Intended for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal learners, this course will explore indigenous ways of knowing and how they can benefit all students. Topics include historical, social, and political issues in Aboriginal education; terminology; cultural, spiritual and philosophical themes in Aboriginal worldviews; and how Aboriginal worldviews can inform professional programs and practices, including but not limited to the field of education.
8th Fire episode 3. Whose land is it anyway?
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From the course by University of Toronto
Aboriginal Worldviews and Education
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From the lesson
8th Fire: Aboriginal Peoples, Canada & the Way Forward
This television series aired on Canada's CBC in 2013. Short clips used in the course created a demand from students for more and to see the clips in their original context. We received permission to show the series here.
Meet the Instructors
Jean-Paul RestouleAssociate Professor
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
[music]. Hi, I'm Wab Kinew.
I'm Anishinaabe from the Ojibways of Onigaming First Nation in Ontario.
Welcome to 8th Fire. The name of this series comes from an
Aboriginal prophecy that says that now is the time for your people and my people to
come together and build a new fire of peace and friendship.
But let's face it, one of the biggest issues that stands between us is land.
It used to be all ours and now, not so much, but you know what, I'm not mad.
In fact, in this episode, you're going to meet a whole lot of people who are
thinking creatively and working hard to come up with solutions to the toughest
problems that keep your people and my people from getting along.
[music]. >> This is my land.
This is my homeland. It's indigenous land.
[music]. >> The pride of having your own territory
is huge. [music].
>> Our culture is based on life on the land.
[music]. >> This is my territory as a place of
survival of who we are. A place of survival of our culture and
language. >> Most of this desert back here is 1000
acres. We could make millions off of it easily,
but we're just going to leave it the way it is.
We'll take a chunk of our land, do some good economic development to look after
everything else, and leave the rest of the land the way it is.
>> This land is your land. This land is my land.
Or as my people say, [foreign]. This country is big, space enough for
everyone. Why then is land at the heart of every
battle between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals.
Just down the river from here there's a swath of land that cuts through Ontario's
heartland, full of cities, farm, and industry.
But every kid on the Six Nations Reserve knows it as the Haldimand proclamation,
950,000 acres given to their ancestors for helping the British win the war against
the Americans. But as my Mom told me, never mess with a
Mohawk. They're still stubbornly fighting to get
fair compensation for that deal. It's all part of an equation that's
uncomfortable to calculate. Canada's land gains have been the losses
of the First peoples, but, hard as it seems, there are ways of working it out.
[music]. >> The best relationships between native
people and non-native people are business relationships.
That's the best, because it's based on work, it's based on production, it's based
on sharing. We have more band-owned businesses on a
per capita basis in any First Nation in Canada or tribe in the US.
Not what I'm really proud of, is a fact that most people work for a living.
>> The Osoyoos call this valley home. It's the Okanagan in British Columbia.
Now a magnet for tourists drawn by the scenery, the gulf, and the grapes.
On the 320 square kilometers that make up their reserve, the Osoyoos have reached
out to those tourists. [music].
>> They've developed a vineyard, a golf course, and a five-star hotel complex on
their land. The result, a mini economic boom.
>> We've been able to create jobs, decent paying jobs, and we have to create more.
[music]. Nk'mip Cellars is one of the band's
biggest success stories. The vineyard is a partnership between the
Osoyoos and Vine Corp Canada, the countries biggest wine producer.
>> [inaudible] taste this wine against the ...
>> Several young people from the reserve work here.
>> Another year in that barrel it'll be awesome.
>> I needed a job in the winter time and I went to our chief, spoke with him, and he
said, give it a try, it's a good opportunity.
[music]. And I came here, and I knew immediately
that winemaking was for me. Good fruit characters.
Good integration. >> Real, really mouth-filling with regard
to the tannin contribution, and really integrated aromatically.
>> Mm. Very, very good tannins.
I agree. >> I would love to be the winemaker here
and Randy's been teaching me the skills. And looking forward to the future of
having an OC senior band member running the winery.
>> You know the band is they understand what it takes to survive in the 21st
century from an economic standpoint and they're very forward in their thinking.
They understand where they have limitations, and that's one of the reasons
why I think this winery has become, is a, is a joint venture.
[music]. >> So this is the reserve on the
right-hand side, it cuts across a highway here.
>> Clarence, Louie, and his band are proud of what they've achieved, especially,
given where they started. [music] ...
>> Even though, we got what I would say a decent reserve, we still lost our best
lands. We lost over 4000 acres of our best land.
[music]. Land claims, there's a big issue with
every First Nation and there's a lot of historical grievances that still have to
be looked after. And if it wasn't for us losing our best
land, we, we probably wouldn't have grown up in, in poverty.
>> There's no political will to deal with Aboriginal land claims.
As it is not popular and it is costly. >> Let's get one thing straight.
The first peoples of Canada have never been conquered.
We negotiated in good faith and thought that the Crown was doing the same thing,
but they had a different approach. >> Case in point, the Toronto purchase.
>> The British negotiators were tough and experienced.
In 1805, they sealed a deal with the Mississaugas for 250,000 acres along the
shores of Lake Ontario. That's the land on which Toronto now sits.
>> The price paid, 10 shillings, that's only 60 bucks in today's money.
Here in the big smoke, that's not even enough for a night on the town.
[music] ... >> I'm sure the James Bay Cree, because of
their, their land claim, because forcing the Quebec government and the federal
government to the table. And now that they got a billion dollar
land claim, they've developed a relationship, relationships that they
would never have developed before. [music] They're hanging around people in
government and in business that they would never have hung around with, with before.
[music]. >> Clarence Louie is talking about the
James Bay Agreement in Northern Quebec. [music].
This was a David and Goliath confrontation.
And the Crees of James Bay stunned a modern day giant.
>> They do not want the James Bay project. >> The government was forced to recognize
the right of native people, not just to their land, but to the development of
their land. >> [foreign].
[foreign]. [foreign].
[music]. The agreement signed in 1975 wasn't just a
Canadian first, it was a world first. It covers 1 million square kilometers in
Northern Quebec. That's almost 2 3rds of the province.
The Crees gave up part of their ancestral lands to the Quebec government to allow
the construction of hydro dams. [music].
What they got in return was jobs, the control of their schools, and health
services and money, $169 million. [music].
With that bank roll, they went into business for themselves.
>> When you look at other Aboriginal people, even around the world, you know, I
think the Cree Nation has evolved to a point that we can really say that we, we
are a great nation. [music].
We have an airline. We have a construction company that's
among the four largest construction companies in Quebec.
We, we have all kinds of things. >> [foreign], [foreign].
[music]. [music].
>> We're standing on the east coast of Hudson Bay.
We're by the 55th parallel of latitude. North of that there's, there's no
development. There's no dams, there's no roads.
It's a, no a, any, any kind of measured industry.
Today, it's, it's still like it was 50 years ago.
[music]. Maybe 200 miles from here you start to see
development, you know, there's dams, there's dikes there's reservoirs.
There are hydroelectric installations. There are airports.
There's a highway. And, and further south you go, of course,
you know, you get to see these and all that [music].
[music]. >> Hi.
>> [foreign]. >> I bought some two and three inch, three
quarters [laugh]. >> It took 36 years to implement the James
Bay in Northern Quebec. We had to go to court, we had to bring
Canada to court. We had to bring Quebec to court.
You know, that attitude was not changing until they wanted to dam our river here
and we in, in the late 80s. >> [foreign] >> In 1989, new tension, the
Quebec government announced it was going to divert and dam another river, the Great
Whale Whapmagoostui. [music].
[inaudible] go back, you only have 4 minutes to leave the communities, 4
minutes. >> The Crees were implacably opposed to
sacrificing another river to the Gods of electricity.
>> [foreign]. >> Their answer was an international
campaign that took them all the way to New York City.
Matthew Mukash was the leader in that battle.
>> On Earth Day, when we arrived at Battery Park there were 24 major American
television crews pointing at the canoe. We're all over the news, we even make the
news in, in Europe, you know? So that was the success of the campaign
and we actually killed a $17 billion contract.
[music] The people here said, no, thank you to Hydro, and they managed to put
together a campaign and protect it and defended that river.
Because I'd seen the success of it, I think because my, my father is the one
that spearheaded all that it's kind of ingrained in me that I would have to be
ready to fight for it for my generation. [music].
The James Bay Agreement dealt with some problems, but not all.
[music]. The benefits that we're talking about are
the basic rights of every Canadian and Quebec citizen.
If looking at what the Cree people have to give up just to get an education system
and, a health system and so on. And they're not, they're almost sub part.
The basic rights that we've had, we've had to give up rivers, and identity, and
culture, and everything else. [music] Pakesso Mukash is with the group
Ceremony. >> All of our generation that is passing
away. >> How the heck did we get that other
guitar in there? >> [music] Our legends and traditional
ways are threatened [unknown] with the modern day.
What will we then become? Have we lost touch with our youth?
When the last of our great rivers, meets a fatal [inaudible].
And tress that once spoke are silenced once and for all.
And the spirits that led us here, they are witness through our great fall.
How will we define ourselves to our children and our grandchildren?
If our legends [inaudible]. With Matthew Iserhoff, he composes and
sings songs of land and pride. Cree land, Cree pride.
They've watched their nation develop, but they also see the social problems that
remain. >> [foreign].
>> Diabetes is still way up, you know. Cocaine uses, through the roof, and the
only thing people have are nicer trucks. [music].
[foreign]. >> Imagine always having to fight to speak
your own language, to hold on to your culture, to hold on to your very identity.
And imagine the searing pain of having you, your parents, your grandparents taken
away from your families and plunged into the horrors of residential schools.
It leaves deep wounds and time is needed to heal those wounds.
At least with the money, the Crees of James Bay were able to build an
infrastructure to protect their community and its identity.
So it seems that there's the hope of recovery there.
But some communities got far less, the Inuit Nation didn't want to give up its
rights, so they refused to negotiate with Hydro-Quebec.
The result, no money, and no rights. [music].
>> I come from a small town called Schefferville.
It's a mining town, that's what it was. And it is still a mining town.
[music] ... >> Armand MacKenzie's community lives on
land within the boundaries of the James Bay Agreement.
>> When the James Bay Project was announced, I was probably 10 or 12 years
old. And there were a lot of discussions in the
kitchen, with my uncle, who was chief back then, and with, along with my father.
>> But unlike the Cree, the Inuit of Schefferville were frozen out of the
agreement. This deep injustice, as they see it has
left a bitter taste in their mouths. >> The Inuit of Schefferville [inaudible]
received no royalties, no money, no special powers, no environmental powers,
or specific regime, or political institutions, or self-government, nothing.
We only received the prejudice. [music].
>> There is more, their dealings with mining companies have been painful and
unequal and knows wounds scare not just their minds, but also the countryside.
>> All the transnational corporations companies, shareholders, they make a lot
of profit. A lot of money with, with our natural
resources, basically, and it took away all of our wealth and they produced all kind
of material. And when they left the community and late
in the early 80s, the huge mining pits were still there and they are still there
today. [music].
The James Bay example may seem to herald the beginning of a more equal relationship
between First Nation people and the government.
But the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation in northern Manitoba have another harsher
story to tell. The Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation were among
the first to sign a historical agreement with the Crown, Treaty Number 5.
>> In 1976, Manitoba Hydro diverts the Churchill River as one of the steps in the
construction of a dam. The hunting and fishing land of the
Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation was flooded and part of their way of life was
destroyed. There was no consultation, no deal, no
compensation, nothing. [music].
Some may have believed that the James Bay agreement was a turning point in the
relationship between Canada and the native people, but Manitoba Hydro trampled that
belief underfoot. >> When the water first came up in 76 and
there was a lot of angry people, because we're never prepared for that, they, we
knew it was coming but we were never prepared.
We, we didn't realize the extent of damage.
[music] [foreign]. As a young person in the 70s I was, Hydro
wasn't my favorite issue, right? And I think at the end of the day, when I
got elected as leader, I had to change my perspective, right?
[music]. >> Several years later, compensation
finally came from the federal government, the province, and Manitoba Hydros.
With the money came a promise. The Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation would be
consulted on any future project. That future is called Wasquatum, a 200
megawatt Hydro dam, 35 kilometers from the reserve.
>> Hydro came out and basically said, hey listen, we'll never be able to repay, the
damages, so what about this opportunity? [music].
>> The deal was tempting. But the negotiations were far harder than
expected. >> We weren't really prepared.
And, although, that we had the negotiation process happen for about eight and a half
years, we, we just weren't prepared for that.
[music]. They're tough, right?
You know, they have they have the resources.
They have all the capacity speed through, through the process.
And here we are, you know, like we're just a bunch of reserve kids that thrown into
the stable, right? >> I devoted my life negotiating with
Corporate Canada governments. Dealing with either, it's always going
back to school. It's Aboriginal 101 and it's tiring.
You get wary of it. You have to be tough, you have to be
healthy you have to consider the community, and sometimes you negotiate
under duress. >> Finally, in 2006, the community agreed
to a partnership with Manitoba Hydro. But the price tag was enormous.
The band must invest $84 million of its own money to buy into a 1 3rd share of the
project. A lot of money for a reserve of 4500
people. >> Our community, right now it probably
400 homes, short right? How do you deal with the current immediate
issues, right? When they are trying to put some money
aside for this future project. >> There have been slip-ups and ambushes
at the negotiation table, but the leaders of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation think
that Wasquatum will bring new life into the reserve.
[music]. >> This is once in a lifetime opportunity,
this Wasquatum project, and so we're going to take it from there as a resilient
people, we've had harder times in other things and this is nothing.
It's fun. [music].
>> It's their community is still in a sort of rural conditions.
[music]. >> And when we have a mine at the back, it
shouldn't be like that. >> The mine in question is a diamond mine,
it's name is Victor and it's owner is De Beers, the biggest diamond company in the
world. The mine is in the middle of the ancestral
lands of the Cree of Attawapiskat. Their reserve is in Northern Ontario next
to James Bay. [foreign].
[music]. [foreign].
>> They've been there for thousands of years , and here, one of the largest, if
not the largest diamond companies in the world arrived and develop and all they get
is, is peanuts from that development. [music].
We need to establish a new framework, when these situations come about.
You know, if the news is going to install a diamond mine right next to one of the
poorest communities, not only in the country, but in the world, they should be
forced and obliged to do something about it.
>> We're not responsible for, you know, infrastructure and education and building
schools and, and things like that. It's not, in Canada, we've got a fairly
stable democracy. We've got good economic performance in
general. So there's a government that is, you know,
tasked to do that. >> The Attawapiskat community negotiated
with De Beers, the largest diamond consortium in the world, sat down with a
small band of 2,000 people. In 2005, both sides agreed to an IBA, an
Impact Benefits Agreement. Stripped of the legal jargon, the company
agreed to pay the native band compensation for the right to mine on their land.
In this case, the company said it would pay the band $2 million dollars a year and
that amount would go up if the mine made a profit.
We were three years negotiating that IBA, and we did not, we did not go forward with
full construction, until we had the ratification of the community.
>> > It was a big mystery with this IBA and yeah, a lot of people, saying it
without the knowledge of really, what's, what was in their, so it's not a good
package right now. >> Our understanding and our belief is
that it's a, it's a very fair and, and generous IBA.
And we've seen other communities take a great interest in learning what's in the
Attawapiskat IBA as they pursue other mining operations in other part of Canada.
[music]. >> Well, IBAs are good.
Okay. If they're acceptable to Aboriginal
communities and negotiated freely. I think they're okay, but they only
respond to a certain need, very minimal need that are in the communities.
>> One deal, two diametrically opposed visions on how it should work.
[music] And that disagreement creates friction between the band and the company.
Here is an example of the bands' frustration.
>> This is the banner and we're holding it [inaudible].
>> And there are provisions in the Impact Benefit Agreement for jobs and giving the
first opportunity to Attawapiskat members. [music].
But the gap between where people are now and where they need to be is considerable.
There's no plan in place on how we're going to get Attawapiskat members from
there, here to there. You know, the people in Attawapiskat are
skilled, they know what to do they're smart.
It's just taking those smarts, getting you know, a grade 12 equivalency or, level and
then we can move on. But if you don't get that minimum grade,
you're stuck. [music].
>> But how do you convince young people to finish school if there are no schools, if
there are no schools? >> The elementary school children of
Attawapiskat go to class in prefabs. It's been that way for 10 years and it's
the same on several other reserves. [music].
>> It's quite a very a safety issue and a health issue, especially in the in, in the
winter time, when the draft is so harsh that the, you know, it's really cold
inside most days. [music].
>> I have two communities without schools. How can that be?
How can it be that Attawapiskat has no school for their children?
Kashechewan has no school for their children?
All across the northern territories children are in, are, are in unsafe
conditions, substandard conditions, children lose hope in grade 4 and grade 5.
It's a, a national, it's an international scandal.
>> Peaceful education. >> A few years ago, a group of young
people from Attawapiskat decided to fight to get a new school.
>> My Name is Shannen Koostachin. I am from the Attawapiskat First Nation.
>> They turned to the Internet, Canadians rallied to their cause.
>> Three years ago my sister, Shannen Koostachin, here on this spot pleaded for
a new school for our community. But I ask, why do I have to come back and
do the same thing once again that our own government cannot keep a promise that they
have made three times? >> The face and voice of this fight was
that of Shannen Koostachin. For her, it was a fight for justice.
But on June 1st, 2010, Shannen was killed in a car accident.
Her family and friends decided to carry on her fight.
>> It just feels so proud to have had a child that had a vision and truly believe
in something that she stood for. For our daughter started something unique.
She started the first and biggest youth movement, children's right movement in
Canada, and that tells a lot, like how one kid with a dream can move a nation?
>> So we invite all politicians, First Nation leaders, students, and educators
across Canada to make Shannen's dream a reality because no child should ever have
to beg or fight for an education in this country.
>> Federal MP, Charlie Angus became a friend and supporter of Shannen.
He continues to fight for her cause. >> Shannen is a national symbol.
She's a hero of hope for young people. She has touched people in a way that I
haven't seen other people being able to do.
We need heroes in our communities. We have communities where kids are giving
up hope and killing themselves, one after the other.
We have to be able to say there's another way, and Shanne for so many native and
non-native students, she's become a national symbol of hope.
[music]. >> She was put here for that purpose to
provide that message to the young people to never give up, because, she, she knew
that she had to struggle through school. She struggled in school, but she never
gave up. So I got her some sea shells.
These ones are from up north. Those shells, she loved those.
>> A part of Shannen's dream will soon become reality.
The Department of Aboriginal Affairs has announced that Attawapiskat will get a new
primary school in 2013. [music].
>> Canadians wouldn't believe what these kids live through.
They wouldn't believe it. It's not just that they have a school on a
toxic site. If you saw their homes, if you saw the
living conditions in some of these communities, it, it is indescribable.
This is not Canada. This not second world, this is not third
world. It is a fourth world.
[music]. >> We have three jet service flights that
come up from Ottawa and Montreal a day. We're the 20th busiest airport in the
country. [music].
This is a multicultural city we have people in Iqaluit that come from, not only
all over, from different parts of Nunavut, but also from other parts of the Arctic
other parts of Canada and other parts of the world.
>> The first time I got off the plane and I charged aground here and I, you know, I
took you know, a breath of I just felt home.
You know, I said, this is where I want to be.
[music]. Stephane Cloutier is from Quebec.
He has lived in Nunavut for 17 years. His wife Gila is Inuit, they have four
children. He loves his new home, but he hasn't quite
picked up all of its traditions. [music].
>> This is a county food market where people come and sell their meat.
And we came here a little too late I guess, everything was gone except for
caribou head and two legs that we got. [music].
My husband doesn't hunt, so I have to come here, to things like this, to get my meat.
And I told him before, never find country food too expensive until you can go
hunting and get it himself for me [laugh]. [music].
>> Nunavut is huge, almost 2 million square kilometers.
That's 1 5th of Canada with just 30,000 people in that immense space.
Its capital, Iqaluit, is a boomtown, a young boomtown.
In 10 years, its population has doubled and 60% are under 25.
It took the Inuit 25 years of struggle and long, tough negotiations with the federal
government to win the right to run this land.
[music]. >> And with this government, they would at
last be able to make decisions that have an impact on their lives and not let
someone else from south to make those decisions for them.
[music]. ... >> For the Inuit, April 1st, 1999 was and
remains a day of celebration. A day which brought dignitaries and
journalists from around the world to witness the birth of the First Inuit
Constitutional territory. Nunavut changed the map of Canada, both
geographically and linguistically. The Aboriginal language, Inuktitut, was
for the first time recognized as an official language.
[foreign]. >> Working on teaching my children to
speak more Inuktitut. I would like to believe that they'll grow
up having learned Inuktitut and be able to work in Inuktitut.
[music]. >> Nunavut has prizes to offer, natural
resources and many seek them. Mining exploration is big business in this
territory. Deposits of gold, of iron, of diamonds,
and uranium have all been found, and that's just the start.
>> [foreign]. [music] [foreign].
>> I feel comfortable with our mother nature.
It's, it's so peaceful, after a hard day's of work in the office when you get to go
out in the tundra like this and see the landscape and the fresh air.
[music]. >> We need, really need the mining sector
to help out in this region. Most of the, what we have is people
relying on the government, in their government and you really can't rely on
the government itself, you, you need to have the private sector help out.
>> You want anything else? There's more.
[music]. >> We have to take into consideration in
the long-term we need to get jobs for our younger generations.
We just can't rely on the wildlife to survive.
>> In tough negotiations with Ottawa, the Inuit agreed to limit their control to 18%
of the territory, that means, the federal government has the final word on 82% of
the land. In comparison, the provinces control all
of their land. >> I think what is important to keep in
mind with the development of natural resources is to ensure that decisions are
made up of development or not, made somewhere else outside of the territory.
But that the people, to ensure the people [unknown] are involved in the development,
that they participate in the decision making.
[music]. >> You know, when it comes to sovereignty
and, and the land of the Inuit we are sovereignty.
We live here for a million year, and this is our home, and it will always be our
home. So, whatever happens to our land and our
environment, we need to have that control and recognition as well and we should
always strive for that. [laugh].
>> Development is the dream for Aboriginal people, but reality is the Indian Act.
Most First Nations are subject to it, which means they live on land held in
reserve for them by the Crown. That applies to the Attawapiskat, to the
Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, and to the Osoyoos band.
Whatever their will, whatever they plan, the Indian Act stands in the way.
[music]. >> Most of the Indian Act is about is
about land, it's about reserve land or as they call, it federal land.
We don't call our reserve federal land. We call it our land.
But yet, we have to go to the department any time we had, we want to do land
development. And we have to, basically, have to ask
them permission on what we can and can't do with our land.
>> How do you make a bad situation better? For some, the answer is simple.
Abolish the Indian Act. For others, the priority is to rethink the
approach to property in these lands, and a leader of that group is Manny Jules.
There are institutions that governments have created to facilitate good marketable
lands. You have none of that on Indian reserve.
[music]. You have a situation where somebody else
can make the decision on your behalf, because they're the trustee and that has
to change. And the only way it can change is by
transferring the ownership of the, of those lands to the First Nation.
>> To me, money equals opportunity, so that's why I love spending my time with
business people like yourselves. We have business partners that work with
us on developing a hotel or development of business in the reserve.
They're just amazed that we don't have control of our own land.
They teach winemaking, they teach horticulture.
We're able to manage our own lands, we should be deciding what's best for us.
I think whether it's Osoyoos or Squamish or Membertou or Tutchone are, there's so
many other bands across this country that are proven that they know what's best for
their people. >> What Aboriginal people want is a right
to develop our communities according to our dreams and our aspirations.
It's as simple as that. >> My dream for Attawapiskat is to better
homes and better future for the youth. [music].
And we need to use the land, because if we don't use the land, we're going to lose
it. [music].
>> This story I'd like to see my grandchildren, to be able to go out there
and tell the world about our people, the land, and then come back here and be on
the land, you know, that is untouched. [music] Well, that's how I'd like to see
my grandchildren grow up is, is to be masters of both worlds, so to speak.
>> Aboriginal Canadians want to be part of this society based on fundamental values,
equality, justice, and respect for our status as Aboriginal group in this
country, because we were here on this land.
We won't move anywhere else? This is our land.
This is our homeland. [music].
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