Issues Faced By Aboriginal People In Canada: Prejudice, Policies And Missing Cases Of Women

Culture of the aboriginals

The ancient people of Canada and their descendents are known as the aboriginals. They have their own culture and create an enormous effect on the current life of Canada. The word Canada has been derived from an aboriginal language (Kielburger, and Kielburger 2013). The linguistic groups of aboriginals in Canada are divided into thirteen parts. Cultural diversity can be observed in case of indigenous people. Major parts of their cultural framework are based on the arts and crafts. They are engaging with the making of canoe, snowshoes, maple syrup and toboggan.

The aboriginals are facing certain issues such as:

1. Health related issues are the primary problems faced by the aboriginals. Diabetes and heart diseases are the common problem to them and they are dying due to this (MacDonald and Steenbeek 2015).
   
   
2. The level of education provided to them is not well-designed and the rate of education is much lower than the non-aboriginals (Riverin et al. 2013).
   
   
3. The income level is also lower and it has been observed that the wages they get is inferior to the non-aboriginals.
   
   
4. The suicidal mentality is another issue in their case and the main reason behind it is the low rate of income and unemployment.
   
   
5. The missing cases regarding the aboriginal women are remaining unresolved and rest of the women are suffering from insecurity.

Though the Constitution of Canada pronounced equality among all, the aboriginals are facing serious discrimination and prejudiced in certain circumstances. It has been observed that they are facing serious health problem and standard of life has not been maintained for them (Goodman et al. 2017). It has been revealed from the 2006’s report that they are getting low payment as against the non-indigenous and incarceration rate is much higher. The children are not getting proper education and grave injustice has been done to them.

The aboriginals are the most ancient group and they have created a great impression on the culture and daily life of Canada. Proper care is required in this case and they should be treated equally by the non-aboriginals and the police. The Canadian government should have to take proper care to them so that they could get education and implementation of necessary health policies is required. it is required that they should get equal remuneration and other related opportunities like the non-aboriginal people.

It has been observed from the documentary “Finding Dawn” that the Canadian government is less interested regarding the missing aboriginal women and how the native women are being harassed. The main objective of the finding dawn is to point out the security issues faced by the aboriginal women and lack of proper police response regarding the missing diaries. Considering the importance of the issues, many stories and documentaries are being rolled out on the missing cases of women (Rutherdale 2014).

The problem regarding the missing and murdering aboriginal women are a common problem in Canada. the case of Amber Tuccaro is one of it whose murder is still a mystery to the police and her family (YouTube, 2017). The case of Amber has pointed out the dark side of the policing as against the aboriginal women in Canada. She was brutally murdered in 2010 and remained missing for two years. Police found her body in the woods of Edmonton and lack of police responsiveness has been alleged by the family of the deceased. More than four thousand women were lost their life in Canada since 1980 and most of the cases are remaining unresolved (Police, R.C.M. 2014). The brother of the deceased told that the case of his sister remained unsolved due to her Indian origin. Stacey Dooley has made an attempt to point out all the necessary facts regarding the murder in her documentary named “Canada’s lost girls”. It has been evident from the documentary that the investigating officers did not take reasonable steps and take too much time to track the CCTV footage. The audio that has been recorded by Amber at the time of occurrence has not been revealed by the police and till now no one has been arrested by police. Based on the allegation, the Commissioner of Royal Canadian Mounted Police stated in 2015 that there is no place for the racist cop in the force.

Issues they face

The main reason for choosing the video is that the documentary of Finding Dawn and Canada’s lost girl has similar objective and both the documentary shows the condition of the aboriginal women in Canada (Hall 2016). The process of investigation is much slower in case of aboriginals than the other citizen of Canada. It has been alleged that the police or even the government is not that much interested for the betterment of the aboriginals. It can be observed from the documentaries that more than 4000 missing cases are pending since 1980 in Canada and in most of the cases, no offender has been arrested. Proper security has not been provided by the government rather the aboriginals are being detained in the prisons. However, from the “Finding dawn”, it has been observed that many native right activists are promoting the idea of fundamental rights of the women and options they can choose for securing their interest. It has also learnt from those videos that grave injustice has been done to them and reaction of the police is much lower regarding them.

It has been portrayed in the above mentioned paragraphs that the aboriginals have to face many dilemmas in their every day’s life and the government is required to take all the possible efforts for their security. The activists are promoting the ideas on human rights and the videos are encouraging the native people to take all the possible steps to make a bridge in between them (Patrick 2014). Strategies have been made to establish good relationship with the police and closing the gaps in between the aboriginals and the non-aboriginal people. It has been observed that certain community has been made to develop the standard of the native women and spreading the principle of unity among the society. These strategies will help the aboriginals to reduce the potentiality of the problems they are facing.

 Cultural genocide is the main reason for the aboriginal people as they do not get over it. It has been observed that the government is diversifying them regarding their language and culture. It has also been observed that the aboriginal children, who are residing in the homes for pursuing education, have to face certain experimentation. They are not allowed to speak in their own language or practice their customs (Asch 2014). The colonization policies are deprived the aboriginals spirituality and an effort has been made to cut off their identity. In the words of Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada, the steps taken by the government against aboriginals are horrible and the government has no right to snatch away the spirituality of a community. Intergenerational trauma has been observed within the aboriginals for the government policies as there is a gap created in between the elder and younger aboriginals in respect of their tradition (Daoud et al. 2013). The aboriginals have faced many problems in their past and an attempt has been made to modernise their ideas and life. However, in this process, the originality and tradition of the aboriginals have been lost. It can state that mutual understanding can be effective in this case.

Reference:

Asch, M., 2014. On being here to stay: Treaties and Aboriginal rights in Canada. University of Toronto Press.

Daoud, N., Smylie, J., Urquia, M., Allan, B. and O'Campo, P., 2013. The contribution of socio-economic position to the excesses of violence and intimate partner violence among Aboriginal versus non-Aboriginal women in Canada. Can J Public Health, 104(4), pp.278-283.

Goodman, A., Fleming, K., Markwick, N., Morrison, T., Lagimodiere, L., Kerr, T. and Society, W.A.H.R., 2017. “They treated me like crap and I know it was because I was Native”: The healthcare experiences of Aboriginal peoples living in Vancouver's inner city. Social Science & Medicine, 178, pp.87-94.

Hall, M.A., 2016. The girl and the game: A history of women's sport in Canada. University of Toronto Press.

Kielburger, C. and Kielburger, M., 2013. Cultural respect is a health issue for Canadian Aboriginals. Ottawa Citizen August, 18, p.2013.

MacDonald, C. and Steenbeek, A., 2015. The Impact of Colonization and Western Assimilation on Health and Wellbeing of Canadian Aboriginal People. International Journal of Regional and Local History, 10(1), pp.32-46.

Patrick, C., 2014. Aboriginal homelessness in Canada: A literature review. Canadian Homelessness Research Network.

Police, R.C.M., 2014. Missing and murdered Aboriginal women: A national operational overview. Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Riverin, B., Dewailly, E., Côté, S., Johnson-Down, L., Morin, S. and Dodin, S., 2013. Prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency and associated factors among Canadian Cree: a cross-sectional study. Can J Public Health, 104(4), pp.e291-e297.

Rutherdale, M., 2014. Women and the White Man's God: Gender and Race in the Canadian Mission Field. UBC Press.

YouTube. (2017). Amber Tuccaro's unsolved murder. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwqZcfJN6gs&t=94s [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].