For the first time, September 30 is a federal holiday: Truth and Reconciliation Day

This is long overdue. The federal government made this day a paid holiday in the federal sector to be observed as a day of reflection on our relationship with the Indigenous peoples in our communities, provinces and country.

The Nova Scotia Government has committed to making September 30 Truth and Reconciliation Day for provincial workers, but stopped short of making it a paid holiday for everyone.

The first peoples of this land have endured atrocities and hardship throughout their history.  Too often, we are learning about this history of residential schools and the premeditated suppression of languages and customs. Truth and Reconciliation means that we must recognize the land theft and the eradication of much aboriginal history. Truth and Reconciliation means we are finally beginning to face the reality of that history, to stand up to the truth that Indigenous people have always known. It’s been a long time, but Truth and Reconciliation is barely taking hold with much to do to correct the injustices of History. 

Let’s be clear that September 30 is more than a question of becoming a paid holiday. It’s a day to commemorate Truth and Reconciliation. Making it paid will give it much more weight and meaning. What we see in Nova Scotia is a half measure, a sound bite asking people to use the day to recognize how we, the colonizers, can understand the truth and begin to do right on our historical wrongs through recognition by learning and understanding.

On September 30, the Federal government took a small step to make it a paid holiday, to give us all time to reflect on our past, present, and future relationship with Indigenous peoples.

If the provincial government believes in taking bold action, then we say make September 30 a paid holiday for all its workers.

We demand that as a step on the long road to Reconciliation, the government of Nova Scotia take a further step and institute September 30 as a paid holiday for all workers.

Together, we can commemorate Truth and Reconciliation Day as a day of reflection on the historical injustices faced by Indigenous peoples and process true Reconciliation.  It should not be left to employers to decide.

As union members, we know that we can learn much from Indigenous resistance, resilience, diversity, and vibrancy. We aim to create an organization where workers can achieve equality and struggle together, shoulder to shoulder, to build justice.

Danny Cavanagh is president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour

The post Danny Cavanagh: September 30 should be a paid holiday for all appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – As we gradually emerge from a global pandemic, we also find ourselves in the midst of a crucial provincial election. A return to normalcy is still distant for students and young people, and even ‘normal’ was hard for my generation. With the highest tuition in the country, an ongoing housing crisis, and a minimum wage that is nowhere near livable,students in Nova Scotia are facing a return to campus involving many more challenges than just transitioning from online classes. Students understand the gravity of this election — and the opportunity it holds to address the many issues we are facing coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Post-secondary institutions in Nova Scotia already had the highest tuition rates in the country, and then chose to raise tuition twice during the pandemic. For most students, seasonal and entry-level employment are critical to financing their education and living costs. The pandemic has meant losing many of these positions and a loss of housing security especially for those reliant on on-campus housing, forcing students to rely on COVID relief programs and student loans. Although Nova Scotia has a debt forgiveness program, it punishes those who cannot finish their degree within five years, do not finish their program, or choose to study in other provinces.

Since the start of the pandemic, international students have had to deal with these challenges while being excluded from most of the provincial or federal supports available to domestic students. Yet our post-secondary institutions rely on international students paying incredibly high differential fees to keep them afloat, on average charging international students three times what domestic students pay. 

In addition to not receiving financial support, international students are also excluded from provincial healthcare for their first year and have faced challenges accessing COVID testing and vaccines. Due to the constant uncertainty regarding quarantine rules and housing availability, many international students spent the past school year at home, disconnected from community and social support systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined systemic injustices in our society and over the past year, Indigenous and Black-led movements have pushed back against racism and colonialism. These injustices are neither new phenomena nor are they in the distant past for Nova Scotia. As of 2021, Canada has only fulfilled eight of the ninety four Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action. In order to move forward with true reconciliation, Nova Scotia must fulfill all TRC Calls to Action under provincial jurisdiction. In addition to this, the provincial budget, which currently allocates over $151.1 million to policing, could be invested instead in Black and Indigenous community-led initiatives.

Through the Canadian Federation of Students-Nova Scotia’s Vote for the Future campaign, students are putting forward a vision for a sustainable and just COVID recovery. 

This vision includes a commitment to accessible post-secondary education for all students and meeting students’ immediate needs by setting a livable minimum wage and addressing the housing crisis. It also means committing to a just and livable future by fulfilling the TRC 94 Calls to Action, redirecting policing funding towards community-led initiatives, and committing to a just transition away from fossil fuels. 

The road to recovery is paved with difficult decisions. Young people and students make up nearly one-tenth of the Nova Scotia population, with over 55,000 full-time students at post-secondary institutions across the province. Students can help make our ‘back to normal’ a better future for all Nova Scotians by showing up this election to Vote for the Future.

Check out the Canadian Federation of Students – Nova Scotia website with information on how to vote, the issues that matter to students, and the four parties’ responses to a questionnaire.

The post Sydney Keyamo: Vote for the future – The Nova Scotia election and the student vote appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

Unmarked graves of more than 1000 Indigenous children have been detected across Canada and more are expected. Weather permitting, we’re going to mark Canada Day by getting together to read selections from the Truth and Reconciliation Report “What We Have Learned”. Bring yourself; bring a chair or a blanket. Appropriately masked and distanced, let’s learn together.

Larry Haiven, PhD

Professor Emeritus, Saint Mary’s University

Halifax, Nova Scotia, CANADA

The post Media release: On Canada Day, let’s read from the Truth and Reconciliation Report appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

Wellness Within: An Organization for Health and Justice is calling on the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services to follow British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, PEI and most recently, Newfoundland and Labrador, in ending the discriminatory and racist practice of issuing birth alerts for “at risk” parents and their babies. Wellness Within is a registered non-profit organization working to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights for people experiencing criminalization in Nova Scotia. WW works to address discrimination and human rights abuses experienced by all pregnant and birthing people.

A formal review of birth alerts conducted by the province of Manitoba found no evidence to support their use. Child welfare agencies argue that birth alerts are intended to protect the children from inadequate or harmful treatment in the care of their “at risk” birth parents. Young parents, poor parents, Indigenous and racialized parents have been placed on alerts by virtue of their own previous connection to the child welfare system – an experience which, again, was largely inflicted on Indigenous and racialized children by centuries of paternalistic and racist colonial laws and policies.

This is a time of grief and reckoning following the discovery of the bodies of 215 children at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School and 751 unmarked graves at the site of the Marieval Residential School on the Cowessess First Nation. Given the harrowing legacy of residential “school” regime in Canada (schools intended to “kill the Indian in the child”), the impacts of the Sixties Scoop, and continued marginalization of Indigenous peoples, WW asks that Nova Scotia does its part to implement the recommendations put forward in by both the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Specifically, call 231 from the MMIWG Inquiry:

“End the practice of targeting and apprehending infants from Indigenous mothers right after they give birth”. 

And the TRC recommendation, that:

“Indigenous peoples should not be subjected to any act of genocide or violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to another group”.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates children have the right to know and be cared for by their parents. They have the right to health. Forced removal at birth jeopardizes the child’s emotional development and of breastfeeding success. Research has found mothers who have their children removed by child welfare are less likely to seek prenatal care in subsequent pregnancies, associating health services with surveillance and punishment. Mothers who experience child removal also experience increased risk of overdose and death. These risks are higher among Indigenous women. The birth alerts approach clearly does not reduce harms to health.

In Nova Scotia, Indigenous children are removed from their families at a significantly disproportionate rate: 23% of children in care are Indigenous, although only 7% of children in the province are Indigenous. Nova Scotia also has the distinction of being the province with the third-highest rate of child poverty in the country.

We ask that Nova Scotia focusing on adequate pre, peri and post-natal care for all new parents, with special attention and supports made available to parents who may be younger than the average, poorer than the average, with culturally safe supports for Indigenous, African Nova Scotian or otherwise racialized families.

Wellness Within knows well the impacts that removals and family separations have on parents, children, and society at large. We ask that birth alerts are ended immediately, and enhanced supports are made available to help marginalized parents with their pregnancies, birth, and parenting experiences.

Wellness Within  

PO Box 34007 Scotia Square  Halifax NS B3J3S1  

https://wellnesswithinns.org/ @WWHealthJustice

The post Media release: End the discriminatory and racist practice of issuing birth alerts for “at risk” birth parents and their babies appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – Canada Day has taken on a somber hue of late. In Halifax, mayor Mike Savage, normally a booster for all civic events, in a subdued voice told the media that due to Covid concerns, celebrations for Canada Day would be cancelled. Brynn Budden, Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) spokesperson, said, “Traditional Canada Day events were not planned as a result of COVID-19 public health restrictions.” Instead HRM encourages residents “to use this day to reflect on our shared history and collectively recommit to a stronger future built upon meaningful reconciliation efforts with Indigenous peoples.”

Of course at the heart of Canada Day 2021 is that not one HRM Councillor has spoken publicly about the 1000 plus children’s graves found on former residential school sites in western Canada– hence the inappropriateness of festivities on  Canada Day.

Still Canada Day is one of the six precious public holidays in Nova Scotia, which means a day off work for people. 

Here’s what you need to know:   

All large retail stores and most other businesses must close on July 1, for Canada Day. Canada Day is designated ‘retail closing day.’ 

For many Nova Scotia workers, Canada Day is a general and paid holiday, a statutory holiday in some provinces. If you are a union member, working under a collective agreement, you get paid for the holiday. However if you work in nearly 70% of businesses and offices in Nova Scotia which are not unionized, here are the rules.  You should get paid for the day if you worked 15 of the last 30 calendar days. You also must have worked your last scheduled shift just before the holiday, and your first scheduled shift right after the holiday. If you did not work the day before, or after because you had a sick day or a vacation day, you should still get paid for Canada Day.  

If your employer is a bar, gas station, restaurant or tourist operation which is open on July 1, and you work that day, you are entitled to your normal pay for the day, plus time and one half for every hour you do work on July 1.   

However if you work on a farm, in real estate, if you sell cars or work on commission, if you work on a fishing boat —  you don’t get the holiday with pay.

Judy Haiven is on the steering committee of Equity Watch, an organization that fights discrimination, bullying and racism in the workplace.  Contact her at equitywatchns@gmail.com

See also: On Canada Day, let’s read from the Truth and Reconciliation Report

The post Judy Haiven: Canada Day 2021 – will you get paid? appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

One might think that  the “Truth and Reconciliation Process”, process for short, regarding Residential Schools would be the start towards a healing process. But how can we reconcile if one of the largest contributors to the abuse that occurred in Residential Schools will not take full responsibility for its part? 

If we as lawyers are to truly help find some type of reconciliation, then we must revisit the truth aspect, not in terms of the survivors’ tales since that has already been explored, but in terms of the process afterwards. If we are to look at the truth, then it is important to share the truth surrounding the Catholic Church’s role in this entire process.

For so long many First Nations people have dedicated their lives to the Catholic Church, and many have even devoted tens of thousands of dollars from their own personal savings to the Church. If we consider the First Nations as an entity, combined then its community members have made tens of millions of dollars in contributions to the Church over the years. In light of this fact, I feel it is important that much of this truth needs to be expressed. It is important to note that this paper is not an attempt on my part to kill people’s faith in the Church. I am only trying to convey a message to the mentality of those actors who played their role in the Churches’ defense during the process. 

That being said, this paper is about sharing the truth and if we are going to move forward in any kind of reconciliation process then this truth must be known. I will explain it in a timeline manner. This truth will be called “The Catholic Church Math”, which was articulated to my third year law school class by Mike DeGagné of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Many of the facts presented in this paper I credit to Mike DeGagné.

During the process the Courts, along with all parties involved, needed to discover who was at fault. This is important from a legal aspect since in any tort action there needs to be found fault once any damages are determined. 

In the early stages a few of the churches involved with running Residential Schools immediately accepted the responsibility for their part. These churches included the Presbyterians, the Mennonites and the Jesuit’s. The problem is that these churches only represent a small part of all those who operated the Residential Schools. In fact, over 70% of all Residential Schools in Canada were run by the Catholic Church.

When the process first started the Canadian Government was focused on the truth part, what happened and who was responsible. Countless Residential School Survivors were forced to relive their Residential School experiences to prove there were damages created by Residential School. 

To determine who was at fault the argument was left between the Canadian Government, which implemented the Residential Schools, and the churches that ran them. Neither side wanted to take full responsibility. So the lawyers on both sides came to an agreement that since the government implemented the policies that created Residential Schools, the government would accept 70% of the responsibility, leaving 30% of the responsibility with the Churches themselves.

Since the Catholic Church ran 70% of the Residential School in Canada, it would only seem logical that the Catholic Church would be responsible for 70% of the compensation arising out of the damages Residential School Survivors sustained. 

Since this compensation would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars the Catholic Church argued their case. They brought in their fancy lawyers from the Vatican who argued that the Catholic Church as an organization did not exist in Canada. Even though the Vatican is one of the richest organizations in the world and have amassed trillions and trillions of dollars over the years, the Catholic Church refused to pay any compensation to First Nations Residential School Survivors. Instead the Church left the blame to fall on the small components or entities of the Catholic Church that operated within Canada. The Vatican then shielded itself from these entities by insisting that these entities operated outside the church so therefore the Vatican was not responsible for the actions committed by these entities. 

Even though these so-called Catholic Church entities in Canada are controlled by the Vatican and send the majority of their money to the Vatican the Vatican insist they operate outside the Church. Basically what the Catholic Church did was cut off their arm to save the body knowing that these entities in Canada would end up bankrupt before they could pay any substantial compensation to the Residential School Survivors.

Since the Vatican freed themselves of any damages suffered by First Nations people in Canada, any compensation would therefore have to come from these so called Catholic Church entities. After much debate the Catholic Church entities in Canada argued down their contribution to the compensations for damages, and in the end the Catholic Church entities agreed that they would pay $70 million in compensation to the Residential School Survivors. The Federal Government stated that the Catholic Churches contribution of $70 million should go to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. This $70 million would go towards the healing aspect of the process. 

$70 millions – $20 million (In Kind Contribution) = $50 million

However, before paying any of the $70 million the Catholic Church argued that $20 million should come off the top for any and all services that were already provided by the Catholic Church across Canada since the Residential schools closed. These services, the Church argued, included funerals, baptisms, first communions, Sunday service, bible study classes, weddings etc., services that the Catholic Churches would have provided anyways. However, the Church now wanted to be compensated $20 million dollars for all the work they provided within Aboriginal communities across Canada. The Catholic Church called this $20 million, “In Kind Contribution!” This was accepted by the Court and therefore left $50 million of the original $70 million the Catholic Church had to pay to Residential School Survivors.  

$50 million – $20 million (best effort) = $30 million

Next the Catholic Church argued that they should have an opportunity to raise $20 million of the $50 million and promised they would make their best effort to raise the $20 million dollars. This was titled “Best Effort” and was accepted by the Court. However, the problem with this is that the Catholic Church’s entities in Canada have a hard time raising even one million dollars, let alone $20 million. 

80% of the money that is raised by these Catholic Church entities through contributions and/or fund raising etc. has to go straight to the Diocese. The Diocese is basically the administration part of the Church run by Bishops, who in turn send a majority of the money they receive straight to the Vatican. Even though the Vatican argued the Catholic Church did not exist in Canada and left blame to the Church entities, the Vatican still continues to collect money from these entities. In the end zero dollars of this so-called “Best Effort” $20 million dollars were raised by the Church and thus sadly the Catholic Church never paid one single dollar of this $20 million of $70 million dollars they agreed to pay to the Residential School Survivors. 

$30 million – $8 million (Previous Court Settlements) = $22 million dollars

Of the remaining $30 million the Church argued that $8 Million dollars needed to come off the top for previous court settlements that resulted when private individuals took the Catholic Church to court for wrongs that they as individuals suffered in Residential Schools prior to the class action lawsuit. 

$22 million – $6 million (Future Services) = $16 million

Now of this $22 million the Catholic Church argued that 20% needs to go to any future services the Catholic Church may provide for First Nation communities in Canada. These future services include funerals, baptisms, first communions, Sunday service, bible study classes, weddings etc. Although these services are services the Catholic Church would have provided anyways, the Catholic Church wants to be prepaid for these services they may provide. Furthermore, the Catholic Church wanted to have these so called future services subtracted from what they had to pay to Residential School Survivors, despite the fact that these services are paid for by the First Nations themselves since many community administrations include Church services within their budget. So even though the Catholic Church would receive payment for their future services through contributions made to them by First Nations, the Court allowed this 20% deduction from the remaining $22 million. 

So here is the math. 20% of $22 million is $6 Million that will come off the top for future services the Church may provide in the future even though they provide these services anyways. 

More legal skirmishes

After all these deductions, only $16 million dollars was left from the initial $70 million that was supposed to go to the Aboriginal Healing Process to help with the healing process of Residential School Survivors. However, before the Catholic Church handed over any of the remaining $16 million, the Church demanded that they have representatives on the board of the Aboriginal healing Process. These representatives, the Catholic Church argued, should have control over where the money is spent or where it is allocated. The Aboriginal Healing Process refused this demand, but stated that they would allow the representatives from the Catholic Church to sit on their Board. Moreover, the Aboriginal Healing Process would decide where the money is spent. 

In response, the Catholic Church refused to pay any of the remaining $16 million of the original agreed $70 million to the Aboriginal Healing Process. The Catholic Church started campaigning other Indigenous organizations across Canada, offering the $16 million dollars to any organization that would allow the church to control where the money was spent. 

Most of the Aboriginal organizations refused the Church’s offer. Finally the Assembly of First Nation (AFN) under Phil Fontaine agreed to accept the $16 million under the Catholic Church’s terms. However, Phil Fontaine resigned before AFN could receive the $16 million and when Shawn Atleo became National Chief he immediately reneged on AFN’s previous agreement and refused to accept the $16 million. Instead, Shawn Atleo openly insisted that the $16 million must go to the Aboriginal Healing Process. When the Church again refused, the Canadian Federal Government finally intervened and forced the Catholic Church to pay the Aboriginal Healing Process. 

However, the Catholic Church only paid $14.4 Million and kept $1.6 million. The Church insisted this $1.6 million was for administration cost. After evidence came in showing the Church lied, the Courts stepped in and forced the Catholic Church to pay the remaining $1.6 million. Finally, in December 2015 the Catholic Church paid the remaining 1.6 million.

So out of the $70 million the Catholic Church agreed to pay the Aboriginal Healing Process for the wrongs suffered by Residential School Survivors in the Catholic run Residential School in Canada, the Catholic Church only paid $16 million dollars to help with the healing process, even though 70% of all Residential Schools were run by the Catholic Church and 70% of all harms suffered by Aboriginal people in Residential Schools in Canada were attributed to the Catholic Church.

Some final thoughts

So in light of all these facts presented in this paper, how are we as lawyers supposed to aid in any reconciliation process if we cannot even hold those responsible for the wrongs accountable? 

70% of all Residential Schools in Canada were run by the Catholic Church, so a majority of the abuse suffered by Residential School Survivors were at the hands of the Catholic Church. Yet in the end the Church compensated the least amount towards the Residential School survivors. Moreover, there was no compensation to the adult children of these survivors nor towards the much larger impact Residential Schools have had on Indigenous people, such as the loss of culture, language and tradition. Moreover, the continued cycles of abuse and addictions plaguing First Nation Communities across Canada are also the result of Residential Schools.

So much has been lost as a result of Residential Schools and the major player that caused this loss was not held fully accountable for its role in this. If we are to move forward in finding any real reconciliation then those accountable should be held accountable. Moreover, the Courts themselves need to stop trying to place a monetary value on such things as Culture, Language, and Identity. These are the things that define an Indigenous person of who they are and where they come from. Such a loss could be illustrative to your arms and legs, because culture and language are just as much part of an Indigenous person as an arm or a leg is. But yet the courts are able to find a monetary value on the loss of limbs. Where is our compensation for lost Culture, Language and Identity? 

No amount of money can bring back many of the losses experienced by Indigenous people as a result of Residential School. However, compensation must be sufficient to provide healing, not just for Residential School survivors but for the generations that continue to suffer from the generational impact of Residential Schools. Perhaps then we can find the right path to reconciliation.

Michael William McDonald is a lawyer from Sipekne’katik First Nation

See also: Weekend video: Magit’s doll

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The post Catholic Math: Truth and Reconciliation and the Catholic Church appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

Honourable Kelly Regan, Minister Department of Community Services

8th Floor, Nelson Place
5675 Spring Garden Road
P.O. Box 696
Halifax, NS
B3J 2T7
DCSMIN@novascotia.ca

February 26, 2020 

Dear Minister Regan, 

Women’s Wellness Within (WWW) is a registered non-profit organization in Nova Scotia that provides support, education and advocacy with criminalized women who are pregnant or parenting young children. WWW has become a leading voice for reproductive justice in Nova Scotia. 

WWW is calling on the Nova Scotia Department of Community Services to follow British Columbia and Manitoba in ending the discriminatory and racist practice of issuing birth alerts for “at risk” mothers and their babies. In this province we are apprehending Indigenous children at a significantly disproportionate rate: 23 per cent of children in care are Indigenous, while Indigenous Nova Scotians comprise only 6 per cent of the population at large. 

Child welfare agencies argue that birth alerts are intended to protect the children from inadequate or harmful treatment in the care of their “at risk” birth mothers. Young mothers; poor mothers; racialized mothers have been placed on alerts by virtue of their own previous connection to the child welfare system – an experience which, again, was largely inflicted on Indigenous and racialized children by centuries of paternalistic and racist colonial laws and policies. 

Given the legacy of residential schools in Canada (schools intended to “kill the Indian in the child”), the impacts of the 60s Scoop, and continued marginalization of Indigenous peoples, WWW asks that Nova Scotia does its part to implement the recommendations put forward in by both the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Specifically, call 231 from the MMIWG Inquiry: 

“End the practice of targeting and apprehending infants from Indigenous mothers right after they give birth”. 

And the TRC recommendation, that: 

“Indigenous peoples should not be subjected to any act of genocide or violence, including forcibly removing children of the group to another group”. 

We ask that Nova Scotia joins BC and MB in focusing on adequate pre, peri and post-natal care for all new mothers, with special attention and supports made available to mothers who may be younger than the average, poorer than the average; with culturally sensitive and targeted supports for Indigenous, African Nova Scotian or otherwise racialized families. 

Women’s Wellness Within knows well the impacts that apprehensions and family separations have on women, children and society at large. We ask that birth alerts are ended immediately and enhanced supports are made available to help marginalized parents with their pregnancies, birth, and parenting experiences. 

Sincerely, 

Martha Paynter

Chair, Women’s Wellness Within

womenswellnesswithinns@gmail.com 

cc. Dr. Krista Jangaard, President & CEO, IWK Health Centre, Krista.Jangaard@iwk.nshealth.ca

Women’s Wellness Within encourages readers to use this letter to write individually.  Follow WWWW on Facebook / Twitter: @withinwomens

With a special thanks to our generous donors who make publication of the Nova Scotia Advocate possible.

The post Letter to Minister Kelly Regan: End the practice of birth alerts appeared first on Nova Scotia Advocate.

The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls has found that Canada committed genocide, which it defines as a series of ongoing interconnected legal and social truths about

state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies, built on the presumption of superiority [over Indigenous Peoples], and utilized to maintain power and control over the land and the people by oppression and, in many cases, by eliminating them.[1]

Today, my work is set in this context of the truth of genocide. It is also set against the backdrop of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) mandate to “reveal to Canadians the complex truth about the history and ongoing legacy of the church-run residential schools.”[2]

I have come to learn that my privilege has been built on genocide and the complex truth and legacy of residential schools, which hinged on the systemic exclusion of Indigenous and other marginalized peoples from educational systems, including academia. I understand my self-interrogation as obliging me to work with, and alongside, Indigenous Peoples to understand this “complex truth” of residential schools. This, it seems to me, must include critiquing and problematizing aspects of the TRC’s work.

The TRC’s gathering of survivor stories provided a crucial corrective to scholarship that overemphasized official policies and neglected perspectives of Indigenous Peoples. Still, silences remain. As Ronald Niezen (2013) points out in Truth and Indignation: Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools, the TRC’s focus on front-line elements of the institutions, namely churches and ecclesiastical staff, presents the Government of Canada as a neutral player, which could not be further from the truth. Moreover, by treating day and residential schools as separate entities, setting aside an assessment of the former, and largely ignoring the relationship between the two, the TRC disassociated residential school policy from a critique of the role of state power. I think it is important – and morally imperative – to document and understand more fulsomely how the Government of Canada guided and perpetuated residential schools.

On a macro level, the Shubenacadie Residential School was, as Karen Murray shows in her 2017 article “The Violence Within: Canadian Modern Statehood and the Pan-territorial Residential School System Ideal,” created to undermine Indigenous sovereignty in the Maritime Provinces. Throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, Ottawa sought to tighten control over Maritime Indigenous Peoples and their territories by selling “surplus” reserved land, relocating Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik, and undermining their access to fish and game resources through resource regulations.

Indigenous Peoples pushed back, however. In the 1920s, Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik mounted legal challenges to the federal government’s efforts to erode their treaty rights. In that same decade, they fought against forced relocations, one of the best-known examples of which is the Mi’kmaq’s refusal to leave the King’s Road reserve in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

While these court challenges failed, and the Mi’kmaq were compelled to leave King’s Road, these refusals nevertheless worried authorities in Ottawa. In this, the timing of the opening of the Shubenacadie Residential School in 1930 is telling. It can only be seen as an effort to deflate Indigenous Peoples’ resistance in the region.

Deeper understanding of Canada’s objectives in setting up residential schools and the techniques used to that end, are decipherable in connections between residential and Day Schools, including with respect to the Shubenacadie Residential School. And yet, the TRC gave little attention to these linkages.

The 1930 opening of the Maritime provinces’ residential school at Shubenacadie occurred as part of the “second wave” of the system’s development. Until then, there was a long-established policy orientation within the Department of Indian Affairs to focus on the Canadian west. Nicholas Flood Davin had his sights on that region when he advised John A. Macdonald to develop a system of residential schools to ensure the “domestication” of thousands of Indigenous People via the incarceration of their children. For forty years, the federal “Indian” policy in the Maritimes was geared to relegating the two Indigenous groups Ottawa recognized, the Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik, to small (and ever-shrinking) reserves. The Peskotomuhkati, whose territory spanned the presumed legal border separating the New Brunswick-United States, were entirely unacknowledged by Ottawa. This territorial sequestering and invisibility underscores that the national government was, until the twentieth century, largely unconcerned with Indigenous Peoples in the Maritimes.

Federal Day Schools were established after Confederation, with 22 in operation in the Maritimes by World War I. These Day Schools were a second track of federal schooling that operated alongside residential schools. Both of these types of school were part of the genocidal project that continues in settler-colonial Canada.

The similarities and linkages between these schools are revealing. Both operated according to a calendar that undermined seasonal mobility around resources that was culturally important and requisite to families’ survival. Both were infused by strong Christian overtones, reinforcing the tradition of Roman Catholicism in Maritime Indigenous communities. A very few Maritime Day Schools in the early twentieth century were staffed by Indigenous teachers who taught in their own languages. This was the exception. Much more typically, Day Schools, like the residential school, operated in the English language in a purposeful attempt to sever Indigenous children from their mother tongues and cultures. Apart from the Indigenous teachers who held positions at a handful of Day Schools, instructors were poorly qualified. The Sisters of Charity, who taught at the Shubenacadie Residential School, were untrained and unsalaried. Most Day School teachers were hired precisely because they had achieved lesser qualification and thus commanded smaller salaries. For the few Indigenous teachers at Day Schools, their indigeneity factored into their low wages.

Corporal discipline prevailed at the Day Schools and the residential school, although children attending Day Schools could escape the violence inflicted on them when they returned home to their families at the end of the day. Spending nights at home also allowed children to maintain language and kinship ties which were anathema to the genocidal project.

Given this violence it sounds trite to say that academics were substandard. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that federal Day Schools ended at sixth grade, compared to provincial government schools for non-Indigenous students which continued to grade eight. The Shubenacadie Residential School operated on a half-day system which saw children spend more time in manual labour than in the classroom. So-called success at the residential school was measured not by academic attainment, but by children’s capacity to engage in physical labour. In both the residential and day schools, the poor physical condition of school buildings compromised children’s health and well-being.

These observable similarities went hand-in-hand with linkages between the Day Schools and the residential school. In the Maritimes (and possibly in other parts of the country) Ottawa used its control over both systems to ensure the expansion of residential schooling. Residential schools were a much more aggressively assimilative model and also more amenable to Canada’s ultimate quest to undermine Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik sovereignty by eradicating Indigenous Peoples. In this light, it is significant that federal officials justified the “need” for the Shubenacadie Residential School by stressing the poor conditions and shortcomings of its own Day Schools, which of course Ottawa created and maintained. For example, the Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, the notorious Duncan Campbell Scott, explained that the boarding out option would fill gaps in the region’s educational opportunities. “[M]any Indian children,” he said, “live too distant from Indian or public schools to attend regularly.”[3] That one of the goals was to close Day Schools was clear when a teacher at the day school at Sipekne’katik (one of the largest reserves in the Maritimes located near where the new residential school would be established) was told by Indian Affairs that “the future of the day school [would] be uncertain after the Indian Residential School is in operation.”[4]

Not surprisingly given this context, after the residential school launched, funding for Day Schools stagnated and then dried up while federal funding came to exclusively be channeled into the Shubenacadie Residential School. In the 1920s, for example, Day Schools spending amounted to an average of $1,860 each year. After 1930, the year that the residential school opened, funding fell precipitously to an average of $418 each year. Throughout the 1930s, the residential school received nearly $80,000 more than the then 22 Maritime Day Schools combined.[5] Day Schools would continue to operate, but with fewer resources.

Many Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools against their families’ wishes. However, some parents were favourable to the residential “option” because they were misled to see it as a better alternative to Day Schools. This view was promoted in federal propaganda that celebrated the boarding-out option while denigrating the Day Schools, where languishing conditions reinforced the message. The federal government encouraged these logics as it engineered and then publicized substandard conditions at the Day Schools while simultaneously promoting the residential school as an “Indian College.” The chimerical option presented to Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik was, as Chrisjohn, Young and Maraun have put it, “between bad education and no education at all.” [6] This helps to explain why, in 1938, parents at Lennox Island (on Prince Edward Island) asked Ottawa to “take steps to have all [their] children placed under the care of the school at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia.” The request was no endorsement of the boarding-out option. Rather, it reflected the recognition that there were problems with the “manner in which [the local day] school [was] being conducted.”[7] Seven years later, children were still leaving Lennox Island to attend the residential school, but by then perceptions appear to have changed, doubtless reflecting amassed knowledge about the violence of the residential institution. In 1945, for instance, the PEI Indian Superintendent J.E. Daly noted that approximately twenty students who “might well be going to [the] school on the Reserve [if there] were accommodation for them” were, instead, being shipped to Shubenacadie.[8]

This cursory examination of the origin of the Shubenacadie Residential School in relation to the region’s Day Schools reveals the importance of delving further into how the authority of the Canadian state was deployed to generate and sustain residential schools as a tool of undermining Indigenous sovereignty. As I have learned more about the connection between the residential school at Shubenacadie and the Day Schools, I have come to understand that the “complex truth about the history and the ongoing legacy” of residential schools requires more attention be paid to the broader political context in which the residential school system was fashioned and sustained by the federal government. This, of course, points towards the genocidal context within which the system was established and endured.

Martha Walls is an Associate Professor of History at Mount Saint Vincent University.

This article was originally published on ActiveHistory.ca, a website that connects the work of historians with the wider public and the importance of the past to current events. This article is part of Active History’s open ended series on education “after” residential schools. Republished with the author’s kind permission.  

See also: Weekend video: Magit’s doll

[1] National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. (2019). Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report on the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Volume 1A, p. 54. Retrieved from https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Final_Report_Vol_1a.pdf

[2]Canada, 2015. Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, p. 17. http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Findings/Exec_Summary_2015_05_31_web_o.pdf

[3] Duncan Campbell Scott to J.L. Ilsley, 1 March 1929. Library and Archives Canada (LAC), RG 10, vol. 6054, file 265-1, part 1.

[4] A.F. Mackenzie to Mrs. A King, 15 May 1928. LAC, RG 10, vol. 6052, file 260-8, part 1.

[5] Martha Walls, “‘part of that whole system’: Maritime Day and Residential Schooling and Federal Culpability.” Canadian Journal of Native Studies 30 No. 2 (2012): 361-385.

[6] Roland Chrisjohn, Sherri Young and Michael Maraun. The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada (Madison: Theytus Books, 2006): 131.

[7] Petition of Lennox Island to Department of Indian Affairs, 11 July 1938, LAC, RG 10, vol.6059, file 270-1, part 2.

[8] J.E. Daly, Quarterly Report, 30 September 1945, LAC, RG 10, vol. 6059, file 270-1, part 2.

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KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – I know racial prejudice persists in our time. I encounter racism often. Yet, it still shakes me. It catches me by surprise, particularly when it comes from spaces least expected; although, in my head I know, racism is not confined to specific places or particular contexts. Racism manifests itself in every sphere of daily life: in playgrounds, in schools, workplaces, hospitals, the courts, at professional conferences, and other sites of human activity. To survive it, I try to start every day anew. I read about it to understand its dynamics, and sometimes I write about it and share my experiences.

In my experience, racism in Canada is expressed more subtly than what I have experienced in Guatemala, the country where I was born. Here, for instance, im/migrant and racialized women are more likely to be politely not granted a job, not allowed to climb the employment ladder (1). They are more likely to be politely excluded from social activities. In sum, they are often excluded from Canada’s social, economic, and political life.

Given this context, it is understandable why I was so taken aback to hear someone use the term “savage”, so nonchalantly, as an unchecked part of her cultural vocabulary a few weeks ago at the Canadian Association of Midwives (CAM) conference held here in Halifax. 

I was there to meet a former professor and to buy some books on mothering. I am passionate about exploring what I have termed cross cultural mothering and deconstructing motherhood.

As I walked through a hallway to find my former professor, I passed by a coffee table that was being set up for the afternoon break. There were two conference participants helping themselves to refreshments. I was a step away from them, when one of them turned around to the person setting up and jovially apologized to the hotel employee for not waiting until the break to get their refreshments. She “justified” their actions because: “we are savages”.

I was paralysed. For a second, I debated whether to forget about this colonial encounter and keep walking. But my body was quicker, turning ninety degrees to face the coffee table and in taking one step to the coffee maker. For a second, I debated whether I should call her on her choice of word, but before I could get a word out, the “unaware” aggressor was “long” gone. 

I had been silenced by this racist onslaught and afraid to say anything. As I often do in similar circumstances, I drew courage from my inner feminist killjoy (a term I borrow from the British- Australian feminist Sara Ahmed) and said: “I am always surprised by how some people use terms like ‘savage’…”. I don’t recall if I finished the sentence, but the conference participant agreed that the term is often used without considering its origins. I felt validated. Sadly, I do not recall her name to honor her here, but we did introduce each other and then departed ways. I left a wounded self-advocate.

Back at my desk, I could not concentrate, so I began writing this article. Four hours later, I left an unfinished article and took the evening off. My husband and I watched an entertaining show and went to bed. As I put my head on the pillow, I was overcome with emotion by the persistent colonial gaze: the interpellation of indigenous, Black, brown racialized subjects as “unruly” and “wild” who need to be tamed and made “civil” through religious indoctrination, institutions like residential schools; the over-policing, surveillance, and control of their bodies (particularly those of women through sterilization practices) and communities; the dismissal or double standard concerning acceptance of traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge by Western science, etc. In short, I was overcome by that narrative that would influence violent expansion across the Americas and continues to affect Indigenous lives to this day, including our socio-psychic space.

Historical documents tell the narrative of the colonial construct of a “civilized” subject and the “savage” “other” to back imperial conquest. While it has long been acknowledged that race is a social construction; race continues to operate as a principal identity at local and national levels. And the impact of racism is felt at a personal level, on local communities, nation-states and the global system.

Recently, while we as Canadians are on the road of reconciliation with First Nations, among other things, by implementing the TRC’s call to action, we are also witnessing the new rise of white supremacy. This deeply concerns many of us, but the fact is that racism maintains its continuities with its past every day. 

For instance, images of the “Other”, that “strange”, “exotic”, “incomprehensible ‘savage’ creature”, often feared, abhorred while in some ways also envied, admired and desired, have run as a constant racist thread through the European past. Often unconsciously, these images continue to be invoked in the present in mundane affairs.

My emotional response to such a punch line is not merely an issue about my individual, personal sensitivities. It is the effect of inhabiting the social and psychic landscapes of Europe’s “Others”. What she said felt real and became part of my reality, precisely because she reiterated a colonial stereotype: an inferiorised collective subject through the word “savage”. 

As Canadians, we have the choice to call people on their racist behaviour and unconscious biases. Or like co-anchor Rob McLean did, we can choose to nod along someone like Don Cherry uttering xenophobic or racist sentiments.

Writing this article is a response to such enunciation.  It is a response to the TRC call to action (45.i) to repudiate concepts used to justify European sovereignty over Indigenous lands and people and, I add, our dehumanization.

(1) – Yax-Fraser, Maria Jose and Lori Root (2016) Gender Based Analysis Plus Needs Assessment: Moving Up Underemployment of Professional Immigrant Women.

Note: With a special thanks to Fazeela Jiwa and Judith Meyrick for providing comments on a draft of this article. The title of this article is the result of Fazeela’s suggestions. 

See also: Countering white disbelief with historical knowledge: Racism and racial profiling in Nova Scotia

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KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – Though Canada is filled with amazing people, there are “sleeper supremacists” with a hatred of the other.  These include teachers, judges and police officers, said Dr. Pam Palmater, a Mi’kmaq lawyer, author, and social justice activist from Eel River Bar First Nation in New Brunswick.

“While the US has a white supremacist problem, we have sleeper ones,” she said.

Dr. Palmater spoke at the annual fundraiser for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Nova Scotia. Sponsored by the Mount St Vincent Faculty Union and held at the Mount, more than 225 people attended the gala on Friday, November 2nd.

Dr. Palmater has been active in First Nation issues for over 25 years on a wide range of topics such as socio-economic conditions, Aboriginal and treaty rights, and legislation impacting First Nations. Her books, Indigenous Nationhood: Empowering Grassroots Citizens  and Beyond Blood: Rethinking Indigenous Identity, focus on Indigenous law, politics, and governance. A specialist in Indigenous law, Dr Palmater currently holds the Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Her talk, Reconciliation off the Rails:  Where are we going wrong?, challenged the audience in a number of important ways. “We are running to do good stuff, but we haven’t done the hard stuff,” she said.

So far, Reconciliation seems to be one-sided—done by Indigenous people. Dr. Palmeter urged the audience to remember that thousands of Mi’kmaq lost their lives due to priests, police, residential schools and racism.  But will Canada stop doing this?

Dr. Palmater views Reconciliation like an apology. Though no one is forced to give one, it has to be a real apology.  Not only do we have to stop doing what we are doing, but we have to list what we will do to make amends. “We’re missing the Truth part, we’re missing the justice part of Reconciliation,” she noted. “There is a sad truth, what Canada did was physical, biological and cultural genocide – as noted in the Truth and Reconciliation Report.”

“We have to acknowledge the scalping bounties, even after the Indigenous people promised to live in peace and friendship.  We have to acknowledge that young Mi’kmaq girls were put on ships as sex slaves. We have to acknowledge the forced sterilization of girls and women—without their knowledge and consent.  Often sterilization was the price women had to pay if they wanted their children back from foster care or social services, especially in Manitoba and Saskatchewan,” she said.

The sixties scoop was not relegated to kids in the 1960s – it has affected their children and grandchildren, as they too have ended up in foster care. “Indigenous kids are four times more likely to be sexually assaulted by foster parents than by their own parents.  We are 5% of the population, yet we have the highest percentage of children in foster care. In Saskatchewan 90% of the kids in foster care are Indigenous. It seems once a child is born, he or she is gone. We also have the highest suicide rate in the world in Indigenous communities in Ontario, said Palmater.

“The state has criminalized Indigenous people, it is a crime to be Indigenous.  Bill C51 the Anti-Terrorism legislation was targeting Indigenous people. I was named on Sun News as one of the top five to fear in Canada! They actually published a map to my house!” Dr. Palmater said.

Dr. Palmater took exception to the fact that universities are appointing barely one or two Indigenous professors.  She said universities are very proud because of these appointments – but the academics are given no resources, no help and frankly no support.  She asked how are these profs supposed to do their jobs with no help? Often they don’t get promoted.

This writer knows this was the case at Saint Mary’s University, where there is no Indigenous Studies Department.  Saint Mary’s hired one indigenous prof in the last few years, and gave her no support and no help. She left the university last July for a job at an Ontario university.  

So what should we do?

“[You] have to look at any life threatening situation, and stop the damage. [You] have to heal wounds and make amends. Make wellness plans to go forward. As of tomorrow not a single Aboriginal kid must be allowed to be removed from their homes.  Reunite all the kids in foster care with their families or communities. There must be wrap-around health care, mental health care and culture – that’s how you deal with wounds. Stop underfunding education. Return some of our lands.”

Palmater mentioned how she is often asked to speak before white audiences all across Canada who just want her to summarize the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

“Most Canadians have the ability to read. Read it. Read the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, published in 1996.  Be respectful allies – not saviours,” she concluded/

Judy Haiven is a retired professor of Industrial Relations at Saint Mary’s University.  She is also a founding member of Equity Watch, an organisation dedicated to fighting discrimination and bullying in the workplace.

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