Lynn Gehl (Canadian Museum of Human Rights)

Question 1

What are the two ways Canada denies the Human rights of Indigenous peoples and commits genocide?

Answer 1

1. Land claim policy that forces Indigenous people to cede, release, and extinguish their traditional territories to the nation state
2. Indian act has second generation sut-off rule on Frist Nations, and denies children of unknown and unstated paternity Indian status registration and thus their treaty rights

Question 2

What was the situation with Gehl’s great grandmother Annie? (On status and Identity)

Answer 2

In 1940’s wondering who she was (kicked off reserve and now considered white ppl)

She got married to a white man, and then all her rights as an Indigenous women were denied
- She was now a white woman

BUT! Her husband was actually Indigenous too! Through his mother (but he was denied too cuz not paternal)

Question 3

How do Bands base membership?

Answer 3

On status

Cuz the funding they get from gov’t is based on status members
- She was denied access to the community because she did not fit the status

Question 4

For meeting on land claims, how could they include women?

Answer 4

Having child care offered there

These meetings could go on for months (important to ensure u are getting all perspectives, including mothers)

Question 5

Explain how Indigenous culture was criminalized:

Answer 5

Practicing culture allowed on reserve
-Humans as a species heavily depend on culture (culture: sum total of all the knowledge your ancestors passed down on you)

For Indigenous people: Knowledge moves from body to consciousness
- Prayer and song /dance are medicine

So when you criminalize song, and danse you undermine them

Culture shapes your emotions (culture helps guide you)

Question 6

What in sum is criminalizing someone’s culture:

Answer 6

A human rights violation

Form of genocide (just because ppl are alive, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen)

Question 7

When Genocide was first defined, how was it defined?

Answer 7

He defined it in terms of culture

Said: it has two phases

1. Denial of oppressed groups national pattern
2. Imposition of oppressors national pattern

(This definition is article two in UN)

Question 8

Culture exists on a spectrum, what did Canada do to this?

Answer 8

Narrowed the spectrum

Took away their tools of being a human
- Made them more pitiful (all humans are pitiful - cuz we walked outside of natural law. Need to reengage) (Canadian government took that away)

Question 9

How does land play into it?

Answer 9

1. Canadian government gave away land grants for free to British settlers (Indigenous peoples not allowed to claim, cuz they moved with the weather)
2. Also they’d lose land cuz u still had to pay for taxes
3. Also didn’t get land cuz “they made the land around it undesirable” for the settlers.