One of the, the most important things to know about the Aboriginal population in Canada is we are the fastest growing population. We're growing at three to five times the, the rate of any other, including the immigrant population, in Canada. So, eventually, they say within the next 30 to 40 years, we will be at least 10% of the Canadian population, if not more depending on, on, you know, mortality rates. But, with that being said, we're not doing enough in education to ensure that we have the high school graduation rates that we require. And even that, we know that high school graduation doesn't guarantee you a job anymore. And we actually need you going into post-secondary. So until we start looking at how do we get people graduating at the same rate and going onto post-secondary, we're going to have a problem. Population is also an issue, because back precontact, there has been a debate how many Aboriginal people there were in North America. Some say there were 12 million, some say there was 2 million. So if they say there's 12 million and when they do the first Census there's about 500,000. That's a bigger eradication of Aboriginal people than if it was at 2 million, it goes to 500,000. >> Mm-hm. >> So you know that kind of thing factors into why we see health have that huge gap. It also factors into why we're only seeing the rise in the population over the last 30 to 40 years, because up until that point they were limited in how they could get into birthing. But part of it is because in residential schools, there was, there was forced sterilization. There was a lot of women who couldn't have babies afterwards. There's also the, a problem with not knowing how to parent. And so, while we don't talk about all these issues, they also influence in and are factors in our population growth. And we're only starting to see a positive sense of Aboriginal identity in the last 30 years. And what you do notice is we have a, a positive population growth in that same time frame. >> Mm-hm. Lot of implications for, for Canada. >> Yes. >> What can you tell me about the status of Aboriginal people's health in Canada? >> Well, depending on where you look. We have the First Nations Regional Health Survey that's done, been done twice now. And the last statistic shows us that Aboriginal people, First Nations people on reserve, now see their health better than they have in the past. However, they are having three or four chronic illnesses which we don't see in the general public. And when I say that, the other thing that we're noticing is they get diabetes at 3 to 5 times the rate of non-Aboriginal people. And with diabetes, there's a lot of complications, and the younger you are, the more likely you're going to fall into those complications. So, one of our concerns is, if you get diabetes, type 2 diabetes at 20 as opposed to at 40 or 60, you're more likely to have amputations or foot care issues or you might end up with secondary renal issues that we don't see in the rest of the Canadian population. So, part of it is we do see a change, but it's not moving very quickly. So when we think about Aboriginal health in general there is the Treaty 6, Medicine Chest Clause that provides medicine care if you will on reserves, but, when we're talking about urban, they are living in cities, so they fall under the Provincial Ministry of Health regardless of which province you're in. That all comes back to the British North America Act where the jurisdictions were divided between the federal and the provincial governments. And so, when you start talking about urban populations, you find that, that, they've rate their health a little bit less, good than on reserve. But I think that's just because they have a different education in terms of their health. They understand more about chronic illness, they understand more about heart disease, then maybe their counterparts on reserve. Now, in all fairness, we are seeing a change. There is less of a mortality gap than there was even ten, 15 years ago. It's dropped considerably, but it's going to take time before we, we establish a, an equity I guess in Aboriginal health. >> So you mention how some health rights flow from Treaty 6. How does education flow from the treaties? >> Well, in a lot of the number treaties, there's 11 number treaties that in Canada and some other treaties. But in the treaties they talked about having an education, the best education of the land. And so, the idea was that they were going to educated so that they can work within the new system that was being developed around Aboriginal people after contact. And so, you know, the idea was when you have the treaty, you would get an education. Not necessarily just the ABCs and the 123s, but something beyond that. And in some of the treaty discussions that we've heard about, since, you know, the treaties were signed were that they were supposed to get the best of the best education, so that they could actually, not assimilate, but actually work in cooperation, cooperation and collaboration with the mainstream settlers that were here. Unfortunately, that's not happening the way we expected it to. And, we're seeing that when we look at the statistics. >> Mm-hm. So the way that education has been delivered to Status Indians for, you know, years and years has flowed from the Indian Act. >> Yes. >> Can you tell me a little more a bit about the Indian Act and the implications for education? >> The Indian Act has a number of different sections to it. Unfortunately, some have been repealed and they're really hard to find, but if you start looking at the Indian Act, originally, one of the first sections they put in there was to talk about when you had to go to school. So mandatory schooling. And they originally said you were going to, as a Status Indian, go to school from five to 16. That's terribly, not terribly difficult, we're used to that in Canada, but back, when this was instituted, indigenous people did not go to school. They learned from each other, from their families, and they did it in a more holistic way. You know, you didn't sit down, mom didn't teach the child, but maybe grandpa did, and maybe brother did, and maybe cousin did. And it wasn't about the age of the person teaching, it was more about what you were being taught, so. >> Mm-hm. >> Learning about different things in your life and learning how to do things that you're going to be required to do as you grew up and building upon those knowledges. Now, in the Indian Act they went further, they decided to put in residential schools, they said that all students had to go to them. And after a while you had people hiding their children, so that they didn't have to go to residential schools. They did everything in their power to, to ask for an education and that was the education they were given. And while, they didn't feel that was the, the education that they thought they were going to get their children. It took almost 100 years before we had that repeal over the Indian Act and it took till 1996 until the last residential school was closed. Now, officially, the residential schools that everybody hears about, they closed in the 70s and 80s. However, if you think back, that's like a generation ago. And so, there's a lot of trauma associated with that. And these are still people who were, you know, they didn't have a positive sense of identity. And so the Indian Acts had a lot of damage on that. It, it's taken away those things. It's taken away a lot of other things including, if you live out west in today, in 2013. And you want to sell or barter produce as an Aboriginal person, a status Aboriginal person. You're not allowed according to the Indian Act. So you would have to go the Indian agent and ask for permission to be able to do that. There's other pieces of the Indian Act that, that start to take away rights and privileges. In the 30s and 40s, they couldn't go to a poolhall without being considered legally without being considered there illegally. And so, you know, there's other pieces like not being able to use regalia without permission of the Indian agent. Not being able to leave the reserve without the Indian agent's approval, the pass system as they called it. Not being able to, congregating groups of five or more. And technically, that's still in the Indian Act, so things like the. [crosstalk]. >> I thought that was actually. >> No, it's still there. So if they wanted to, they could, they could just go arrest everybody at the, the Idle No More movement every time they meet or at the assembly of. [crosstalk]. >> But only. >> The First Nations. >> Only if they're Status Indians? >> Yes. But, you know, up until the 1950s, they weren't able to have a lawyer '51 when they changed the, the Indian Act. They couldn't have a lawyer before that. So, how is a, a person, can you fight the government about what's going on in your own life, if you can' t do that? They didn't get the right to vote, depending on what province you were in, between 1960 and 1969. If you can't have the right to vote, then you have no voice in Canada, because our whole system is based on voting. So these things, while they may not seem completely related to the, the education pieces in the Indian Act are, because it took away rights that allowed them to have, some say, in what that education system would be. >> Mm-hm, now you've been talking about some of the restrictions from the Indian Act over the last hundred and. >> [crosstalk] 20 years. >> 20 years, some odd years. In 1876, when it was first passed into law. What are some of the most kind of heinous restrictions of the contemporary current Indian Act? >> Well, they still can't barter or sell produce, which is bad. They can't sell cordwood or any other natural resources off their land. So, even gravel from your reserve, you can't sell that to somebody else without imprisonment, actually, being one of the, the punishments. You can't you still are not supposed to be able to sue the government other than through specific claims systems. And so, that's not beneficial, and then, just the idea of status alone. Who's determining if you can say you're Aboriginal or not? It's unfair of the federal government to be able to tell me whether I'm Aboriginal or not, and that is the crux of section 6 of the Indian Act. It tells you who can be an Indian and who can't. And when they say Indian, they mean status and eligible for registry, which gives you health benefits through First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada. It gives you education through Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. It tells you where you can reside and where you can't reside. So, section 6, while it's changing and, you know, it changed in 1985, it changed again in 2010. It's still not gender equal, and it's certainly not up to par when you look at the Charter of Rights and Freedom in Canada. >> You mentioned you know, access to health benefits . >> Yes. >> So how does the health status compare from Status Indians to non-Status Indians, and other Aboriginal groups? >> So, Status, First Nations people who are registered with the federal government through Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, they receive non-insured health benefits. Non-insured health, health benefits which were fought for under the Medicine Chest Clause back in 1935, came about, because people were saying, I can go to the doctor, but I can't pay for the prescriptions. So, that's of no use to me, or I can go to the doctor, but I don't have the money for the crutches to get, you know, to stay off the foot. And so, the federal government decided to put in non-insured health benefits. Now, were about $9 billion a year that goes into non-insured health benefits. But, of that money, a lot of it is about transportation, because when you live in a remote community, you don't have a doctor coming every week. You're lucky if you have a doctor coming once a month. And so these people often have to be flown out for any kind of emergency. If you're having a heart attack, you know, there's no cardiologist on staff in your First Nation. You're going to have to be flown to nearest big city to go see somebody. If you have diabetes and they just diagnosed you, they're going to, at some point, going to have to send you to an endocrinologist, which they also don't have on site. So, we're talking a lot of money goes into transportation. Then, when you start to look at the rest of the breakdown and it's for things like eyeglasses, dental visits crutches, Band-Aids, prescriptions. When you live in a remote community, and I, I teach this often, you think about you can just go down to your local drugstore and hand in your prescription, you get your prescription right away. For people living in remote communities, they have to get it faxed to specific drugstore in a specific city, and wait for it to be filled. And then it gets on the next plane, which may not be till tomorrow. And then it gets flown into the nearest community. And then you have to wait for it to get from that community to you, which is usually through the nursing stations. So it could be two or three days before you have your prescription. So when you're thinking about it like that and you have a sore throat, like strep throat, it could take three days before you even get to your prescription. So you've already lived with the pain for three or four days before you see any kind of relief coming. So while non-insured health benefits seem like they're a great deal of benefit, it still doesn't narrow that gap in terms of health access and health equality. >> Thank you. >> No problem.
