(NAME-MCE) Bias in Canada

[KispokoT at aol.com]

Hello Friends, 
Thank you for an interesting  discussion. 
It's heartbreaking to read how  badly immigrant children are treated in 
Canada.  Ironically, it was  immigrants, themselves, who stole the lands and 
created the holocaust that  killed 90%- 95% of the Native Peoples who were here 
first. 
Below is an article about the  affects of Canadian (and USA) educational 
policies against these First  Nations.  
Gina Boltz, M.Ed. 
Director, Native Village  Publications  
Director, Youth Forum for The  International Council of Thirteen Indigenous 
Grandmothers  
_http://www.nativevillage.org_ (http://www.nativevillage.org)   
Secretary/Treasurer, Link Center  Foundation  
_www.linkcenterfoundation.org_ (http://www.linkcenterfoundation.org)   
Indybay News: US: Racial 
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469727.php 
Missing Kin,  Dead Kids: Gone, but not forgotten 
by Monica Davis ( davis4000_2000  [at] yahoo.com )  
Wednesday Jan 2nd, 2008 
A Kentucky coroner searches for  the relatives of a dead man, enlisting a 
public appeal for assistance in  identifying a body. An Indiana woman has been 
stoically expecting death  notification about her drug-addicted sister for 
years. Mothers, fathers, wives,  husbands and children lose relatives every year. 
Sometimes the disappearances  are voluntary. Sometimes they are not.  
Tens of thousands of people  disappear every year in the United States and 
Canada, but none of the  disappearances are more heartbreaking than the 
disappearance, or death of  children, especially when those children are in the 
custody of state run  facilities.  
After generations of hiding  evidence, burying information and even keeping 
medical records out of the hands  of relatives, the truth is coming out about 
Canada’s “Indian Schools.”   
Children died in those schools.  Children were molested, tortured and 
experimented on in those schools. Children  were ripped from their parents, often at 
gunpoint and taken to state or church  run schools for more than a century. 
And, in that time, thousands never came  home again. Their parents and kin didn’
t even have a body to bury.   
In Canada, tens of thousands of  tribal families have wondered what happened 
to their juvenile kin for  generations. Now, some of them may find out.  
In Canada, in the United States,  and in Great Britain children die in the 
custody of the state. Some die of  natural causes. Some die in the course of 
being punished for not obeying the  rules. Some die because their custodians went 
too far and, intentionally or not,  became executioners of children.  
Gareth Myatt was just three days  into a six-month sentence at Rainsbrook 
Secure Training Centre in  Northamptonshire when he was restrained by three 
members of staff after refusing  to clean the sandwich toaster. He tried to tell 
them he couldn't breathe, but  they did not release him. As they held him down, 
Gareth choked on his own vomit  and died. He was 15. (Location: Great Britain. 
Source: The Guardian, 7-4-07)   
Young Myatt’s case has spurred a  series of investigations in Great Britain. 
The government is taking a closer  look at the entire issue of restraint, 
punishment and juvenile incarceration  procedures. One newspaper reports that 
Thousands of assaults are being carried  out each year on children in custody by 
the people employed to look after them.  Hundreds suffer cuts and bruises and 
some require hospital treatment for  dislocated or broken bones. (Source: The 
Independent, 1-2-08) 
A British government official  says some of the tactics used in juvenile 
facilities in his country may actually  violate international Human Rights 
Treaties.  "The use of techniques to inflict pain  is in violation of the child's 
right under the United Nations Convention on the  Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to 
be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading  treatment or punishment.... We 
believe the practice in relation to restraint in  some YOIs and STCs is in clear 
breach of the UNCRC." In some circumstances it  may also contravene the European 
Convention on Human Rights, he said. (Ibid)   
Such sentiments are of little  comfort to the thousands of indigenous people 
in Canada whose children were  forcibly removed from their families and died 
in “Indian schools” for  generations. The United States practiced a similar “
residential Indian school  system”, and, as one Native American journalist put 
it, Americans have no room  to stick their noses up at what is currently happ
ening in Canada. She says:   
The same is true of the USA;  they're everywhere. Clear up into the 1960's, 
mandatory boarding schools for all  Indian kids. Kids were beaten, abused, 
sexually assaulted, and killed. Mass  graves are all across this country and they 
weren't all church-run. Many were  plain-out government run schools. The kids 
were taken at age 4, at gun-point if  necessary. There was no negotiation 
allowed. (Stephanie Schwartz, member Native  American Journalist Association, home 
page http://silvrdrach.homestead.com/)   
The residential schools in the  United States operated well in to the last 
half of the twentieth century. The  last one reportedly closed in 1986. More 
victims, more pain, still living  victims. (Ibid)  
Film maker, activist and writer,  Kevin Arnett (Eagle Strong Voice), has been 
instrumental in shedding light on  the issue. Arnett is a powerful advocate 
of opening records and uncovering the  truth. His website 
(http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/) highlights his work,  including his new film, “Unrepentant”, 
which investigates the horror of the  Indian residential school system.  
In his ezine, Arnett writes:   
This past year witnessed an  historic first in Canada: the public 
acknowledgment by the government that  thousands of children died in church-run "Indian 
residential schools". Just  yesterday, the Globe and Mail newspaper announced 
that witnesses to these deaths  will give testimony before upcoming public 
hearings concerning criminal acts in  these schools. Suddenly, the reality of 
genocide is staring Canada in the face.  (Arnett, email)  
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police  (RCMP) has opened an investigation, an act 
which has serious and far-reaching  political and social implications. This 
is particularly so because of past  conflicts of interest between institutions 
and individuals who conducted earlier  investigations.  
Not surprisingly, the groups  responsible for this genocide are doing their 
best to conceal their guilt. In  late December, on the eve of an investigation, 
the United Church of Canada  closed their residential school records to the 
public; and yet one of the  officials responsible for hiding these records, 
former Moderator Bill Phipps,  was, amazingly, appointed by the government to the 
Selection Panel that will  choose the Commissioners who will be investigating 
the residential school  deaths! (Ibid)  
The legacy of destruction  generated by these schools permeates Canadian 
aboriginal society. No  “settlement” can ever rebuild the minds and souls, which 
these atrocities  destroyed. As one former student-survivor put it: "Ten 
thousand bucks" said one  man, a survivor of the Catholic school in Mission, B.C. 
"It's just enough to  drink myself to death with." (Ibid)  
Death follows this story like  stench following sweat. Equally troubling is 
the creation of  pseudo-investigative bodies, organizations created by, staffed 
by and under the  control of the very government and religious bodies being 
accused of complicity  in the rape, torture and murder of untold numbers of 
indigenous children.   
Activists, including Arnett are  outraged, not only at the inclusion of 
possibly complicit church organizations  and officials, but also at the very naming 
of the investigative body.   
We are equally shocked by the  collusion in these wrongs by the so-called 
"Assembly of First Nations" (AFN), a  body not elected by indigenous people but 
created and funded by the colonial  state of Canada. (Ibid)  
To cap the horror, families have  not even been able to bury their dead, 
because the bodies of thousands of  children remain ‘in custody’, buried on 
school grounds. This is a major point of  contention with parents, relatives and 
human rights activists. Among other  things, they want to  
Force the government and the  Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada 
to return the remains of all  those who died in Indian residential schools and 
hospitals. (Ibid)   
Most troubling, however, is the  convenient death of an activist who was a 
former student/resident at a  residential school.  
They picked the wrong kid to mess  with when they dragged nine-year-  
old Nora Bernard off to the  Shubenacadie Indian Residential School  
in 1945. Sixty-one years later,  the determined Millbrook woman has won  
what's being called the largest  class-action settlement in Canadian  
history - worth somewhere between  $4 billion and $5 billion - for  
an estimated 79,000 survivors of  the residential school system. (The Daily 
News, 12-16-06)  
Newspapers say foul play is  involved. Other activists say Bernard’s death 
was no accident.  
It’s no accident that the very  week the government is announcing that 
criminal acts occurred in residential  schools, and that mass graves exist across 
the country filled with the remains  of residential school children, Nora was 
killed. The criminals responsible are  covering their tracks. (Ibid)  
In the middle of all the madness,  the living, the survivors try to stay sane 
and live with the horror. A website  gives survivors and their relatives 
access to information from the Indian  Residential School Survivors Society. In 
the words of the operators:   
This web site attempts to give  voice to the untold stories of so many 
Aboriginal boys and girls who attended  residential schools in Canada from 1831 to 
the 1990’s.  (http://www.wherearethechildren.ca/)  
In the United States, Canada and  throughout the world, children continue to 
die in state run schools and juvenile  detention centers. Sometimes their 
families receive justice. Some times not.  Many deaths either remain “a mystery”, 
and neither the dead child, nor their  grieving survivors receive justice. 
Monica Davis ( davis4000_2000  [at] yahoo.com ) 


Adrienne Clarkson was  Canada's 2nd female Governor General. First was Jean 
Sauve. Currently,  Canada's GG is Michaelle Jean, who is Haitian born.

And, yes, while  Canada entrenched multiculturalism in official 
policy in 1971 and then in  legislation in 1988, we do still have a long 
long way to go.  
http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/multi/policy/act_e.cfm

As an  early childhood person, I am particularly aghast at Canada's 
treatment of  immigrant children - we have a shameful history of this too. 
>From 1826  to 1939, Canada participated in several "child emigration" 
schemes which  brought 1000s of children (mostly British) to serve the 
needs of Canada - at  that time, as farm labourers, domestic servants. As 
Bill said "a cheap pool  of labour". Many of these childen were very badly 
treated and experienced  sexual, physical, emotional abuse.

Today, Canada's immigrant children are  "welcomed" if their parents can 
muster up enough "points" to make it into  the country. Once here, many 
immigrant children are labeled as learning  delayed and etc. because they 
do not speak English or French (our official  languages)and we are found 
wanting in terms of supporting their parents too.  There is a LOT of work 
to be done in anti-bias, anti-racism and in  supporting immigrants and 
their families.

Another issue is in  international adoptions and children who migrate to 
Canada for purposes of  adoption. See http://www.childinterrupted.ca if 
you're interested. My paper  examines int'l adoptions within 
the context of Canadian policy and  legislation (immigration, 
multiculturalism, citizenship) and int'l policy  and legislation (UN 
Convention on the Rights of the Child, The Hague  Convention on 
Intercountry Adoptions).

I am also part of the Canadian  Coalition for Immigrant Children and Youth. 
We are a national voluntary  organiztion working for more and better 
services for immigrant (and refugee)  children and youth. See 
http://immigrantchildren.ca  .

ZS
Kitchener, ON
Canada

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007, someone  wrote:

> "... Canada...still has a checkered past".
>
>  There were Japanese Canadian Internment camps, too.
>
> The article  makes reference to Adrienne Clarkson, who I believe was 
Canada's
> second  female Governor General. The current one is of African descent.
>





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