IGT). IGT occurs when the maladaptive effects of an original trauma experience, such as historic trauma inclusive of Indian Residential Schools (IRS), results in unhealthy effects on the first generation being passed down to the next generation or multiple generations. Given the lengthy history of collective historic trauma experienced by Aboriginal people, it is reasonable to expect that Aboriginal students' learning is affected by IGT. As post-secondary educators, we engaged a limited study to further our knowledge of the impact of IGT on Aboriginal students. We were puzzled by Aboriginal students' attrition within university programs--students we believed who were more than capable of success. We chose to explore this issue from the perspective of trauma-informed education principles (Mordoch & Gaywish, 2011). Building on past work, this qualitative study explores how IGT affects the educational journeys of Aboriginal students. A conceptual framework based on an Anishinabe teaching of Four Lodges (directional)--Talking, Planning, Teaching, and Healing--guided our research. The researchers formulated questions for each Lodge to frame our research on how IGT is understood by students enrolled in select programs for mature Indigenous students. We asked about the effects of IGT in the classroom and the resultant problems students face in their educational journey. Sixteen Indigenous students, 10 instructors, and nine administrators employed in Aboriginal focus or access programs for at least three years participated in semi-structured interview conversations. Findings reflect their perceptions of the interplay between IGT and educational experiences and potential strategies to redress resultant issues. [From Author]

Canada's Residential Schools: The residential school system is older than Confederation itself, having lasted from 1831 to 1996, and represents a dark aspect of Canadian history. These government-sponsored, church-run schools aimed to assimilate Indigenous children by taking them away from their families and forcibly eradicating their cultural identity. Residential schools have left a horrible legacy that survivors, communities and families are still struggling to overcome and heal from to this day. [From Website]
Link only works with Chrome browser.

The Government of Canada launched a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, independent from the federal government. [From Website]

The laws regulating Indians including the steps necessary to become Canadian citizens. Introduction of Bands, Councils and elections, the loss of status by women who married non-Indigenous husbands and the definition of Status Indians.

One of the first books published to deal with the phenomenon of residential schools in Canada, Resistance and Renewal is a disturbing collection of Native perspectives on the Kamloops Indian Residential School(KIRS) in the British Columbia interior. Interviews with thirteen Natives, all former residents of KIRS, form the nucleus of the book, a frank depiction of school life, and a telling account of the system's oppressive environment which sought to stifle Native culture. [From Website]

Focuses on the place of education in renewing Indigenous culture and tradition. The film is part of a larger Social Science and Humanities Council funded study and is based on interviews with the children and grandchildren of residential school survivors first interviewed for a 1986 study done by Celia Haig-Brown. The offspring are actively engaging in regenerative educational initiatives such as art, language immersion schools, traditional wilderness camps and filmmaking. Helen Haig-Brown, Celia's neice and the daughter of one of the initial residential school survivors interviewed, is not only a participant and co-investigator in the project but the film's director and co-writer. The research explores with selected children and grandchildren of the survivors of residential schools the place of education in renewing culture and language. In this case, education refers to both formal schooling and other less direct approaches to teaching and learning. Specifically, the guiding question is: What is the role of education in the regeneration of Aboriginal/First Nations cultures and languages? How does it serve the re-creation of indigenous knowledges in contemporary contexts? [From Website]

With Good Intentions examines the joint efforts of Aboriginal people and individuals of European ancestry to counter injustice in Canada when colonization was at its height, from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. These people recognized colonial wrongs and worked together in a variety of ways to right them, but they could not stem the tide of European-based exploitation. The book is neither an apologist text nor an attempt to argue that some colonizers were simply “well intentioned.” Almost all those considered here – teachers, lawyers, missionaries, activists – had as their overall goal the Christianization and civilization of Canada’s First Peoples. By discussing examples of Euro-Canadians who worked with Aboriginal peoples, With Good Intentions brings to light some of the lesser-known complexities of colonization. [From Author]

Violence against Indigenous women in Canada is an ongoing crisis, with roots deep in the nation’s colonial history. Despite numerous policies and programs developed to address the issue, Indigenous women continue to be targeted for violence at disproportionate rates. What insights can literature contribute where dominant anti-violence initiatives have failed? Centring the voices of contemporary Indigenous women writers, this book argues for the important role that literature and storytelling can play in response to gendered colonial violence. [From Publisher]

The Indian Act is a Canadian federal law that governs in matters pertaining to Indian status, bands, and Indian reserves. Throughout history it has been highly invasive and paternalistic, as it authorizes the Canadian federal government to regulate and administer in the affairs and day-to-day lives of registered Indians and reserve communities. This authority has ranged from overarching political control, such as imposing governing structures on Aboriginal communities in the form of band councils, to control over the rights of Indians to practice their culture and traditions. The Indian Act has also enabled the government to determine the land base of these groups in the form of reserves, and even to define who qualifies as Indian in the form of Indian status. [From Website]

This report addresses the situation of missing and murdered indigenous women in British Columbia, Canada. It analyzes the context in which indigenous women have gone missing and been murdered over the past several years and the response to this human rights issue by the Canadian State. The report offers recommendations geared towards assisting the State in strengthening its efforts to protect and guarantee indigenous women’s rights. [From Author]

Healing the legacy of the residential schools. Between 1831 and 1996, residential schools operated in Canada through arrangements between the Government of Canada and the church. One common objective defined this period — the assimilation of Aboriginal children.[From Website]

YouTube video from Maynard Johnny discussing his art and the history of Residential Schools.

A piece I did for CBC's The National... what else can I say? My dad not only survived but thrived and my son is my sole motivation for doing any good in this [From YouTube]

With its energetic pace and stunning HD landscapes, 8th Fire propels us past prejudice, stereotypes and misunderstandings, to encounters with an impressive new generation of Indigenous people who are reclaiming both their culture and their confidence. We meet the emerging leaders, artists, activists and thinkers. We explore the best ideas for change. Above all, 8th Fire examines the way forward to a second chance to get the relationship right. Comes with accompanying Teacher Resource Guide. [From Website]

Following the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain declares lengthy plans for governing and settling American lands.

This resource is a visual journey to support classroom teachers, post secondary and adult educators to understand and learn about the hidden history of Indian Residential Schools.

This document can be used towards developing self awareness in every discipline. Developing self awareness is a key element on the journey towards reconciliation. This resource can be used from K to post secondary in a diverse manner. [From Website]

The hidden crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada is both a national tragedy and a national shame. In this ground-breaking new volume, as part of their larger efforts to draw attention to the shockingly high rates of violence against our sisters, Jennifer Brant and D. Memee Lavell-Harvard have pulled together a variety of voices from the academic realms to the grassroots and front-lines to speak on what has been identified by both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations as a grave violation of the basic human rights of Aboriginal women and girls. Linking colonial practices with genocide, through their exploration of the current statistics, root causes and structural components of the issue, including conversations on policing, media and education, the contributing authors illustrate the resilience, strength, courage, and spirit of Indigenous women and girls as they struggle to survive in a society shaped by racism and sexism, patriarchy and misogyny. This book was created to honour our missing sisters, their families, their lives and their stories, with the hope that it will offer lessons to non-Indigenous allies and supporters so that we can all work together towards a nation that supports and promotes the safety and well-being of all First Nation, Métis and Inuit women and girls. [From Publisher]

Recoveries of unmarked graves have put a spotlight on the genocide committed through the Residential Institution system in Canada from the 1800s until the 1990s. As First Nations from coast to coast to coast pursue searches of Residential Institutions and the number of recoveries grows, we must remember each number represents a loss - a child with a name, a family and a community coping with grief. This is our shared history. [From Website]

A guide that will give both facilitators and participants the resources they need to examine aspects of the Sixties Scoop and to recognize the impact it has had and continues to have on generations of Indigenous Peoples, and all those who have relationships with them.

This Web exhibition recounts first-hand information illustrating the complex and often contentious relationship between the Canadian government and Canada's Aboriginal people from the late 1700s to the mid-20th century. Archived Content. [From Website]

"Bill : an act to encourage the gradual civilization of Indian tribes in this province, and to amend the laws relating to Indians" Some of the first steps of Colonization.

Part 1 of 3 of the video series for the research project, "Challenging Racist 'British Columbia': 150 Years and Counting". This Spring, the 150YC project will also release accompanying video content and an enhanced, interactive digital edition with direct links to primary sources, community-based resources, learning activities, and more. [From Website]

This study does not intend to shed light on the systemic problems that occurred in Indian Residential Schools nor on what the police could have done with regards to
the various forms of abuse suffered in the system. The focus, rather, is to explain how police officers were linked with the school system and what actions the police took, if any, if they were aware of abuse. For the study and this report, the word “abuse” refers to improper physical or sexual behavior and actions that contributed to the loss of cultural roots. [From Website]

Written by Dorothy Matheson McIvor, the granddaughter of Princess Elizabeth Deeks of the Tsimshean Tribe of Port Simpson. The book chronicles her time at Coqualeetza Residential School in Sardis B.C. which was the largest Protestant Indian School in Canada. [From Website]

The proposal of Indian Residential Schools.

"An explosive examination of the missing and murdered Indigenous women of Highway 16, and a searing indictment of the society that failed them. For decades, women--overwhelmingly from Indigenous backgrounds--have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern B.C. The highway is called the Highway of Tears by locals, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis. In Highway of Tears, Jessica McDiarmid meticulously explores the effect these tragedies have had on communities in the region, and how systemic racism and indifference towards Indigenous lives have created a culture of "over-policing and under-protection," simultaneously hampering justice while endangering young Indigenous women. Highway of Tears will offer an intimate, first-hand look at the communities along Highway 16 and the families of the victims, as well as examine the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settler and Indigenous peoples that underlie life in the region. Finally, it will link these cases with others found across Canada--estimated to number over 1,200--contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country and of our ongoing failure to provide justice for the missing and murdered" [From Publisher]

In Canada, it is estimated that 3 times as many Indigenous children are currently in the care of the state compared to when the residential schools’ populations were at their peak. It is imperative that action be taken. This article explores the continuities among residential schools, the Sixties Scoop, and child welfare in Canada today. In particular, we examine how colonial and neocolonial discourses operate through and justify these policies and practices. We propose nine policy recommendations, which aim to transform child welfare and support Indigenous families to care for their children. Although transformative policy change is unlikely within this neocolonial and neoliberal climate, the recent change in federal leadership has made it more possible to move these policy recommendations forward. [From Author]

This thesis offers a critical discourse analysis of the Canadian government’s 2008 apology to the former students of the Indian Residential School system. The Indian Residential School apology claims to begin to pave the way for healing and reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and other Canadians, and, I argue, it makes this claim while reiterating colonial narratives of settler innocence, entitlement to land, and moral-ethical superiority. The apology claims to right wrongs that are discursively situated in a remote and distant past, without addressing ongoing colonial violence or the historic and contemporary benefits both the state and its citizens have inherited from colonialism. I contend that the apology enables a celebratory national narrative that allows the state and its citizens, and not the Indigenous peoples to whom it was putatively addressed, to recover from (and re-cover) a violent and traumatic past (and present) while repudiating responsibility on both an individual and state level. [From Author]

Now a retired fisherman and trapper, Merasty was one of an estimated 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Metis children who were taken from their families and sent to government-funded, church-run schools, where they were subjected to a policy of 'aggressive assimiliation.' As Merasty recounts, these schools did more than attempt to mold children in the ways of white society. They were taught to be ashamed of their native heritage and, as he experienced, often suffered physical and sexual abuse. Even as he looks back on this painful part of his childhood, Merasty's generous and authentic voice shines through. [From Publisher]

Since the 1980s successive Canadian institutions, including the federal government and Christian churches, have attempted to grapple with the malignant legacy of residential schooling, including official apologies, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). In Residential Schools and Reconciliation, award winning author J. R. Miller tackles and explains these institutional responses to Canada's residential school legacy. Analysing archival material and interviews with former students, politicians, bureaucrats, church officials, and the Chief Commissioner of the TRC, Miller reveals a major obstacle to achieving reconciliation – the inability of Canadians at large to overcome their flawed, overly positive understanding of their country's history. This unique, timely, and provocative work asks Canadians to accept that the root of the problem was Canadians like them in the past who acquiesced to aggressively assimilative policies. [From Publisher]

"With the growing strength of minority voices in recent decades has come much impassioned discussion of residential schools, the institutions where attendance by Native children was compulsory as recently as the 1960s. Former students have come forward in increasing numbers to describe the psychological and physical abuse they suffered in these schools, and many view the system as an experiment in cultural genocide. In this first comprehensive history of these institutions, J.R. Miller explores the motives of all three agents in the story. He looks at the separate experiences and agendas of the government officials who authorized the schools, the missionaries who taught in them, and the students who attended them. Starting with the foundations of residential schooling in seventeenth-century New France, Miller traces the modern version of the institution that was created in the 1880s, and, finally, describes the phasing-out of the schools in the 1960s. He looks at instruction, work and recreation, care and abuse, and the growing resistance to the system on the part of students and their families. Based on extensive interviews as well as archival research, Miller's history is particularly rich in Native accounts of the school system." [From Publisher]

Legal definitions and the laws of the Canadian government in regards to Aboriginal people .

The media plays a large role in facilitating negative racial and gender ideologies about Indigenous women. In Canada, as we struggle with the national crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW), researchers have collected data from social media (SM) and identified that subversive texts about Indigenous women perpetuate a racialized violent discourse. Given that many Indigenous peoples, including Indigenous youth, have smart phones and/or other ways to access SM they too are exposed to the discourse that subjugates, vilifies and dehumanizes Indigenous women, many of whom are family or community members. Our research investigates the messages shared on #MMIW and identifies a reframing by hashtag users. The results assist in understanding how SM plays a role in perpetuating stereotypes about Indigenous peoples but also how SM can be used to mitigate those messages. [From Author]

The National Inquiry acknowledges that the determination of formal liability for the commission of genocide is to be made before judicial bodies. An assessment of both individual and state responsibility requires a considerable body of evidence and must be carried out by a competent tribunal charged with this task. The National Inquiry does not intend to fully demonstrate all the elements of a genocidal policy, since it does not have direct access to all of the evidence related to it. However, the information and testimonies collected by the National Inquiry provide serious reasons to believe that Canada’s past and current policies, omissions, and actions towards First Nations Peoples, Inuit and Métis amount to genocide, in breach of Canada’s international obligations, triggering its responsibility under international law. This report is limited to a legal analysis of genocide, but the National Inquiry’s findings call for a broader examination of other international crimes, including in particular, crimes against humanity. [From Author]

Since 1876, the Indian Act has structured the relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples with profound repercussions. And though the act is well known, its detailed contents may not be. The Agenda welcomes Bob Joseph, founder of Indigenous Corporate Training, a firm specializing in cultural relations instruction, to discuss his book, "21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality." [From YouTube]

In this conversation Aaron and Kieth discuss colonization, Indian Residential Schools and religious beliefs impact on Indigenous people in Canada.

Professor Carlson’s scholarship is designed and conducted in partnership with communities and aspires to answer questions that are of relevance to those communities. His interests include: Indigenous history, Indigenous historical consciousness, and the history of settler colonialism — especially in western Canada and north western USA. The approach he takes is to invert the classic scholarly gaze and to forefront the perspective of Indigenous partners. “So what intrigues me most is not the history of Indigenous people in Canadian or American history, but the history of Canadian and American society within Indigenous histories,” offers Carlson. His focus is on the history of the Coast Salish of British Columbia and Washington and has worked extensively with Hukbalahap veterans in the Philippines. [From YouTube]

The recognition that things needed to change to help Indigenous students enter post-secondary education.

The YouTube channel of Gladys Radek, campaigner for the rights of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

The chapter on residential schools from the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

Recommendation to introduce industrial schools to educate aboriginal children. Appendix A to a longer report.

This is a joint work between my Mom and I. It begins with a story passed down to my Mom about my grandfather's experience at an Indian Residential School. My Mom asks me questions about the story and I respond, learning more as we talk. We ended up writing back and forth to one another over a few days to complete this. I found it very important and educational to write about. We share this story fully acknowledging it is only one story, and it is shared with the intent for learning. I have heard many people say Residential Schools happened a long time ago. My mom started to share this story several years ago with primarily non-Indigenous social work students to demonstrate how Residential School and the Sixties Scoop impacted the five generations she speaks of in the story. My brother's first day of school became a much bigger moment for her and my Mushum. We share this story with deep respect for all the families who were impacted by Residential Schools and the Sixties Scoop. We stand with you and support all of your voices and recognize many of you have lost far more than we have. For all our non-Indigenous family and friends, we share this with respect for you as well, and to foster better understanding and as a step towards reconciliation. This is our truth. [From Author]

In Canada, Indigenous women and girls are 4.5 times more likely to become victims of homicide than other women. Over the last 30 years, more than 1000 women identified as First Nations, Inuit, or Métis were murdered in Canada, and more than 100 are still missing. However, the Canadian government has not acknowledged the economic, social and environmental colonialism that has allowed this violence to become naturalised. Focusing on activism around the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people in Canada during the years of the Conservative Harper Government, this article examines how these grassroots initiatives challenge Canadian politics, reclaim streets and liminal zones, and make space for sacred commemoration. Specifically, Twitter campaigns, memeing, the REDress Project, and Walking With Our Sisters are studied. Engaging with scholarship that analyses spaces of violence, this article, in turn, discusses how activism can disrupt violence by transforming physical, virtual and affective spaces. [From Author]

This article investigates the portrayal of colonialism and Indigenous peoples in curricula and textbooks in the province of Ontario, Canada. The analysis is focused on the curricular documents and texts that constituted Ontario’s social studies and Canadian and World Studies stream between 2003 and 2015, which have informed the understanding of a generation of Ontarians. Drawing on recent work on epistemologies of ignorance, we demonstrate how segregation and past placement of Indigenous content, omission of Indigenous critical perspectives, philosophies, and territories, denial of colonialism, and reinforcement of racialized hierarchies work to encourage logic of relation premised on Indigenous disappearance. Although nine textbooks associated with the 2003–2015 Canadian and World studies curriculum were reviewed by First Nations and Métis educators, critical Indigenous perspectives are frequently undermined in the texts through exclusion from chapter review questions, segregation of content, and imposition of settler voice. Although the Ministry of Education has created a new curriculum, the depth, and perniciousness of epistemologies of ignorance requires sustained involvement of First Nations, Métis and Inuit educators at all levels of curricular and text design, with special attention to the training of teachers. [From Author]

The “Sixties Scoop” describes a period in Aboriginal history in Canada in which thousands of Aboriginal children were removed from birth families and placed in non-Aboriginal environments. Despite literature that indicates adoption breakdown rates of 85-95%, recent research with adults adopted as children indicates that some adoptees have found solace through reacculturating to their birth culture and contextualizing their adoptions within colonial history. This article explores the history of Aboriginal adoption in Canada and examines some of the issues of transracial adoption through the lens of psychology theories to aid understanding of identity conflicts facing Aboriginal adoptees. The article concludes with recommendations towards a paradigm shift in adoption policy as it pertains to Aboriginal children. [From Author]

Gladys Radek, a survivor of sexual violence whose niece disappeared along Canada’s Highway of Tears, who became a family advocate for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. [From Author]

Celebrate the book launch of How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America, a new book edited by Sara Sinclair from Haymarket Books and Voice of Witness, with a roundtable conversation about Indigenous sovereignty today.

How We Go Home shares contemporary Indigenous stories in the long and ongoing fight to protect Native land and life. In myriad ways, each narrator’s life has been shaped by loss, injustice, resilience, and the struggle to share space with settler nations whose essential aim is to take all that is Indigenous. [From YouTube]

Imagine that your daughter or sister or mother disappeared – and when you asked for help from police, your concerns weren’t taken seriously. Then, a week later her body is discovered.
While the exact details of the story may vary, this is the current scenario for thousands of family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women. After years of advocacy and emotional turmoil, a national inquiry has finally been struck to find out what went wrong and how to fix it. For many family members, news of the inquiry is accompanied by a sense of relief and perhaps a glimmer of hope that the healing might finally begin. The focus of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, however, is on the systemic causes and institutional policies and practices that underlie this national tragedy. It is not designed to directly respond to the suffering of families. In fact, Inquiry-related media and processes, such as providing statements, even if “trauma-informed” are likely to exacerbate suffering. We therefore call upon the public health community to work in partnership with local Indigenous and allied communities and organizations to ensure that adequate and ongoing supports are in place for families before, during and especially after the Inquiry proceedings. [From Author]

12 survivors of the 60s scoop talk about their experiences.

The year 2020 marks five years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada released its Calls to Action, directing nursing to take action on both “truth” and “reconciliation.” The aim of this article is to examine how nurses have responded to the TRC’s call for truth in uncovering nursing’s involvement in past and present colonial harms that continue to negatively impact Indigenous people. A narrative review was used to broadly examine nurses’ responses to uncovering nursing’s complicity in five colonial harms: Indian hospitals, Indian Residential Schools, child apprehension, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), and forced sterilization. The paucity of results during the post-TRC period demonstrates a lack of scholarship in uncovering the truth of nursing’s complicity in these systems. Based on findings, we explore two potential barriers in undertaking this work in nursing, including a challenge to the image of nursing and anti-Indigenous racism. [From Author]

The Environics Institute for Survey Research conducted a national public opinion survey to take a proper reading of non-Aboriginal public knowledge and attitudes about Aboriginal peoples. The objectives of this research are to better understand non-Aboriginal Canadians. [From Author]

The stories of families and survivors are the heart and soul of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The National Inquiry has three parts to its Truth Gathering Process.
Part I focused on gathering information from families and survivors through Community Hearings and Statement Gathering events. While registration for Part I events closed on April 20, 2018, through this process the National Inquiry heard 1484 testimonies from families and survivors.
Part II Institutional Hearings and Part III Knowledge Keeper and Expert Hearings continued through December 2018 to gather the testimony of Knowledge Keepers and experts such as government officials, academics, legal experts and community leaders.

The Commissioners delivered the final report to the Government of Canada and the provinces and territories at a Closing Ceremony on June 3, 2019.

The first volume, The History, is divided into three sections and, due to its length, is being published in two parts. The first section places residential schooling for Indigenous people in historical context and examines the pre-Confederation roots of the Canadian residential school system. [From Website]

The second section describes the history and
the student experience of residential schools from Confederation to 1939. This was the period in which the system was established and expanded. It was also the period of the most intense health crisis. By the end of the 1930s, government officials had come to question the value of the residential school system. [From Author]

The beliefs and attitudes that were used to justify the establishment of residential schools are not things of the past: they continue to animate much of what passes for Aboriginal policy today. [From Author]

These findings are in keeping with statements that former students and the parents of former students gave to the Commission. They spoke of children who went to school and never returned. The tragedy of the loss of children was compounded by the fact that burial places were distant or even unknown. Many Aboriginal people have unanswered questions about what happened to their children or relatives while they were attending residential school. The work that the Commission has begun in identifying and commemorating those students who died at school and their gravesites needs to be finished. [From Author]

Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities.

For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. Education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers. [From Publisher]

Reconciliation must inspire Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples to transform Canadian society so that our children and grandchildren can live together
in dignity, peace, and prosperity on these lands we now share. [From Author]

The first volume, The History, is divided into three sections and, due to its length, is being published in two parts. The first section places residential schooling for Indigenous people in historical context and examines the pre-Confederation roots of the Canadian residential school system. [From Website]

Page numbers in italics refer to graphs, illustrations, or tables. Residential schools are indexed under their geographic location, as listed in the Truth and
Reconciliation Report, volume 4, Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked
Burials, Appendix 1.1 and 1.2, 141–151.
Variations on similar names of people have in some cases been grouped together under one heading.
When this has been done, all variations are represented in the heading. [From Author]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada believes that in order for Canada to flourish in the twenty-first century, reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canada must be based on the following principles. [From Website]

Page numbers in italics refer to graphs, illustrations, or tables. Residential schools are indexed under their geographic location, as listed in the Truth and Reconciliation Report, volume 4, Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials, Appendix 1.1 and 1.2, 141–151. Variations on similar names of people have in some cases been grouped together under one heading. When this has been done, all variations are represented in the heading [From Author]

The central goal of the Canadian residential school system was to ‘Christianize’ and ‘civilize’ Aboriginal people, a process intended to lead to their cultural
assimilation into Euro-Canadian society. This policy goal was directed at all Aboriginal people and all Aboriginal cultures. It failed to take into account the development of new Aboriginal nations, and the implications of the Indian Act’s definition of who was and was not a “status Indian” and the British North America Act’s division of responsibility for “Indians.” In the government’s vision, there was no place for the Métis Nation that proclaimed itself in the Canadian Northwest in the nineteenth century. Neither was there any place for the large number of Aboriginal people who, for a variety of reasons, chose not to terminate their Treaty rights, or for those women, and their children, who lost their Indian Act status by marrying a person who did not have such status. These individuals were classed or identified alternately as “non-status Indians,” “half-breeds,” or “Métis.” In different times or different places, they might also identify themselves by these terms, but often they did not. Instead, they might
view themselves to be members of specific First Nations, Inuit, or Euro-Canadian societies. For the sake of clarity, this chapter generally uses the term Métis to describe people of mixed descent who were not able, or chose not, to be registered as Indians under the Indian Act. It should be recognized that not all the people described by this term would have identified themselves as Métis during their lives, and that the histories of these people varied considerably, depending on time and location. [From Author]

Page numbers in italics refer to graphs, illustrations, or tables.
Residential schools are indexed under their geographic location, as listed in the Truth and
Reconciliation Report, volume 4, Canada’s Residential Schools: Missing Children and Unmarked
Burials, Appendix 1.1 and 1.2, 141–151.
Variations on similar names of people have in some cases been grouped together under one heading.
When this has been done, all variations are represented in the heading. [From Author]

For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal peoples to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.” [From Author]

Report published by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada that deals with the history and purpose of the residential school system, its effects, and its ongoing legacy.

Between the 1860s and 1990s more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children were required to attend Indian Residential Schools, institutions operated by religious organizations funded by the Federal Government. [From Website]

A collection of material available through the UFV library about Indian Residential Schools.

In Canada, racial profiling is a by-product of an ongoing legacy of colonial oppression, racialized policing, and institutionalized discrimination. UBCIC is deeply concerned about the many damaging impacts racism has upon First Nations in BC and approves of the Committee’s efforts to strengthen work against racial profiling. We hope that a focus on acknowledging the historical and colonial dimensions of racial profiling and conducting thorough, community-based consultation and research can help topple the systemic racism that continues to isolate and oppress Indigenous and racialized communities. [From Author]