Challenges Faced by Indigenous Communities of Saskatchewan
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Institution Affiliation
The indigenous community that inhibits the land that is currently known as Canada comprise of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples who are also known as the Aboriginal people. According to the Statistics Canada 2016 census, there were 1,673,785 aboriginal communities in the country, which accounts for 4.9% of the total population. These communities have been in Canada since time immemorial, and they formed robust social, economic, and political systems. They have gone through a significant reduction in numbers due to the colonization effect by the Europeans but still play a vital role in the social networks, culture, and language development of Canada. All aboriginal communities are protected under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which does a definition for the term “Aboriginal peoples of Canada.” The Indian Act also established in 1985 as a standard for the federal government on how to handle indigenous affairs. This act defines the term Indian as “a person who, according to this Act, is registered as an Indian or is entitled to be registered as an Indian” (s 5). The act further divides the aboriginal people into two categories of status and non-status Indians. Status Indians are those groups of persons who were registered by the federal government and issued with identification cards, but the government does not record the non-status ones. The arrival of European settlers in native Canada led to the imposition of their cultures on the aboriginal communities, dispossession of their lands, and the introduction of new political systems began a cycle of physical and social destruction, which is still experienced up to date.
Issues Faced by Aboriginal Communities
- Poor Health Care. Despite healthcare being a fundamental right of all Canadians, the aboriginal communities still cannot get access to quality healthcare. According to physical and mental health statistics, the suicide rates are five times higher in youth from the indigenous community compared to the non-indigenous tribe, the rates of tuberculosis stand at 26.4 times the rate of non-aboriginal Canadians. Diseases like type 2 diabetes have reached “epidemic” levels (Kirmayer, Simpson, & Cargo 2003). All these woes in healthcare point towards lack of public health policies that are aimed at supporting the aboriginal people at the national and provincial levels, the only existing legislation operating at the national level remains the Indian Act established in 1876. This act, which was found under the supposition that the Aboriginal communities were inferior, has had multiple amendments and changes in strategy operation but has still served to perpetuate its original list of health inequality. (Richmond and Cook 2016).
The modern concept of the health inequities that are experienced by the Aboriginal communities is ingrained in the historical position these indigenous communities hold in the Canadian social system. Also, the execution of the policies is affected by ambiguity in the role execution of health service delivery between the provincial and federal governments. The contemporary health policies also lack political will to fight for cases of neglect and access to health care.
- The genesis of this challenge is traced back to the colonization era when the Aboriginal communities were forced out of their land into plots of lands squatter settlements or reserves. Without a planned structure in land allocation, the small sizes of the plots, and poor infrastructure, the ingenious communities died because of hunger and lacked proper shelter. According to the Poverty Institute of Canada, the indigenous people experience the highest rates of poverty in Canada, with 1 out of for persons in the Aboriginal community living in poverty, which represents 25%. In the youth segment, 4 out of 10 native children live in poverty, which represents 40%. This issue of poverty in the modern day has been maintained by the low education levels in the first communities. The effect resulted in a lack of employment opportunities for the Aboriginal people who are faced e with systematic racist attitudes due to their cultural differences. The high levels of poverty make self-empowerment and determination a challenge for the aboriginal people who end up depending on social assistance as a means of survival. Poverty has led to an increase in crime rates as Monchalin (2017 ) states,
Poverty is a risk factor related to crime, imagine the difficulty, when living in these conditions, of deferring to the “way things are” and the structures and authorities that seem to keep them from changing. Imagine how hard it might be to keep one’s self-respect strong. Then imagine the temptation of escape, perhaps by breaking the rules or through alcohol use. As we have already seen, the consequences of yielding to these temptations, even a few times, can be more serious for Indigenous peoples than for others in terms of their relation to the criminal justice system (153).
- When the European settlers established their rule in Canada, they viewed the social practices the Aboriginal people with contempt and, as such, imposed their cultures on the people. Part of the settler’s culture was education through the missionaries; the church took the indigenous children and placed them in industrial schools, which later were renamed as residential schools. The schools became an avenue to promote assimilation and destroying the culture and identity of the aboriginal communities. The education system and curricula the European settlers introduced to the community were around manual labor skills and Christian teachings, which were not to give any substantial knowledge to the students to compete in the employment sector. These Euro-centric views and practices are present in the current education system, which has not changed to include Aboriginal content.
Canadian census of 2016 indicates that 33.65% of people who identified as Aboriginal have no high school equivalent certificate compared to 18.3% of the rest of the population.
- Poor housing. People from the Aboriginal communities live in overcrowded spaces, sharing houses with family members from different generations. Statistics from 2016 show that 28% of indigenous people who live on reserves and 30% who live in homes qualify the crowded category. Overcrowded spaces are determined by looking at the number of people who live in a home compared to the number of rooms available. When the figure was matched with the non-indigenous population was rated at 4%. The 1876 Indian Act created a reservation law that prohibits the First nations from owning land because of this; they end in homes with plumbing problems, walls, and roof s that need repair because that is all they can afford. Because the Aboriginal people cannot own land, it means they lack the collateral to secure mortgages to buy new homes.
- Employment barriers. The notion that the Europeans created that implied the Aboriginal communities are inferior, coupled with the low education standards for the community, and has led to employment barriers. Top of the reasons for these barriers is literacy and education, which is a requirement for most jobs. Still, most of the indigenous communities did not have access to an education system that puts them in a competitive position with the non-native Canadians. The cultural differences of these tribes have created an atmosphere of disrespect and resentment by the other communities who view the practices as retrogressive. The aboriginal communities have also had to endure racism and stereotypes in their job-seeking, which are as a result of attitudes passed down by the British settlers with myths and misconceptions about the aboriginal communities.
The Aboriginal communities in Canada have faced several challenges since the British settlers went into North America, since then, the lives of these people have drastically changed to the negative. The leadership in Canada is not putting in enough work to improve the lives of these indigenous communities because most of the laws and regulations that are meant to protect their rights are from the past century. This separation culture has made there to be a rift between the Aboriginal communities t view themselves as the disadvantaged party that is being mistreated in their native homes and the non-indigenous members of the Canadian population. For there to be cohesion between these two sections of the society, there needs to be reconciliation to address the social, cultural, and political injustices that the Aboriginal community has had to endure. Also, the non-native members of society need to accept the cultural differences to peacefully coexist.
References
Kirmayer, L., Simpson, C., & Cargo, M. (2003). Healing Traditions: Culture, Community, and Mental Health Promotion with Canadian Aboriginal Peoples. Australasian Psychiatry, 11(1_suppl). doi: 10.1046/j.1038-5282.2003.02010.x
Monchalin, L. (2017). The colonial problem: an indigenous perspective on crime and injustice in Canada. Vancouver, B.C.: Langara College.
Richmond, C. A. M., & Cook, C. (2016). Creating conditions for Canadian aboriginal health equity: the promise of healthy public policy. Public Health Reviews, 37(1). doi: 10.1186/s40985-016-0016-5