Indigenous discrimination still with us: activist
Speaker tells conference Canada still has long way to go in respecting First Nations
When talking about the dark chapters in Canada’s history with Indigenous people, Cindy Blackstock believes one key piece is often missing from discussions: that those chapters are ongoing.
Instead, most Canadians — both Indigenous and non-indigenous — have become used to the inequalities that exist between peoples.
“It’s been so normalized since Confederation that most Canadians don’t know about it ... They were fed a steady diet of stereotypes which led them to believe that not only do First Nations get the same as everybody else, they get bonus things, and they’re still not satisfied,” said Blackstock, who is the executive director of First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and a social work professor at Mcgill University.
“I think it’s a lot easier to think that people that came before you didn’t know as much and that now, in this new day, we’re much more enlightened.”
As the keynote speaker at Whose Settlement? A Conference held at First Nations University of Canada on Thursday and Friday, Blackstock pointed out policies of genocide from the past like residential schools and then linked them to current Canadian policies that perpetuate the same ideologies.
On Sept. 6, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ordered the federal government to compensate thousands of Indigenous children who were taken into care unnecessarily, saying the Canadian government was “wilful and reckless” in its discrimination against Indigenous children living on reserves.
Pointing to the federal government’s decision to appeal the CHRT’S order and some federal policies that she said perpetuate discrimination against Indigenous children, Blackstock encouraged attendees to see colonialism as ongoing.
“First Nations children on reserves get less public funding for every public service than other kids get, and that’s been going on for 112 years ... As a result, children are dying and they are being unnecessarily separated from their families,” she said.
“We no longer have to put up with that. That’s nothing that any other person in this country deals with, and so First Nations children shouldn’t have to deal with it.”
These inequalities among children should not just be accepted as normal life, said Blackstock, adding that nothing is going to change if people don’t stand up for the rights of Indigenous children and call for policy change.
Blackstock advocated for the Spirit Bear Plan, which is a plan created by the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society that aims to end inequality for Indigenous children. It calls for the federal government to address issues like education, health, water and child welfare together in a holistic plan instead of looking at the issue piece by piece, and to comply with all the CHRT’S rulings.
“Our most important job as adults is stand up for kids, and that’s what I’m trying to do in the company of many, many other people ... Now is the time for this country to release its chains of discrimination against children,” she said. “The good news is we have the answers, and all we need to do is implement them.”
Our most important job as adults is stand up for kids, and that’s what I’m trying to do...