Quick note about this post: I use "indian", "native" and "aboriginal" interchangeably (in writing and speech) and it is not typically on purpose. In each case, I mean someone who is or who identifies as any of those terms or as First Nation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boris2k7
Yeah... not so much in the west. Seeing people from nearby nations sleeping on the street or begging for "bus money" is unfortunately all too common in Calgary, Edmonton, and I assume other prairie cities. This is largely due to proximity... there's two large reserves within a half hour drive of Calgary and another is adjacent to the city (to the point that the city is beginning to grow around the reserve).
|
It isn't that reserves are near the city, it's that there are many more native people per capita in Western Canada than there are in southern and eastern Canada, and the principle cities from Timmins west to Prince George are service centres for the remote First Nations in this part of the country, so these are the cities they go to when they leave their reserves.
Thunder Bay's airport has over 700,000 passengers every year—the fifth busiest in Ontario. A significant percentage of those are made up of the 50,000 native people of Ontario's far north flying in and out of the city for various reasons. We have regular flights to nearly 65 reserves. The reserve beside the city has a population of 900.
Brantford is nearly surrounded by a reserve of 12,000 but has few native people, because that city isn't a service centre for a region containing over 50,000 native people.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
So, this is an honest question, but do aboriginal issues actually occasionally come up during water cooler talk or at dinner parties in Western Canada?
|
It comes up a lot at my work because we get exposed to native issues more often (we're in a heavily aboriginal neighbourhood and we sell products to many aboriginal organizations and to northern reserves on a near-daily basis). For some people, it never comes up, or they don't like to talk about it, but everyone is aware of it.
The city has incorporated a lot of indigenous culture into its policies, we have aboriginal liaisons for nearly every department, important ceremonies are lead with native prayers and smudging, we're about to merge our economic development corporation with that of a neighbouring reserve to take better advantage of possible opportunities. Good or bad, it's an issue that does come up quite often, and I think that makes people a little bit more comfortable to touch on it at dinner parties.
But then the few dinner parties I've been to have involved people working in the public and not-for-profit sector, so we're all a lot more culturally aware and understanding of the issues. And most of us are at least part native. The presence of an Anishnawbe kwe tempers their rhetoric.
At my work we have a lot of middle class suburban white customers and they tend to bring it up randomly and make hateful comments about native people, completely unaware of how much we interact with native people on a regular basis. They also say a lot of terrible things about Kathleen Wynne as I mentioned in the gas prices discussion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hipster duck
FN issues wouldn't come up in casual conversation with non-FN strangers because it's a third rail topic. But that's very different from saying that it's something people are oblivious to.
|
People in Thunder Bay like to randomly touch the third rail.
Quote:
Originally Posted by niwell
Of course when talking about Ontario things are a bit different in the North. Much more varied from my experiences - but definitely heard some interesting... comments on the matter when doing public consultations in small communities. The consultations had absolutely nothing to do with matters related to First Nations so that got a bit awkward.
|
As I said, they love touching that third rail. We have a neighbourhood that rallied against a youth centre that would have been run by a partnership between the city and a native organization, with the excuse of "we're not racist, we just don't want all the noise and cars!", only to stand by silently as an out-of-towner turned it into a Wackys, which is a sports bar/arcade chain that specializes in chicken wings. The abhorred parking and noise issues exist, but they don't complain about them for some reason.
Like, they don't bring them up
at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Much of Northern Ontario is kind of like the Prairies now regarding aboriginal and non-aboriginal relations.
I wonder if things would have been different 20 or 30 years ago, and the issue would have been less in people's faces.
|
My grandmother, an Ojibwe woman, tells of going to Toronto back in the 1970s, and experiencing real racism for the first time there. In Thunder Bay, relationships between white men and native women were common (the inverse, not as much as today), so her marriage with my grandfather was fairly normal by our standards. But in Toronto, that was the first time in her life that she was refused service because of the colour of her skin. Where she was given dirty looks for walking with a white child. It wasn't nasty racism, but it was shocking to her because it didn't really happen here.
Even today, while people generally look down on native people in general, they often overlook them on an individual basis if they know them. I have actual white supremacists in my family who have native "friends", with the excuse "that one's ok, it's the rest I don't like."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Just thinking of where my wife is from, there has been a noticeable difference in the 25 years I've been going to her hometown. When I first went there, there weren't really many more aboriginal people visible than in the Ottawa or Montreal areas. I was actually surprised at how few there were. But since then there has been a lot of migration out of isolated communities towards cities in Northern Ontario. Her hometown is probably 10% aboriginal now. Maybe 15% of the people out and about in town when you count people there temporarily for various services and other requirements, or simply shopping, etc.
|
I live here, and I've always lived around native people so it's just been normal for me, but statistically this does appear true. The native population is growing at a faster rate. Immigration and a high native birth rate are this region's only source of population growth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1overcosc
It should be noted that from an indigenous perspective, this fact is considered irrelevant. Tribes always considered their membership based on spiritual and cultural affinity rather than genetics. In the pre-Columbian days there were plenty of children adopted into other tribes, migrants who moved from one tribe to another, etc. and they were readily accepted as full equals in their new tribe once they integrated into the culture. Being part of the nation had nothing to do with your parentage. Many indigenous people find the blood quantum rules particularly offensive for this reason.
So applying that lens today, a Quebecois who is genetically half-Algonquin wouldn't be considered equivalent to an on-reserve Algonquin who is genetically half-white.
|
And by the same criteria, a fully native person isn't considered as much of an Indian as a half white Indian living on a northern reserve his whole life. There is also a conflict among urban aboriginals between traditionalists (who embrace traditional native teachings) and non-traditionalists, who are just "normal" (or, "assimilated"). But most urban Aboriginals fall in between the two, living "normal" lives while also participating in various aspects of indigenous culture, as many white people do, since aboriginal traditions like prayers, drumming, offerings of tobacco and smudging are being incorporated into local culture. The walk for a woman who was assaulted in my neighbourhood last week featured all of these, and many of the people who turned out to walk were white and they participated to some degree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shreddog
Another thing I have noticed is that people out west appear to showcase native art more in their homes that what I seen in the east. Now I may be biased by the people I hang out with on that one (plus I have lots of native art myself, so I definitely am biased).
|
Thunder Bay's hospital is full of native art and syllabics. So are government buildings, shelters, and community centres. To the point that I've become so accustomed to seeing native art in hospitals and community centres that when I was in Hamilton in November while my mom was having cancer treatment, the lack of native art was conspicuous to me. I'd gotten so used to seeing Woodlands paintings while waiting for her to get out of examination rooms that I didn't realize that woodlands painting isn't part of the cancer treatment process for most people.
It reinforced that I wasn't at home. And that's
why our hospital has those paintings: It serves a large native population, and helping them feel at home helps them recover. Out hospital even serves traditional native food to native patients to assist their recovery.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stryker
To me getting official status is more or less like getting a nerd badge in culture.
I was already interested in the topic, but now all of a sudden I have a rather legitimate reason to get more into a subject.
|
But from the perspective of a non-status partially-native person: why should it take an "official nerd badge" to get you interested in the culture of the people who originally inhabited the land you're living on?
And don't get mad: this is one of those questions we ask at the water cooler.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpongeG
When did they get rid of the rule or law that if a white man married a first nations woman, their kids were denied status, but if a first nations man married a white woman their kids were given status.
Is it really that hard to get?
|
It was struck down in the 1990s. By then, my great grandmother had died, but my family had enough documentation that my grandmother and her children could all get their status. I am one generation too far removed to get Indian Status, but I am eligible for Metis Status. It involves a
lot of paperwork, and can take several years. It's difficult to get status because it does come with various benefits, like additional healthcare for seniors and possibly funding from the reserve you're registered to for things like education and housing, and the government doesn't
really want to pay for those things.
The impression is that people are using it just for sales tax exemptions, but most people I know who got status later in life are using it to access additional health insurance benefits like vision, dental and prescription coverage after the age of 65, as it provides more than OAS or OHIP.