John A. Macdonald saved more Indigenous lives than any other PM - "Since the British conquest of New France in 1761, there were no significant wars in what is now Canada prior to the Riel Rebellion of 1885. And this solitary armed conflict was a Métis uprising notable for its lack of large-scale native participation; the First Nation death toll from the entire conflagration was no more than a few dozen. Such a long period of peaceful relations between Indigenous and white populations in Canada was largely the result of British policy that sought to make and keep treaties with native communities. The British approach is best characterized as “negotiation first, settlement second.” As Canada’s first prime minister, Macdonald was extremely proud of this legacy of peaceful co-operation and co-habitation. He was determined to maintain such a policy while overseeing the settlement of Canada’s West. Another key piece of Macdonald’s plan to avoid white/native conflict in Canada’s new western territory was to create a police force to establish a system of law and order on the Prairies ahead of white settlement, again in contrast to the American experience. The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), the precursor to today’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was meant to deter incursions from the United States and protect the legal rights of both natives and settlers once settlement began. The force’s very existence stands as testimony to the Canadian government’s intention to protect the native population from depredation and genocide... Considering the accusations made against Macdonald today, it is noteworthy that he was criticized in his time for instructing the NWMP not to show favouritism towards white settlers. Rather, he argued, it was their proper role to protect the rights of native and settler alike. Such an enlightened view will no doubt comes as a surprise to his many present-day detractors. But again, it is true. And in doing so, Macdonald undoubtedly saved many more native lives from American-style frontier justice... Macdonald allocated considerable government resources to fulfilling its famine relief duties. In 1878 the federal budget for Indian Affairs was a rather modest $276,000. By the peak of the famine in 1884, this item had grown to $1.1 million, outweighing National Defence by a substantial margin. In fact, this was the largest famine relief program Canada had provided up to that point. That it occurred in the midst of a severe economic recession in Eastern Canada makes its scale all the more impressive. Residential schools also figure prominently in popular claims that Macdonald was responsible for a “genocide” of Indigenous people. In fact, the first such schools appeared in Canada in 1695, long before Macdonald’s tenure. And their application to western Canada cannot properly be regarded as a government plot to permanently eliminate native culture. Under the seven numbered treaties, the federal government was obligated to build and staff such schools only when requested to do so by native leaders, or, as Treaty Six clearly states, “whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it.” And they clearly did desire it: during Macdonald’s tenure as prime minister no fewer than 185 on-reserve day schools and 20 residential schools were built. This reveals a strong interest among native leaders to have their children given a western-style education, as well as a preference for local over residential schools at this time. Attendance was entirely voluntary. Although the Progressive movement across North America at this time was pushing governments everywhere to make schooling universally compulsory, Macdonald resisted this for native children. Without parental support, he believed, native education would not succeed. Accordingly, it was left up to native parents to decide whether their offspring should go to school. This policy continued long after Macdonald’s death. As late as 1920, attendance at all native schools in Canada was still entirely voluntary... If Macdonald’s story has changed, it is because Canadian society no longer understands its own history."
REGES: Defy the nonsense of indigenous land acknowledgments - "How do you make the progressives on campus so “horrified” that they spring into action to defend their sacred ideology? Make an indigenous land acknowledgment that doesn’t match their view of history and watch them lose their minds... At first, I ignored these land acknowledgments, but the more I observed how they were used, the more they reminded me of a prayer. At our annual faculty retreat this year our director opened with a solemn land acknowledgment. Why? As with a prayer, a land acknowledgment frames an event with the message that a particular ideology has dominance in the situation, and will be honored above others... My office and classroom are on occupied land? Then why don’t we give it back to the rightful owners? And if we’re not going to give it back, then why bother acknowledging them?... What if you don’t agree with them? After all, if we are making an “acknowledgment,” wouldn’t you want us to say what we really believe? They can’t possibly be asking us to affirm something that we believe is false, can they? I decided to test this by crafting my own version of the land acknowledgment: "I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington."... Allen School officials declared this to be “offensive” and said that they were “horrified” and promised to have it removed immediately. Our director said that it creates “a toxic environment” in my course. I have written elsewhere about how the school censored my syllabus, apologized to my students, and created an alternate section of the course so that offended students could be taught by a different instructor. I suspect that most of my students wouldn’t have noticed this and didn’t care, but a small group of students has complained loudly enough that many people are discussing it. Judging from the discussion threads on Twitter and Reddit, I’d wager that this incident has led to more discussion in just two weeks of Locke’s theories on land ownership than we normally get in an entire year at UW. I believe the progressives have overplayed their hand by going down this path. As a public institution, the University of Washington is bound by the first amendment. If the university encourages faculty to make statements in the form of land acknowledgments, then it must allow a range of opinions to be expressed. Any limitation on speech must be content-neutral... I encourage other professors to try using the same strategy. This is a way to use their own rules to make them understand us better. You think it’s offensive to encounter a political opinion on a course syllabus that has nothing to do with the course content? You’re horrified? Welcome to the club. Conservatives have been experiencing that for years at universities all over the world. Perhaps they will agree that it is time to take the politics out of classroom teaching. Allow all of us to have our personal opinions, but don’t display them prominently where they don’t belong."
Ben & Jerry's on Twitter - "This 4th of July, it's high time we recognize that the US exists on stolen Indigenous land and commit to returning it. Learn more and take action now:"
Swann Marcus on Twitter - "I unironically support expropriating Ben and Jerry's from its top shareholders without compensation and giving that stock to Native American tribes as a form of reparations. We must also seize their corporate headquarters and turn it into low-income housing"
Indigenous Chief Wants To Take Back Ben & Jerry's HQ Built on 'Stolen' Land - "An Indigenous tribe descended from the Native American nation that originally controlled the land in Vermont the Ben & Jerry's headquarters is located on would be interested in taking it back, its chief has said, after the company publicly called for "stolen" lands to be returned. Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of The Coosuk Abenaki Nation—one of four descended from the Abenaki that are recognized in Vermont—told Newsweek it was "always interested in reclaiming the stewardship of our lands," but that the company had yet to approach them... Ben & Jerry's has not yet publicly responded to calls to return the land its headquarters is situated on."
Ben & Jerry's owner slammed for doing business in Russia - "“Unilever is contributing hundreds of millions in tax revenues to a state which is killing civilians and funding a mercenary group about to be designated a terrorist organization in the UK,” a USP spokesperson said. “It risks its staff and resources being mobilized into Putin’s machine. Some of the world’s biggest companies have already left Russia.”"
Indigenous or pretender? - "[Carrie] Bourassa went on to become one of the most prominent and respected voices on Indigenous health in the country. She is a professor in the department of community health and epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan, where she directs the Morning Star Lodge, an Indigenous community-based health research lab. She is also the scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health, a federal agency that is the leading funder of Indigenous health research in Canada... But some of her colleagues, like Winona Wheeler, an associate professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Saskatchewan, say Bourassa’s story is built on a fundamental falsehood. Wheeler, a member of Manitoba’s Fisher River Cree Nation, says genealogical records show Bourassa is not Indigenous at all, but rather of entirely European descent... Janet Smylie, a Métis family medicine professor from the University of Toronto who wrote a chapter in a 2017 book on Indigenous parenting edited by Bourassa, says she has recently learned the truth about Bourassa’s identity after conducting her own research... In its review of Bourassa’s genealogy, CBC has traced all of her ancestry lines back to Europe. CBC was unable to locate any Indigenous ancestor. Bourassa declined CBC’s request for an interview, but in an email to CBC on Tuesday, she said she’s “deeply offended by anyone disputing my links to the Métis community.” Bourassa didn’t offer any genealogical evidence that she is Métis, Anishnaabe or Tlingit. Instead, she said she became Métis in her 20s, when she was adopted into the community by a Métis friend of her grandfather, Clifford Laroque, who has since died... She says she has been adopted into five other communities as well. She didn’t offer any explanation as to why she claimed to have been born into a family with Métis, Anishnaabe and Tlingit roots. In a statement released by Bourassa after CBC’s story was published, she reiterated that she identifies as Métis and that the elders who support her do not rely on “blood quantums” to assess Indigenous identity. She said that she has hired a Métis genealogist to investigate her ancestry. Caroline Tait, a Métis professor and medical anthropologist at the U of S, has worked with Bourassa for more than a decade. She said early on in Bourassa’s career, she only identified as Métis. But more recently, Tait said, Bourassa began claiming to also be Anishinaabe and Tlingit. Tait said she also began dressing in more stereotypically Indigenous ways, saying the TEDx Talk was a perfect example... Bourassa’s parents, Ron and Diane Weibel, declined an interview with CBC. However, a statement provided to CBC by their other daughter, Jody Burnett, on behalf of the family, says Bourassa’s “description of our family is inaccurate, not rooted in fact and moreover is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Carrie Bourassa is Métis.”... Wheeler says she’s offended by the way that Bourassa has described her childhood, “feeding into stereotypes” of poverty, violence and substance abuse. “Maybe she did have a dysfunctional childhood and it was full of pain. But to bring that into a discussion about her identity and under this flimsy umbrella of her Indigeneity, I think, was really manipulative, because it suggests that she is Indigenous, that she experienced Indigenous poverty.” Wheeler said Bourassa’s claims of Indigeneity are offensive. “It’s theft. It is colonialism in its worst form and it’s a gross form of white privilege.”... The letter says the signatories support Bourassa as a “strong and resilient Indigenous woman,” and it says those questioning that “should be ashamed and need to reflect on their own colonial thinking.” The letter says Indigenous academics criticizing Bourassa are on “a witch hunt.” “The Elder ‘believes it is repugnant that professional Indigenous people should stoop to attack each other in their line of work,” the letter says, without specifying who the elder is... One of the 30 names at the bottom of this letter is Christopher Mushquash, the vice-chair of Bourassa’s CIHR IIPH board. When asked by CBC if he endorsed the letter, Mushquash said he had seen a draft and “asked that my name not be included [in] an open letter.” Another board member, Dawn Martin-Hill, was puzzled by her inclusion in the letter. “I couldn’t understand why I never received a copy from Director [Scientific Director Carrie Bourassa] for approval,” she wrote in an email to CBC. “I asked Carrie, ‘Why would you release a letter with my name on it?’”"
Carrie Bourassa, who claimed to be Indigenous without evidence, has resigned from U of Sask.
How come she doesn't know about white privilege?
Of course, no one will question whether ancestry really should be fetishised in the first place
Quote by John (Fire) Lame Deer - "Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didin't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we didn't have any delinquents. Without a prison, there can't be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white man arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.
No wonder they built big cities holding more than a million people, had a high life expectancy of 35 and had no wars
The Inca empire with their large cities had a law against theft, and ruthless punishment of crime, so they must have been uncivilised
How Ottawa is pursuing 'land back' policies could undermine sovereignty - "McIvor went as far as arguing that the federal government should recognize Indigenous lawmaking authority outside the bounds of the Constitution itself, which would mean for the government to recognize itself as not fully sovereign. Further to this, he told committee that all land is owned by Indigenous groups, and that it’s Canada whose land claims rest on Indigenous land. “That’s who has the land claim — the provincial and federal governments,” he said. Perhaps it’s because he is a lawyer and an expert in the eyes of parliamentarians, but committee members appeared to accept his testimony uncritically... by failing to invite witnesses who can speak to the limits of land claims against Canadian sovereignty, this House of Commons committee runs the risk of legitimizing the extreme view held by some activists that Canada is an illegitimate state that doesn’t in fact own its territorial lands"
Jonathan Kay: Hurting Indigenous academics with good intentions - "I attended the Canadian Association of University Teachers Aboriginal Academic Staff Conference in Ottawa... It was an eye-opening experience. In white academic and literary circles, Indigenous “ways of knowing” often are spoken of in soaring, quasi-spiritual tones. But at this conference, where I was part of a small minority of non-Indigenous participants, it was the opposite: These were dedicated academics who’d come to talk about their real, everyday challenges, not to traffic in soaring pieties. Even the land acknowledgment was brief — because, not being white, the participants weren’t required to prove their ideological bona fides with elaborate performative gestures. It was incredibly refreshing.. I raised the issue of well-meaning white administrators: Does their movement to “Indigenize the academy” sometimes have negative side effects? A middle-aged woman jumped enthusiastically at that one. She told me that she’s now become the all-purpose go-to person for anything relating to Indigenous symbols and nomenclature. This can be particularly time-consuming, she told me, because the school has gone in for a campaign of marking buildings and facilities on campus in bilingual fashion. The problem is that even a fluent speaker in, say, Inuktitut or Cree is going to have a hard time offering accurate translations of “Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory” or “Department of Slavic Languages.” She doesn’t like to say no. But it’s essentially unpaid volunteer work. These discussions occasioned much laughter and head-nodding, as other attendees seemed to have similar frustrations... panellists typically suggested that we defer to the judgments and wisdom of community elders. It was the all-purpose answer... The problem here is that the normal academic mission of knowledge-building, as it’s typically understood, isn’t just to venerate established teachings: It’s also to challenge those teachings and build up new ones. Much of modern liberal arts, in fact, consists of theoretical constructs that explain why our ancestors were wrong-headed, and even malevolent. And so while the idea of Indigenizing the academy is presented as progressive to the extent it offers students a critique of Western thought, it is, in strictly epistemological terms, deeply conservative — because it presents Indigenous ideas and teachings as existing within a criticism-proof bubble. A university is not a church or a museum. It’s a place where old ideas are studied and stress-tested, not preserved in amber as ageless dogmas. And as far as I know, Indigenous academics are the only ones on campus who have to labour under this plain contradiction. There is also an additional burden that is placed on Indigenous academics, though it is not one that I have heard discussed as such: Because we are increasingly encouraged to treat Indigenous academic narratives as unfalsifiable, these academics don’t have the freedom to fail... this false mercy is the inevitable product of intellectual movements that stigmatize any criticism of Indigenous knowledge, methods and folklore: There is no corrective feedback mechanism that allows a supervisor, client, student or colleague to encourage that person onto a different path... Convinced that the school and the whistle-blowers were engaged in a “corrupt” scheme, inspired by a legacy of “colonial genocide,” she dedicated her last lecture to a host of conspiracy theories — chemtrails, COVID-19 vaccines — sometimes launching into fits of laughter, denunciations of named unsupportive colleagues (Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike), and tangents about her tragically unsuccessful personal relationships... I hope you will also acknowledge that it does no favours to such a person if we look past that damage while continually insisting that her words are all pearls of Indigenous wisdom. Which, amazingly, is what several of the students on the Zoom call did. One student declares that she will boycott Wolf’s teaching replacement (even though that person will also be Indigenous), and that “we’ve done more learning today than we have done throughout this entire program.” Another declares, “This chat today alone has been more edifying than almost the entirety of indigenous-related education I’ve had at university.” Shockingly, several of them also join in condemning the dozen students who’d left the class as racists. They also appear to agree with Wolf’s delusional request to nominate her for a UBC teaching award, despite the fact that she has just told them that Indigenous people are being targeted with special COVID-19 vaccines as part of a potentially genocidal plot. Not only that, but the student newspaper that originally reported the story actually tried to present the whole thing, in its headline, as an example of why “systemic change” is needed to fight racism on campus. A UBC student activist is starting a campaign on Wolf’s behalf. And a UBC sociology department professor named Jennifer Berdahl is blaming the dozen students for “refus(ing) to engage openly and respectfully with Indigenous professors,” and asked, “Will they be allowed to anonymously slander their professor and graduate?” If she moves on from UBC, Wolf won’t have trouble getting another job. As she explained to the class, she’d already been fired or laid off by other universities and departments over the past eight years — in one case, at Vancouver Island University, under apparently similar circumstances. The reason she will get another job is that there is currently an enormous market for Indigenous anti-racism educators."
Asked to leave mandatory work activity because of my period : legaladvicecanada - "My office had a mandatory event where one of our indigenous colleagues did a smudging ceremony for each of the groups in the office. It was done in part as an educational event. There was an explanation of the ceremony beforehand which I enjoyed. Then came time for the ceremony, and we were asked to leave if we were on our "moon cycle" because of our energy being too intense. We had not received any warning of this requirement, and I could have lied, but I'm not a spontaneous liar, so I left the group rather embarrassed at being singled out in my small-ish team. My embarrassment gave way to anger. Growing up, I was told I couldn't pray on my period, and that always chafed. Plus, I've heard every other BS belief about women on their periods my whole life as well. I know that lots of religions, cultures, and belief systems hold some of these things to be true, and that's their right. But, how can a Canadian employer sanction that in the workplace? Can an employer require me to attend an event in which I have to divulge my menstrual state (or lie), and then expect me to remove myself from it while the others continue? What's worse, management apparently knew about this because they were the first group to go through the smudging, and some had to remove themselves too. And yet, there was no warning of this menstrual requirement given, nor the opportunity to avoid the embarrassment entirely. I don't know what to do, or if I should do anything at all. This feels wrong though. Is it?"
When the indigenous lobby clashes with feminists, who wins?
B.C. to invest $17 million on science, Indigenous knowledge to restore Pacific salmon
So much for following the science
Meme - "Not so friendly reminder that the Bering Strait Theory is racist, wrong and disproven. It implies that Natives were settlers, whereas modern science indicates we were here long before the land bridge, and traditional knowledge says we've been here forever."
"Trust the science". Unless it's "racist"
Raymond J. de Souza: Wealthy Singh's 'life experience' a far cry from that of most Indigenous Canadians - "NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh expressed his commitment to Indigenous issues by way of contrast with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. In particular, by contrasting life experiences. “I’m not Justin Trudeau,” Singh said. “I’m not like him. I’ve lived a different life. I understand the pain of being someone that’s not valued, not worth anything. And Indigenous people have been made to feel that way for so long. And I promise you, I’ll be different.” What Singh means by that, on one level, is clear. He is the son of immigrants to Canada; his father, a trained physician, worked as a security guard to make ends meet while he was completing his Canadian medical certification. He is not Justin Trudeau, born to a sitting prime minister just two years after his father, Pierre Trudeau, released his white paper advocating the complete assimilation of Indigenous Canadians. But on another level, it is not obvious how Singh’s life experience — or more broadly, the life experience of immigrants from India and other Asian countries — directly affects his position on Indigenous issues... Singh’s family faced an initial struggle while his father was getting his Canadian medical certification. But after he qualified the family became very wealthy very quickly. A psychiatrist in a government-funded fee-for-service system has a very high earnings potential. The family relocated to Windsor, Ont., and the young Jagmeet was sent to a private school in Beverly Hills, Mich. Current annual tuition at Detroit Country Day School is US$26,000 for the elementary grades and $34,000 for high school (books and uniforms not included). The immigrant experience of the Singhs — and so many Asians like them, including my own parents — was not that of, say, the Irish immigrants of the 19th-century. “No Irish Need Apply” was commonly enough added to job postings. Father of Confederation George Brown, for example, founder of the The Globe newspaper and namesake of today’s George Brown College, was a leader in ensuring that Irish Catholics in Toronto remained second-class citizens. Irish immigrants to Toronto in the 1870s had a much more difficult time than Asian immigrants in the 1970s. In terms of legalized and cultural discrimination, the 19th-century indigent Irish experience would be more akin to what Indigenous Canadians suffered than what the Singhs and other wealthy families have experienced. Is Jagmeet Singh more sensitive to Indigenous Canadians because of his race, despite the fact that his rich father sent him to an elite American private school? Does being a visible minority put Singh in solidarity with poor Indigenous Canadians, even if his bespoke suits — featured in every magazine profile — cost more than many might spend on food in a month?... both Singh and Trudeau grew up as part of the one per cent — private-school educated with plenty of money to spare. Life experience separates both of them from the Indigenous experience in Canada... The complexities of the immigrant experience mean that it is lazy thinking to assume that racial minorities are somehow more sympathetic, for that reason alone, to Indigenous Canadians, or to the view that Canadian history is one long story of brutalization. A recent immigrant from India, where religious and racial discrimination is more overt and onerous than in Canada, and where Indigenous peoples (“tribals” in local parlance) are at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, is likely less sympathetic to the claim that Canadian history is one of continuing oppression. He may instead see a welcoming history of expanding opportunity, a story of more lights than shadows."
Alberta lawyers decry mandatory Indigenous cultural training - "Fifty-one Alberta lawyers are arguing that the province’s attorneys should not have to complete mandatory courses on Indigenous cultures in order to practice law, ahead of a special meeting of the Law Society of Alberta to debate the merits of the “cultural competency” training. Leading the charge against the training is Calgary lawyer Roger Song, who garnered signatures for the petition that’s up for debate. In a letter to the law society, Song says that he grew up in China, and knows a thing or two about indoctrination. “This kind of mandatory education constitutes an insult to freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression,” he writes. “It amounts to a use of power to impose propaganda and politics.”... Leighton Grey, a lawyer in Cold Lake, Alta., argues in a letter included in a package sent to law society members about the motion that The Path is based upon “political ideology” and is “rife with inaccuracy and skewed by a post-modernist history of Indigenous peoples in Canada.” Grey, a member of the Carry The Kettle First Nation in Saskatchewan, argues that his grandmother attended a residential school, and came away with fond memories; “stories like hers are far from unique and may in fact be far more representative of the (Indian Residential Schools) experience than the victimhood narrative” in the final TRC report. In a lengthy essay for the Dorchester Review, Glenn Blackett, a litigator with the libertarian Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, argues that the education program is part of a “radical, activist and authoritarian movement known as ‘wokeness.'” “Through a combination of post-modern ideology and a clumsy, distorted and lopsided history, the main lesson intended for Alberta lawyers seems to be that Canadian history, as it relates to our indigenous people, is entirely one of racism and genocide — evils which somehow remain inherently lodged in Canadian law and legal structures”"
Jonathan Kay on Twitter - "Canadian govt offering $121,550 to $142,982 salary for someone who possesses “Knowledge of Indigenous Science frameworks, such as Two-Eyed Seeing, which integrate Indigenous and Western knowledge systems.”"
Why taxes are so high
Jennifer Laewetz: No political party owns Indigenous Canadians - "Indigenous people face an incredible amount of backlash from the concept of practicing self-determination. I saw a former chief of a First Nation in Alberta praise Poilievre for his announcement the other day. That Indigenous leader sees consultation and revenue-sharing within the resource development sector as a good thing. In response online, someone called him a sell-out. My jaw nearly hit the floor. I am no stranger to online harassment but when it gets to the level of insulting our Indigenous leaders, it shocks me. I have had people deny I am First Nations, make fake accounts to harass me, call me a sell-out and even go so far as to say my ancestors would be “rolling over in their grave” because I choose to vote for who I want to. This level of vitriol is not just shameful, it is hateful and based on racism and disregard for who we are as human beings outside of our identity. Denying my identity because you do not agree with me denies the history of my ancestors, the resiliency they had, and my trauma as well."
