Canada's relationship with First Nations called disgraceful, creating more problems for the future
The following two stories from today's Sudbury Star highlight the struggles and realities that First Nation communities across northern Ontario face on a day-to-day basis.
Conditions for natives 'disgraceful' says former Lt.-governor
Posted By Andrew Low
Ontario's former lieutenant-governor calls the situation among Canadian aboriginals "utterly disgraceful."
James Bartleman spoke at Laurentian University on Tuesday as part of the Xstrata Nickel Memorial Lecture Series. His topic was Civil Society and First Nations education in Northern Ontario.
"The reason that I picked that topic is I think that the greatest crisis affecting Canada, in terms of domestic social justice issues, is the role and place of aboriginal people," said Bartleman before his lecture.
"Despite the fact we are in 2008; despite the fact that we are going around the world, preaching to everybody about how bad they are, about what horrible human rights practices are exercised by people around the world and how badly they treat their minorities, here in Canada, we have a situation which is utterly disgraceful."
Canadian aboriginal reserves rank 63rd in the world under the United Nations human development index, which is on par with parts of Africa, said Bartleman.
"The revenue flows for education and housing and other things are far lower from governments to the First Nations people than to non-First Nations people," he said.
The government provides about $2,000 per student in Northern Ontario communities with a high cost of living, compared to other areas of the province, said Bartleman.
"In the isolated, fly-in communities, 50 per cent of the communities are on boil water advisories," said Bartleman.
"Look what we have in our own country."
He said the problems were due to a failure of government on all levels.
Since the last residential schools closed in the 1980s, the situation has been regarded as a "pain in the neck" by governments, said Bartleman.
"That is the situation we're faced with today - generations of neglect, failed social engineering and underfunding."
During his time as lieutenant-governor from 2002 to 2007, Bartleman collected about two million used books - including some from Sudbury - and distributing them to northern communities. Bartleman also launched a school twinning program, which linked more than 140 aboriginal schools in Ontario and Nunavut with non-aboriginal schools in Ontario.
"I twinned the schools so first nations children would get to know non-native kids - and vice versa - as people rather than as stereotypes," he said.
Bartleman established 36 summer literacy camps in 28 first nations in Ontario's far North that educated about 2,500 students last summer alone.
He also launched Club Amick, a reading club for more than 5,000 children in the region.
"It's something I'm very excited about," he said. "That way, we're able to overcome the poverty gap."
Since current lieutenant-governor David Onley is disabled and finds it difficult to travel to remote communities in Northern Ontario, Bartleman still travels there with Onley's wife, Ruth Ann Onley.
Bartleman is the new chancellor of the Ontario College of Art and Design. He is working with the president to establish a faculty of aboriginal art.
Bartleman also hopes to publicize the effects of the residential school disaster with a novel set in Northern Ontario that tackles issues that arose from the situation.
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Residential schools still impact youth, conference told
Posted By Andrew Low
Aboriginal youth are eight times more likely to end up in custody than non-aboriginal youth, an aboriginal expert told a Sudbury conference Tuesday.
"Aboriginal youth tend to be over-represented - sometimes by as much as 60 per cent higher - than the rest of the population in the justice system," said Brenda Restoule, keynote speaker at the Working with Aboriginal Youth conference.
Restoule is from Dokis First Nation. As a psychologist, she works to improve the wellness of the aboriginal community and educate people on how to improve their relations with the native population.
It isn't just young aboriginal men who are in trouble with the law. More young native women than non-native women are prosecuted by the justice system.
The crimes the aboriginal women commit compared to the crimes non-native women commit are considered more violent, so native women are serving more time than other young women in the justice system, said Restoule.
"It appears they commit more violent crimes because it is being compared to other women," she said.
The reason aboriginals face greater problems with the justice system is due to mental-health concerns, colonialism and substance abuse, said to Restoule.
"What we see within our communities is an over-representation of mental-health concerns," said Restoule.
However, native people don't have overly high rates of mental illness, said Restoule.
She said aboriginal people have higher rates of both first-episode psychosis due to drug use and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The root of the problem lies with residential schools, said Restoule. They taught the children "not to feel, not to think, not to share" and prevented them from learning to deal with problems I the traditional way.
"Parents have been unable to teach their children how to manage daily life stressors," she said. "Our youth are in a position where they are unable to manage their daily lives."
The one-day conference was a joint venture involving the White Buffalo Healing Lodge, the John Howard Society of Sudbury and the Sudbury District Restorative Justice.