Tag Archives: First Nations

Indigenous communities have detected hundreds of graves near former Indian Residential Schools. Children attended the government-sanctioned schools during the stolen children era.

The news was shocking to many non-Indigenous Canadians, while many Indigenous Peoples either witnessed the graveyards being created, or grew up hearing about the graveyards from survivors. The missing children and the graveyards were also disclosed in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final reports. Experts expect that many more graves will be found.

Many are now noting how the effects of residential schools meet the definition of genocide outlined in the United Nations Genocide Convention. This criteria includes forcibly removing children from their families, cultures and languages and inflicting harm and death. Among other abuses suffered by children — from physical and sexual abuse to being subject to harmful biomedical experimentation and malnourishment — the well-documented effects of underfunded and overcrowded schools made children vulnerable to tuberculosis.

A survey by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies conducted June 4 to 6 found 66 per cent of respondents in a survey of 1,539 adult Canadians say the church is responsible “for the tragedies that took place at residential schools” in Canada, while 34 per cent say the federal government should be blamed. Some people also believe both are culpable.

What if I told you there is another entity that no one is talking about that also played a major role in the operations of these schools? My research has documented how appeals to Canadians and English citizens helped fund residential schools in the Anglican Diocese of Calgary.

Treaty 7 IRS

I am a member of the Kainai Nation (Blood Tribe) of the Blackfoot Confederacy, encompassing the Treaty 7 area.

My research consists of learning my People’s history with the IRS. [Click here to watch the video]

Partly I have accomplished this to date through visiting nine museums and archives across Canada to learn my people’s history through historical documents. These documents reveal some details of how three different Christian denominations (Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist) were involved with running colonial schools, including an Indian Residential School on the Blood Reserve.

The Canadian government first instigated education for Indigenous children under the Indian Act (1876). The schools were operated by several different denominations and were government-sponsored, meaning the government provided funds.

However, the history of how different Indian Residential Schools were funded is complex. In addition to receiving federal funding, some were funded by provincial governments or by various religious bodies — including through soliciting donations.

Some of my research has examined Anglican Diocese of Calgary archival records pertaining to Anglican-run residential schools in Treaty 7 territory. I examined the 1892-1908 annual reports related to St. Paul’s Mission, Kainai Reserve; St. Peter’s Mission, Piikani Reserve; St. John’s Mission, Siksika Reserve, and St. Barnabas Mission, Tsuu T’ina Reserve. In early years, these mission schools received government sponsorship through rations of beef and flour or biscuits and milk for the pupils.

Later, the government would provide a small government grant to help with the building of the school’s infrastructure. After this, the government provided a maintenance grant for children enrolled in the schools. Despite the government’s financial help, it was still not enough to cover costs needed to operate a school. This left the denomination to make up the monetary difference.

Cover of 1892 report showing a picture of a building with people in front of it that says 'St. John's Home for Indian Boys and Girls, Blackfoot Reserve' — Cover of Diocese of Calgary Report on Indian Missions, 1892. The report included a list of donors and subscribers.
The General Synod Archives, Anglican Church of Canada.

Mission reports solicited funds

My research has shown that to remedy this problem, the diocese decided to appeal to peoples’ caring natures in a very systematic way. Each year the Diocese of Calgary would publish a report on their evangelizing efforts for each mission within their diocese. The missions included the residential schools.

The preface mentions that the report was meant for all who may be interested in supporting the missionary work among Indigenous Peoples. Thus, potentially anyone, regardless of their religious background, could donate to the Diocese of Calgary.

The report encompassed the following sections: a short statement made by the bishop of the diocese, a missionary report for each mission, a financial statement, a list of subscribers and donors, pictures of the missions and a subscription card for donations.

Such a report caught not only the interest of national citizens but international citizens as well. The diocese listed the names of their donors, including the place where they were located. The majority of the donors came from Canada and England.

The reports do not detail the religious background of the individual donors, however the Methodist Church was listed as donating funds one year.

The TRC’s Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 1 also shares that the Oblates, the Roman Catholic order that “established and managed the majority of church-run Canadian residential schools in Canada” had two “French missionary fundraising bodies that funded their work.” First is the l’Oeuvre de la Propagation de la Foi (Society for the Propagation of the Faith). Second is the l’Oeuvre de la Sainte-Enfance (Society of the Holy Childhood).

As the TRC noted: “The Protestants, like the Catholics, encouraged church members to make regular contributions to overseas missionary work … The financial support the missionaries received from outside Canada was considerable.”

Card showing a photograph of a teepee with people in front and a grid with the words '100 squares to be filled up with 100 cents or one dollar.' — Calgary Indian Missions subscription card.
The General Synod Archives, Anglican Church of Canada

Contributions from many

The reports I examined, and other research, clearly indicate more people were involved in maintaining schools than just the leaders of the designated churches and the Canadian government. Instead, the daily operations were made possible through the financial contributions of citizens across Canada and the globe. These citizens were not required to make donations, but nonetheless did.

Through my research travels, I meet fellow Canadian citizens of European descent who feel so entitled to tell me their version of my people’s history. Largely their message has been to point their finger and condemn an opposing religion or Christian church that is different from their own.

Stopping the ‘rain of death’ on Canada’s forests

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Image credit: Francis Eatherington/Flickr

Joyce Nelson May 28, 2021

First Nations in Ontario call it the “rain of death.” They are referring to the aerial spraying of the herbicide glyphosate — Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup and similar products — on forest lands without their consent.

This has been going on for 45 years, in line with the commercial forest industry’s practice of clear-cutting, followed by replanting for monocultures.

The purpose of the glyphosate is to wipe out the so-called “weed” species that start regrowing after clearcutting. Those species include aspen, alder, birch, oak, maple, willow and other broad-leaf plants and shrubs — which are considered of less commercial value than needle-leaf softwoods like lodgepole pine and Douglas fir, the “money trees.”

Forester and forest ecologist Herb Hammond told me by email that these so-called “weed” species “are vital for biological diversity, building soil nutrient capital, slowing the spread of wildfire, and [they are] superior to conifers in sequestering and storing carbon — an important forest assist in this climate change world.”

The aerial spraying has been going on for so long that observers on the ground can no longer doubt the widespread damage to animals, plants, fish, insects and soil, and likely to the humans who live in the region. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Getting the run-around

Members of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Elders of the North Shore of Lake Huron have taken the lead in defying aerial spraying. Formed in 2014, the TEK Elders group is composed of elders from 21 bands in the area. They state that aerial spraying infringes on the Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850, which guarantees their rights to hunt, fish, gather berries, and use plant medicines in traditional territories. The Constitution Act of 1982 reaffirmed those rights.

They have been joined in opposition to aerial spraying by Nishnawbe Aski Nation (representing 49 First Nations in Ontario), Mushkegowuk Council, the North Shore Tribal Council, and Anishnaabe chiefs of the upper Great Lakes.

But for years they have been given the bureaucratic run-around.

As Sue Chiblow, a Garden River First Nation councillor assisting the TEK Elders, told APTN News in March of 2019:

“We went to the Ministry of Natural Resources and they said,’well no, we just issued the license so that’s not our problem; it’s Health Canada’s problem. …So we went to Health Canada and they said, ‘we don’t actually do the spraying; we’re just saying that it’s OK and it’s up to the companies to use or not use it.'”

In 2017, Health Canada decided to re-register (i.e. re-authorize) the use of glyphosate for another 15 years, indicating that it is safe when used as directed. That decision has prompted more opposition to glyphosate.

Pest Management Regulatory Agency

Within Health Canada, the body that does the review and re-registering of pesticides like glyphosate is the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

Some will recall that starting in 2012, former prime minister Stephen Harper waged a devastating war on science, pitched as a way to bring down the deficit. In the process, Harper axed (or slashed to the bone) dozens of federal environmental programs and fired or transferred more than 5,000 federal scientists. As well, thousands of unionized support staff were cut from federal departments.

As of July 2014, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada — the union representing government scientists and other federal and provincial government employees — reported that just under 100 Pest Management Regulatory Agency jobs had been affected by the drastic budgetary cuts, and most of those were biologists, now gone from the agency.

A mere three years later, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency released its re-evaluation of glyphosate in April 2017, which failed to take into account any impacts on human health — including evidence submitted by the David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, Friends of the Earth, Safe Food Matters, and the WHO’s conclusion that glyphposate is probably carcinogenic to humans.

In June 2017, Safe Food Matters and others filed notice of objections and asked the federal minister of health to establish an independent panel to review the agency’s re-registration decision. The minister rejected that request.

In February 2019, Safe Food Matters filed an application for judicial review of the PMRA’s rejection of its notice of objections. The Federal Court dismissed the application.

Meanwhile, a new study, reported by Earth Island Journal, showed that glyphosate exposure “increases cancer risk by up to 41 per cent.”

Safe Food Matters filed an appeal of the Federal Court’s ruling on March 13, 2020.

On October 21, 2020, the David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, and Friends of the Earth Canada, represented by Ecojustice lawyers, decided to intervene in the case.

As the groups explained:

“Under the Pest Control Products Act, Canadians have the right to request reviews of decisions made by the PMRA to ensure accountability and transparency. [We are] intervening in this case to ensure that this right continues to protect the health of Canadians and the environment. Canadians should be able to depend on the PMRA to use the precautionary nature of the Pest Control Products Act to take swift action to restrict the use of harmful pesticides, like glyphosate. Unfortunately, in this instance, they have not applied this precautionary approach. When, like with the re-registration of glyphosate, the PMRA fails to act with appropriate precaution, the right to request reviews of decisions gives Canadians an important tool to hold the PMRA accountable and to protect our health and environment. Unfortunately, the Federal Court’s decision seriously limited the scope of that tool — making it effectively impossible to use.”

A date for the appeal has not yet been set.

Recently, however, another anti-glyphosate ally has come forward.

Private member’s bill

On April 15, Green Party MP Jenica Atwin introduced Bill C-285, a private member’s bill that would impose a nationwide ban on the use of glyphosate on forests and fields. Atwin told Parliament:

“Rather than allowing toxic chemicals to be sprayed in Canada until they are proven harmful, we should be exercising greater precaution: banning products until they can be deemed safe. Canadians have the right to breathe clean air, drink safe water, and harvest healthy foods from the land.”

Tens of thousands of people in New Brunswick have opposed aerial spraying of glyphosate for decades.

As Susan O’Donnell wrote for NB Media Co-op, Atwin’s bill proposes two changes:

“First, to make it illegal to ‘manufacture, possess, handle, store, transport, import, distribute or use glyphosate as a pest control product,’ and second, to cancel the registration of glyphosate under the Pest Control Products Act.”

Nova Scotia and Quebec have stopped aerial spraying of glyphosate, while Quebec stopped the use of chemical herbicides on Crown forest land in 2001. Instead, crews are hired to manually remove competing plants. In B.C., however, forest companies are obligated to spray by provincial government regulation. In Ontario, companies cite Health Canada’s approval.

Indigenous knowledge

Meanwhile, the TEK Elders and other Indigenous groups have been partnering with universities and academics to question and update the science on glyphosate. As Sue Chiblow told me during a phone interview, “there is a huge lack of science on glyphosate,” compared to what Indigenous people have observed in their forest ecosystems.

In November 2019, a two-day workshop titled “Guardians in a Changing World” was hosted by Magnetawan First Nation in partnership with Mount Allison University, York University, and the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

Some four dozen primarily Indigenous participants discussed their concerns and observations about the use of glyphosate in forestry, identifying five key issues:

plant biodiversity and health;
animal biodiversity and health;
movement through the environment and persistence;
human safety and well-being;
and awareness and transparency among the public, government, and industry.

In their follow-up report, scientists Heather Patterson, Ella Bowles and Jesse N. Popp attempted to match these concerns and observations with the existing scientific literature on glyphosate. They found some large gaps in western science.

As Sue Chiblow told me, “we have to wait for the science to catch up with us.”

Some 20 countries have pending legislation to ban glyphosate, and at least four — Austria, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam — have already done so. Canada needs to join them to stop the “rain of death.”

Canadian freelance writer Joyce Nelson is the author of seven books. She can be reached via www.joycenelson.ca

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Ignoring and taunting Indigenous patients is not an inevitable outcome of busy hospitals and overworked staff

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Photo by Ante Samarzija/Unsplash

By Mary Jane Logan McCallum
Christa Big Canoe
Josée G. Lavoie

This week the coroner’s inquest into the September 2020 death of Joyce Echaquan heard from hospital staff about the treatment she received at the Quebec hospital where she died.

One of the arguments presented to explain staff cruelty and Echaquan’s poor medical care was that the hospital was short staffed and lacked resources, and that staff was overwhelmed, overworked and stressed. This line of argument sounds especially compelling in a context of myriad additional pressures on health-care staff as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet this line of argument is not new. As members of the Brian Sinclair Working Group — which works to understand how systemic racism impacts Indigenous people in health-care institutions and beyond — we heard this same logic in explaining Sinclair’s 2008 preventable death in a Winnipeg emergency room. We did not buy it then and we do not buy it now.

Pressures on staff do not produce prejudice: it is there all along. Our research has shown again and again that differential treatment based on prejudice is pervasive throughout all health-care settings regardless of the resources at hand. Professional associations and unions are vitally important voices for standards of care; and yet fail to penalize the racism of their members and make health care safer for Indigenous people.

Likewise, institutions use extreme forms of solidarity (“omerta“) and decoys like “overwork” to distract the public when Indigenous people die of unsafe treatment in their care. In the case of Sinclair we learned that obstructed sightlines, long wait times and a faulty triage system were responsible for staff ignoring a 46-year-old Anishinaabe man while he became sicker and sicker in plain sight, as every other ER patient was treated or left voluntarily.

Thanks to the pressure of Coroner Kamel who rejected the statements of some staff that prejudice simply didn’t exist at Joliette hospital, witnesses eventually gave evidence during the inquest that stereotypes about Indigenous people circulated at the hospital: specifically that Atikamekw patients used drugs and alcohol and took advantage of the health-care system.

We know from our research that assumptions like these in hospital settings lead staff to treat Indigenous patients differently than other patients, including under-treating or over-treating Indigenous patients and classifying them as not deserving of care. Indeed, Joyce’s family members testified about multiple instances where Manawan community members reported complaints related to differential care, well before and since the death of Joyce Echaquan. This is not the inevitable outcome of busy hospitals and overworked staff: rather, we need to confront prejudice, and hold those whose care is informed by prejudice accountable.

Next week, we will be hearing from the hospital’s administrators, who will, we hope, shed light on what was done with the multiple complaints of poor care made by Atikamekw patients. There should be evidence and witnesses who can answer honestly about how the hospital has responded to the prejudice Indigenous people experience — and what they are willing to do to ensure all of their staff can make the necessary cultural change so all patients receive the care they deserve.

Joyce Echaquan’s experience of overt racism cannot be attributed to an isolated incident involving the behaviour of “two bad apples.” Nor can it be acceptable that staff are too busy to meet their professional obligations.

There is a bigger picture. Where individuals are not held accountable and complaints are repeatedly ignored, people will continue to die untimely deaths in hospitals. Expectantly, it would be good if the upcoming testimony explains Echaquan’s cause of death and also explores how the hospital can adopt anti-racist policies and practices.

Hospital administrators are the witnesses who should be able to explain the possibilities for change that will truly prevent similar circumstances to the one that Echaquan experienced.

Recommendations coming out of this Inquest must lead to cultural change within our system and its staff and not simply argue for increasing staff or personnel. Any efforts to reduce workload or increase staff must include ensuring staff are providing fair and equitable health-care services to all patients — and combat the known racism that has been unaddressed for too long.

Mary Jane Logan McCallum is an assistant professor in the history department at the University of Winnipeg.

Christa Big Canoe is legal advocacy director at Aboriginal Legal Services.

Josée Lavoie is a professor with the Department of Community Health Sciences, College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba.

The authors are experts with the Sinclair Working Group.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Everything you need to know about the tar sands and how they impact you

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Each day, our window for saving the climate — and the billions of lives that depend on it — gets a little bit narrower. While people all around the world are taking action, oil companies are trying to light the fuse of one of the world’s biggest carbon bombs.

Deep in western Canada, on lands where Indigenous communities have lived since time immemorial, sit the Alberta tar sands. The tar sands are vast oil fields and mines in the Canadian province of Alberta.

Seen from the sky, the tar sands reach beyond the horizon and seem to go on forever, resembling a painful scar on the Earth of epic proportions. Nearby riverbeds are visible as water levels strain under industrial use. Chemical runoff pools collect in massive toxic lakes that stain the landscape. Lingering in the air above (and in the surrounding communities), there can be a sharp smell like burned tires, causing a searing feeling in the lungs.

Experiencing all this for the first time can be overwhelming and traumatic — even difficult to believe. It’s not what comes to mind when people from around the world imagine Canada’s crystal clear rivers and lakes, the evergreen forests teeming with life, or the breathtaking beauty of popular national parks little more than a stone’s throw from this environmental nightmare.

So what are the oil sands and how big are they?

The tar sands, sometimes called oil sands, are a massive site of oil extraction in Alberta. They cover an area larger than England and are one of the biggest industrial projects on the planet.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10155986794008300

What is tar sands oil and why is it so bad for the environment?

The type of oil in the tar sands is called “bitumen”. It is extremely heavy (like tar) and difficult to extract. Getting it from deep in the ground to the surface can use up massive amounts of water — enough to rival what a small city may use on a daily basis. Even more water and energy is needed to refine it into anything resembling what goes into your gas tank. The amount of climate-polluting greenhouse gases emitted per barrel of tar sands oil can be 30% higher (throughout its life cycle) than conventional oil.

What is the impact of the tar sands on climate change and the boreal forest?

Canada’s oil and gas sector is the largest and fastest rising source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, accounting for 26% of the total. The tar sands are a key culprit. Between 1990 and 2018, tar sands production increased by 456%. The industry’s carbon footprint is greater than New Zealand and Kenya combined.

Nature advocates estimate that the industrial development and wildfires in the tar sands region have cleared or degraded nearly two million acres of boreal forest since the turn of the millennium. This puts vital habitat for birds, caribou and other animals at risk. It’s also a climate issue since the boreal forest is a vital carbon sink.

The world can’t afford to expand the Alberta tar sands, not if we want to preserve this planet for future generations. Current generations are already being impacted by the biodiversity crisis and climate change and its effects on sea level rise, drinking water, disease and extreme weather events.

How do the tar sands violate Indigenous rights, and how are communities fighting back?

Yes. Throughout the years, the tar sands have encroached on Indigenous Peoples’ traditional lands and contaminated the environment and wildlife these communities depend on for their culture and way of life. Tar sands chemicals have further been linked to higher rates of cancer in Indigenous communities and dangerous air pollution.

And the effects of the tar sands don’t stay in Canada. Globally, Indigenous communities and the Global South are on the frontline of climate impacts. In 2017, Indigenous leaders from the Pacific Islands came face-to-face with the tar sands, a culprit in the planetary warming driving rising sea levels, which in turn are having a devastating impact on their homes and families right now. Learn more about their emotional journey in the video below.

Pacific Climate Warriors Visit the Alberta Oil Sands | Resistance

Indigenous Peoples are also leading the resistance against tar sands projects that violate their rights. Roughly 150 Nations have signed a Treaty against Tar Sands Expansion. Groups like Indigenous Climate Action, the Braided Warriors, the Tiny House Warriors and others are resisting pipelines like the Trans Mountain Expansion and forging Indigenous-led solutions.

[Video] Watch Renewables in the heart of the Tar Sands

What are the key projects that would expand the tar sands?

The stakes are high in the tar sands — for the communities and for the world. But instead of slamming on the brakes on expanding operations, Canadian governments are helping industry by stepping on the gas.

Several major oil and gas pipelines, which would cross Indigenous lands without consent, have federal and provincial governments support. Among them are:

Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX): Originally proposed by Kinder Morgan then bought by the Canadian government in 2018, this pipeline would run from Alberta to the Vancouver region, threatening drinking water and bringing increased oil tanker traffic that threaten endangered orca whales. Read more.
Keystone XL: Supported by the Canadian government and cancelled by U.S. President Joe Biden, this TC Energy pipeline would run from Alberta to Nebraska, connecting with another pipeline to transport oil across sensitive aquifers vital for drinking and farming water before reaching the Gulf Coast of Texas. Read more about Indigenous opposition here in Canada and the impacts south of the colonial border.
Line 3: Gas giant Enbridge wants to construct a tar sands pipeline from Alberta to Wisconsin, even though the company is responsible for one of the worst and most expensive inland oil spills in history. The pipeline would go through vital river waters as well as the wetlands and treaty territory of the Anishinaabe peoples. Read more about the fight against Line 3.

Many of these pipeline projects or the companies behind them are funded by private investors, big banks (like Royal Bank of Canada, CIBC and TD Bank), and even Canadian taxpayers in the case of TMX. Read more on why funding pipelines is financially risky.

How can I help stop tar sands pipelines and other expansion projects?

You can take the first step by joining our organization as well as supporting Indigenous-led struggles. Greenpeace activists are taking action in the streets, exercising our right to peaceful protest, signing petitions, meeting with our Members of Parliament and holding corporations accountable. Every day, more and more of us are standing up for climate justice and opposing industry’s attempts to expand oil and gas production. Join us in calling on Canada’s government to defuse one of the biggest carbon bombs on Earth.

Reprinted with permission from Greenpeace, under the CC-BY International License.

Steve MacLellan

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