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First Nation poverty has historical context

Generational poverty among First Nation people is explained by historical context, trustee Richard Hiebert wrote in a presentation featured at the Sept. 14 Living Sky School Division board meeting.
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Generational poverty among First Nation people is explained by historical context, trustee Richard Hiebert wrote in a presentation featured at the Sept. 14 Living Sky School Division board meeting.

“First Nation people were systematically disenfranchised, dispossessed and relegated to the margins of society.”

Treaties

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, historically, “Aboriginal economies were subsistence oriented, organized around activities like fishing, hunting and gathering,” while “economic activities depended on geographical availability and seasonal patterns of major food sources.”

In the mid to late-1800s, buffalo, important to indigenous diet and economy, were nearly exterminated, wrote historian John E. Foster. Canadian and American policies to exterminate the buffalo were also meant to “starve Aboriginal peoples into dependence.”

According to an article by Karrmen Crey and Erin Hanson of the University of British Columbia, in 1876, the Canadian government developed criteria for who would be legally considered an Indian. Legislation consolidated the Gradual Civilization Act and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act into the Indian Act. Status Indians were registered under the Indian Act, which the Assembly of First Nations and some scholars have described as a form of apartheid law.

“Our Indian legislation generally rests on the principle, that the aborigines are to be kept in a condition of tutelage and treated as wards or children of the state,” according to a 1876 Department of Indian Affairs report.

“The true interests of the aborigines and of the state alike require that every effort should be made to aid the red man in lifting himself out of his condition of tutelage and dependence, and that is clearly our wisdom and our duty, through education and every other means, to prepare him for a higher civilization by encouraging him to assume the privileges and responsibilities of full citizenship.”

Life on reserves was marked by poverty and, according to Sheelah McLean at the University of Saskatchewan, status Indians at various times couldn’t possess title to land, couldn’t sell wheat freely, couldn’t take out personal loans, a pass system was implemented by Indian agents and status Indians couldn’t vote until 1960.

Renouncing Status

Rights, the ability to vote and a generally improved quality of life awaited if status Indians renounced their Indian status and enfranchised.

Some explanations for why many Indigenous people didn’t enfranchise and didn’t renounce their Indian status, according to Jeffery J. Schiffer with the Justice Institute of British Columbia, is because it would involve being cut off from traditional culture, languages, spirituality, economies, systems of governance and other important parts of their identity.

Indian status also meant benefits from treaties. Anthony J. Hall wrote treaties were understood differently between two cultures. Indigenous people saw them as “sacred pacts between independent nations.” Many non-Indigenous peoples, historically, “believed treaties were inexpensive and convenient ways to strip Aboriginal title from most of the lands in Canada so that resources could be used by settlers.”

In many cases, “promised provisions and goods were delayed or never made their way to the First Nations,” Hall wrote.

“From some indigenous [peoples’] perspectives, the spirit and intent of 19th and early 20th century treaties therefore includes a commitment from the Canadian government for the instruction and material aid necessary for transitioning to a new way of life,” Hall wrote.

Attempted Assimilation

At the turn of the century, life for indigenous people continued to involve state-based assimilation efforts, such as residential schools. Nearby residential schools included those in Battleford (the former Government House), Onion Lake, Delmas and Duck Lake. 

Battleford historian Don Light attended residential school, and said in May he had a positive experience.

JR Miller of the University of Saskatchewan wrote many had negative experiences. Children were forcibly removed, their culture was discouraged at school and they endured disciplinary measures.

Abuse could also be frequent, and local lawyer Eleanore Sunchild specializes in residential school claims, often dealing with cases of serious physical and sexual abuse.

“When those children who had survived the residential schools returned to their communities, the impact of their experiences on attachment and family dynamics was profound,” wrote Schiffer.

“Many survivors report that not only did they return to their communities with a high degree of trauma but they had few resources to help them cope with their experiences. They had missed out on learning their own cultural ways of coping and practising good health, wellness and parenting.”

Sixties Scoop

By the 1960s, according to Niigaanwewidam  James Sinclair and Sharon Dainard, “many Indigenous communities […] were rampant with poverty, high death rates and socio-economic barriers.”

Schiffer connects residential schools and the Sixties Scoop.

“Many survivors were later targeted by the child welfare system for conditions of poverty and neglect that were a direct result of their experiences in [residential schools].”

The Sixties Scoop took place from the 1960s to 1980s. In 1951, the Indian Act “gave the provinces jurisdiction over Indigenous child welfare.”

“With no additional financial resources, provincial agencies in 1951 inherited a litany of issues surrounding children and child welfare in Indigenous communities,” according to the “Sixties Scoop” entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia.

Provincial governments “considered the removal of indigenous children the fastest and easiest way of addressing Aboriginal child welfare issues.”

An article Hiebert provided for the school board meeting concerned Colleen Cardinal, who is working on a project to map where the children were placed as a result of the Sixties Scoop and to compile their stories.

Cardinal was taken from her parents as a baby and adopted to an “extremely abusive home” in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., which she and her sisters had run away from by the time they were 15. Her sister was murdered in 1990.

Many young First Nation students in or around the Battlefords, if they originate in the region, can trace their roots, in some capacity, to such historical circumstances. Sunchild told the News-Optimst earlier this year First Nation people often come from different backgrounds than settler people.

Schiffer argued people who come from such circumstances “can’t ‘just get over it.’”

Writer and activist Chelsea Vowel points out, according to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, attempts to assimilate “are the main causes of the atrocious socio-economic situation Indigenous peoples currently face in this country.”

Recent thought and writing in university disciplines such as Native Studies has argued Indigenous culture and tradition, rather than assimilation, can help young people of Indigenous heritage succeed in Canadian society.

Living Sky has adopted a number of measures that emphasize Indigenous culture, traditions and practices, including Aboriginal language classes, elder involvement and consultation.

According to Hiebert, “the key to getting out of poverty is education.”