LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES & CONCEPTS OF JUSTICE Flashcards
How many Indigenous languages are spoken today in Canada?
86
First Nations includes:
Both “status” and “non-status” Indians
Section 35 of the Constitution Act defines aboriginal peoples in Canada as being inclusive of:
Indian, metis, and Inuit
In Inuktitut, “Inuit” means
The people
There are over one million indigenous people in Canada (True or false)
True
The term “First Nations” is synonymous with “Aboriginal peoples”
False
What are some of the issues with a “pan-Indian” means of defining people throughout Canada? (2)
- The problem is that this is a lumped approach that categorizes peoples of many different cultures, languages, and traditions as being one and the same.
- There are many unique Indigenous cultural groups that live in Canada.
Indian Act
this legislation is a collection of “Indian” polices which was written by Euro-Canadian governments to regulate all aspects of “Indian” land and “Indian” identities, without any Indigenous input. It was put in place in Canada as a way to regulate Indigenous peoples out of existence
the various ways of defining and understanding justice
- the achievement of respectful coexistence—restoration of harmony to the network of relationships and renewed commitment to ensuring the integrity and physical, emotional, and spiritual health of all individuals and communities.
- to seek justice is to strive for harmony, balance, and peaceful coexistence
Indigenous (2)
- is a word recognized in the seventeenth century that stems from the Latin root “indigena,”meaning “sprung from the land
- has been used in the international and United Nations context to define peoples in relation to their colonizers
Aboriginal
- used generally “in reference to inhabitants of lands colonized by Europeans.
- a constitutional term, found in the Constitution Act, 1982, which defines Aboriginal peoples as “the Indian, Inuit, and Métis peoples of Canada.
Native (3)
- in the mid-fifteenth century, this term was used to describe a “person born in bondage.”
- In the sixteenth century, “native” was used to describe a “person who has always lived in a place.
- in the seventeenth century with the growth of colonialism; the vernacular came to mean “home-born slave” and its definitional meaning “original inhabitants of non-European nations where Europeans hold political power.
Indian (4)
- exemplifies a historical farce.
- When Christopher Columbus encountered Taíno people in 1492, he incorrectly labelled them “Indians,” thinking he was in the Indies.
- Incidentally, although Columbus claimed to have “discovered” a “new world,” the Americas were already home to 112 million Indigenous peoples
- considered derogatory, especially because Euro-Canadian government systems used it throughout many racist documents, policies, and acts
In Canada, Aboriginal peoples have been mainly classified into four major groupings
- status Indians,
- non-status Indians,
- Métis, and
- Inuit
Status “Indians (2)
- are registered under the Indian Act of Canada.
- Persons who are registered under this act and can confirm their affiliation to a band that signed a treaty are also considered “treaty Indians
Non-status Indians
have Indigenous ancestry but have lost the status of “Indian” granted under the Indian Act or have never received this status.
Métis (2)
- those claiming this identity have a variety of statuses, histories, and cultural and racial backgrounds.
- All Métis have ancestry stemming from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous origins, but they are distinct from individuals claiming some Indigenous ancestry
Both the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan and Alberta define a Métis person as:
one who “self-identifies as Métis, is distinct from other Aboriginal Peoples, is of historic Métis Nation ancestry, and is accepted by the Métis Nation.
provided a legal definition for who is entitled to Métis rights
2003, R. v. Powley
R. v. Powley (2003) case outlined three other factors that must be met for an individual to have rights as a Métis person
- self-identification as Métis,
- an ancestral connection to a historic Métis community, and 3. acceptance by a Métis community
Daniels v. Canada (2013) (3)
- placed Métis and non-status first peoples under federal jurisdiction, which could assist them in future negotiations with the federal government over specific needs and rights.
- Being clearly under federal jurisdiction prevents the federal or the provincial government from using jurisdictional ambiguity to shift responsibility from one level of government to the other
- was about attaining recognition under federal jurisdiction so as to open the door to discussions at that level of government, discussions on the issues, concerns, and needs of Métis and non-status peoples that could now take place on a nation-to-nation basis.
four Inuit regions in Canada
- the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (Northwest Territories),
- Nunavut,
- Nunavik (Northern Québec), and
- Nunatsiavut (Northern Labrador)
ethnic mobility
phenomenon of people changing their ethnic affiliation, say from non-Aboriginal to Aboriginal, from one census to the next
factors that underlie the phenomenon of ethnic mobility (3)
- legislative changes as well as a variety of social factors.
- The legislative amendment to the Indian Act of Canada in 1985 (known as Bill C-31) is a prime example of how legislative changes have influenced people to change their self-reported ethnic identity. 3. It redefined who was entitled to legal Indian status; before 1985, the act had held that a registered Indian woman and her children would lose their legal status if she married a non-status man. By allowing these women and their children to regain “Indian” status, this amendment led to an increase of over 110,000 persons in the total status population between 1985 and 2001
Statistics Canada noted that new procedures will not “provide a level of quality that would have been achieved through a mandatory long-form census (3)
- One problem is that voluntary data collection methods have a lower response rate, and overrepresented among those who tend not to respond are Indigenous peoples, new immigrants, people living in rural areas or small communities, and those with low incomes
- these people, who are often in need of services, are underrepresented in the data, creating what is referred to as “non-response bias
- some First Nation communities did not participate in the survey because “enumeration was either not permitted, it was interrupted before completion, or because of natural events
if people are denied this “Indian” status through the government
They might not be allowed to live in their First Nation community, participate in governance activities, or run for elected office in their First Nation community
