Tansi Nîtôtemtik,
- We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with the national Aboriginal organizations, to revise the information kit for newcomers to Canada and its citizenship test to reflect a more inclusive history of the diverse Aboriginal peoples of Canada, including information about the Treaties and the history of residential schools.[1]
This Call to Action for the federal government calls for the inclusion of more information about Canada's treaties with indigenous peoples and the history of residential schools in the Canadian citizenship test to create an understanding of our history within new citizens and combat racism and discrimination.
Many immigrants are not aware or educated on the complex history of Indigenous People and the challenges they have faced (and still face) when first arriving in Canada. There is a lack of understanding of the years of colonization, policies, residential school system, systemic discrimination, and dispossession that has created devastating effects on Indigenous communities. As a result, many newcomers learn negative and damaging stereotypes about Aboriginal people.[2]
On December 10, 2019, on International Human Rights Day, the Environics Institute for Survey Research and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation released the Race Relations in Canada 2019 Survey. This study confirms the reality of racism in Canada and found that immigrants quickly picked up such negative stereotypes after immigrating to Canada.[3]
So, what do new immigrants learn about First Nations, Metis and Inuit? Upon reviewing the “Study Guide – Discover Canada – The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship”, we found the following. In the “Canada’s History” chapter, two small paragraphs show how woefully and sickeningly inadequate a history lesson on Aboriginal people in Canada is:
“The arrival of European traders, missionaries, soldiers and colonists changed the native way of life forever. Large numbers of Aboriginals died of European diseases to which they lacked immunity. However, Aboriginals and Europeans formed strong economic, religious and military bonds in the first 200 years of coexistence which laid the foundations of Canada.”[4]
In the Chapter “Who we are”, there is a tiny mention of treaties and one reference to Residential Schools that is almost casually mentioned:
”Aboriginal and treaty rights are in the Canadian Constitution. Territorial rights were first guaranteed through the Royal Proclamation of 1763 by King George III and established the basis for negotiating treaties with the newcomers— treaties that were not always fully respected. From the 1800s until the 1980s, the federal government placed many Aboriginal children in residential schools to educate and assimilate them into mainstream Canadian culture. The schools were poorly funded and inflicted hardship on the students; some were physically abused. Aboriginal languages and cultural practices were mostly prohibited. In 2008, Ottawa formally apologized to the former students.”[5]
It is hard to read such a gloss-over of the history and harms of the Residential School era that brought such suffering and intergenerational trauma to the original stewards of the land. Canada must do better in providing a deeper understanding to new immigrants if it truly wants to further reconciliation and help to fight negative stereotypes faced by Aboriginal people. Instead of simply indicating that treaties with Indigenous Canadians "were not always respected", let's talk about why these treaties were not respected and the issues created by not respecting them. That would be a step toward reconciliation and teaching new immigrants how they can be a part of the solution.
A promised overhaul of Canada's citizenship guide remained a work in progress back in May 2019. The government said it was revamping the 68-page Discover Canada document, last updated in 2012, to better reflect diversity and to include more "meaningful content" about the history and rights of Indigenous people and the residential school experience.[6] But when is this finally going to be done? Almost 2 years have passed since this proposed “revamping”. This delay is unacceptable.
Canada gets an F on Call to Action #93.
Until Next Time,
Team ReconciliAction
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[1] TRC Calls to Action
[2] The connection between immigrants and Aboriginal people in Canada's mosaic | Canadian Immigrant
[3] Project Details (environicsinstitute.org)
[4] Discover Canada - Canada’s History - Canada.ca
[5] Discover Canada - The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship - Study Guide,discover.pdf
[6] Revamped citizenship guide still a work in progress as election nears | CBC News
