Did You Know?

Treaties are not only for Indigenous Peoples.  

Canadians have treaty rights and responsibilities too but often don’t think of them. In Ontario, there are more than 40 treaties and agreements covering the whole province. Most Canadians actually live in a treaty area and where they don’t, they are living on unceded Indigenous lands (never ceded or legally signed away their lands to the Crown or to Canada). 

Content Warning: This post contains details of violence and death, past and present, of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. 

The history of Indian hospitals in Canada is not as well-known as that of residential schools but is as horrific in both its actions and the implication of those actions.

Health care for Indigenous people, such as it was, was motivated by a number of factors that range from keeping as many patients 'interned' as possible to maintain government funding, to ensure a steady number of subjects for medical and nutritional experiments, and ensure that the European population was protected from exposure to 'Indian tuberculosis'.

Segregated medical treatment for Indigenous patients was also the norm in community hospitals where they were treated in the basement or 'Indian annexes'. This aspect of Canadian history shows that healthcare for Indigenous Peoples was never a priority and never on par with the care available for Europeans. Unfair treatment, discrimination, and racism towards Indigenous Peoples continues to exist in the Canadian healthcare system. When Joyce Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, began experiencing stomach pains, she checked herself into a hospital in Joliette, Quebec. Echaquan livestreamed herself in her hospital bed screaming and calling for help. But instead of receiving the help she needed, Echaquan faced incredibly racist and insensitive taunts by Quebec health care staff. Joyce Echaquan passed away on September 28, 2020, shortly after the video was posted. Echaquan could have been saved if she'd been more closely monitored, an expert witness told the coroner's inquiry in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. (CBC News, 27 May 2021)

Joyce's Principle(PDF), a document created by the council of Atikamekw Nation and the Atikamekw Council of Manawan, aims to guarantee that Indigenous people have equitable access to health and social services without discrimination. 

The Métis National Council General Assembly adopted the following “National Definition” in 2002:

Since 1983, the MNC has represented the Métis Nation nationally and internationally. 

Physical, sexual, and emotional abuse were disturbingly common at the schools. A large percentage of students also did not receive enough food to eat. Poor living conditions and malnutrition meant that many became sick with preventable diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza.

While the government began to close the schools in the 1970s, the last school remained in operation until 1996 - The Gordon Residential School in Punnichy, Saskatchewan.

Many Canadians were shocked to learn that the remains of 215 children had been discovered at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. However, this tragic discovery did not come as a surprise to Indigenous Peoples, as thousands of Indigenous children never returned home from residential schools and their whereabouts remain unknown.

Many individuals living in what is now known as Canada have little knowledge of residential schools, or issues such as persistent unclean drinking water in Indigenous communities. Many people are also unaware that the abuse that Indigenous children suffered at residential schools left them with deep scars that last for generations and still have not been healed. Sadly, the residential school system was only one among many systems of violence and harm against Indigenous Peoples. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) concluded that more than 4,100 children died while attending a residential school, however this figure is a conservative estimate. In 2015, the TRC outlined 94 Calls to Action. As of December 2019, a study by the Yellowhead Institute reported only nine of the 94 calls to action are complete.  

The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), formerly known as the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada ("Inuit will be united"), was founded in February 1971 by seven Inuit community leaders at a meeting in Toronto. The ITK now serves as the national voice protecting and advancing the rights and interests of all Inuit in Canada. In 2001, ITC changed its name to Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which means "Inuit are united in Canada." This name change reflects the settlement of land claims agreements in all Inuit regions following the Labrador Inuit Association's signing of an Agreement-in-Principal for the Labrador land claims agreement. 

Most Indigenous People pay Canadian taxes. Although federal tax exemptions for Indigenous People have existed at least since the consolidation of the Indian Act in 1876, they only apply in very specific and limited conditions.

Under sections 87 and 90 of the Indian Act, Status Indians are exempt from paying federal and provincial taxes on their personal and real property that is on a reserve. Since income is considered personal property, Status Indians who work on a reserve do not pay federal or provincial taxes on their employment income. However, income earned by Status Indians offreserve is taxable.

Métis and Inuit, on the other hand, do not qualify for this exemption.

Disclaimer: The Canada Revenue Agency recognizes that many Indigenous People in Canada prefer not to describe as Indians. The term Indian is used in this context solely because it has legal meaning in the Indian Act.

Please note that this post was not written by tax experts. If you have any specific questions about Indian taxation, please contact the Canada Revenue Agency or a qualified accountant who is familiar with Indian taxation.  

In 2007, in response to public criticism and recommendations from Indigenous groups, Canada's Parliament passed a motion in support of "Jordan's Principle," a policy meant to ensure that First Nations children have equitable access to government-funded health, social, and educational services. Although practice took an exhausting 10 years to live up to the aspiration of the principle, we've finally reached a time when justice is possible.

Today, Jordan's Principle is a legal obligation. This means it has no end date. While programs and initiatives to support it may only exist for short periods of time, Jordan's Principle will always be there and will support First Nations children for generations to come.  

This is the legacy of Jordan River Anderson.  

Between July 2016 and March 31, 2021, more than 911,000 products, services and supports were approved under Jordan's Principle. (Government of Canada, 2021)

"When we step back from Jordan's Principle and really think about it, what we're really talking about is ending racial discrimination against little kids," says Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of the First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada.  

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) reports comment extensively on child welfare, referencing it as a continuation of Indian residential schools, in which the removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities continues through a different system.  

With this continued crisis resulting in children losing their languages, cultures and ties to their communities, the TRC cited changes to child welfare as its top Calls to Action.  

These Calls to Action include:   

• Reducing the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in the care of child welfare;
• Publishing data on the exact numbers of Indigenous children in child welfare and the reasons for apprehension and costs associated with these services;
• Fully implementing Jordan's Principle;
• Ensuring that legislation allows for Indigenous communities to be in control of their own child welfare services; and
• Developing culturally appropriate parenting programs (TRC, 2015).  

It is important to acknowledge and consider the legacy of the Indian residential school system when looking at Indigenous child welfare in Canada in order to contextualize the roots of the child welfare crisis and ongoing removal of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children from their homes and communities. 

First Nations is a term used to describe Indigenous Peoples in Canada who are not Métis or Inuit. They are the original inhabitants of the land that is now known as Canada, and were the first to encounter sustained European contact, settlement and trade. There are 634 First Nations in Canada, representing more than 50 Nations and 50 distinct Indigenous languages.  

First Nations culture is rooted in storytelling. Since time immemorial, First Nations have passed on knowledge from generation to generation through their Oral Traditions to teach their beliefs, history, values, practices, customs, rituals, relationships, and ways of life.

First Nations culture and teachings of their ancestors are preserved and carried on through the words of Elders, leaders, community members and young ones. These teachings form an integral part of First Nations identity as nations, communities, clans, families, and individuals.

The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) was founded in April 1982 as a result of movements to restore Chiefs as the voice of First Nations in a Canada-wide deliberative assembly.

In the late 1970s, First Nations increasingly pushed for the rights of self-government. Furthermore, by the late 1970s, First Nations communities needed direct representation in order to respond to the federal government's constitutional proposals, including the proposed patriation of the Canadian Constitution.

First Nation leaders (Chiefs) from across Canada direct the work of AFN through resolutions passed at Chiefs Assemblies held at least twice a year. AFN's National Executive is comprised of the National Chief, 10 Regional Chiefs and the chairs of the Elders, Women's and Youth councils.

As directed by Chiefs-in-Assembly, the responsibility of the National Chief and the AFN is to advocate on behalf of First Nations.

This involves launching and coordinating national and regional conversations, lobbying initiatives and campaigns, legal and policy analysis, and communication with governments, which includes promoting the development of relationships between First Nations and the Crown. 

Again, this testing only occurred after a two-year baseline period.

Children at a third school were given bread prepared with fortified flour that was not approved for sale in Canada. As a result, many of them developed anaemia.

The researchers also denied the children at all six schools from receiving preventative dental care. This was done because oral health was a parameter used to assess nutrition.  These experiments were not only unethical, but also bad science. They didn't appear to try and prove or disprove any hypothesis or make any statistical correlations.

Although the school experiments were presented at conferences and published, they led to no important advances in nutritional science or improvements in conditions at the schools.  "They mostly just confirmed what they already knew," says Ian Mosby, who studies the history of food and nutrition at the University of Guelph.