Canadian colonial practices and policies such as the Indian Act, the pass system, reserves, and residential schools sought to control and assimilate Indigenous peoples. These practices and policies have had severe historic and ongoing impacts on generations of Indigenous peoples.
The following subjects are addressed or alluded to in The War Being Waged:
Indigenous incarceration rates are at an all-time high, according to reports made in December 2021 by Canada’s correctional investigator. Dr. Ivan Zinger predicts that with this trajectory, Canada will reach “historic and unconscionable levels” of Indigenous incarceration in federal penitentiaries.
A Justice Canada study has found that its own criminal courts are stacked against Indigenous defendants: Indigenous people were found to be 33% less likely to be acquitted, and 14% more likely to plead or be found guilty. Once convicted, Indigenous offenders were 30% more likely to be imprisoned.
First Nations, Inuit and Métis women and girls are overrepresented in Canada's criminal justice system as both victims and survivors. Indigenous women make up 48% of the total population of women in correctional facilities within Canada, yet they make up less than 5% of the total population of people in Canada. A substantial body of research points to gendered impacts of colonialism as a central factor in the under-protection and over-criminalization of Indigenous women and girls.
The Justice Canada study concluded the criminal courts are “contributing to differential and disproportionate outcomes for Indigenous people.” This represents clear evidence of systemic injustice.
The Indian Act is legislation that was enacted in 1876 and still remains as Canadian law. It consolidated a number of earlier colonial laws that sought to control and assimilate Indigenous peoples into white Christian culture, and has been amended many times over the years to do away with some of its more egregiously restrictive and oppressive laws. However, the Act has had historic and ongoing impacts on First Nations cultures, economies, politics and communities. It has also caused inter-generational trauma, particularly with regards to residential schools.
Among other things, the Indian Act gave the government control of Indigenous elections on reserves; it forced Indigenous children to attend residential schools, and it gave the ownership of land to treaty bands. It also prevented Indigenous people from practising their culture, legislated who women were allowed to marry (if they wanted to keep their status,) and even affected whether or not Indigenous people could possess and enact a last will and testament.
Many have called for the Indian Act to be abolished. However, the Indian Act legally distinguishes between First Nations and other Canadians, and it acknowledges that the federal government has a unique relationship with, and obligation to, First Nations. For this reason, the idea of the abolition of the Indian Act has been controversial. Although there are many differing opinions on how to confront the issues presented by the Indian Act, leaders widely agree that if any alternative political relationship is to be worked out between First Nations and the government, First Nations will need to be active participants in establishing it.
In The War Being Waged, the grandmother character addresses the subject of self-determination. Self-determination refers to the right of a people to freely determine their own political status, take control of their economic, social, and cultural development, and to have the ability to benefit from and dispose of their inherent natural resources as they see fit. Officially, the Government of Canada recognizes the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination, as it is obligated to do under international treaty law. Yet in recent years we have seen many Indigenous communities rising up to protest incursions on their territories, only to be met with extreme force from RCMP and the military.
UNB law professor Benjamin Perryman wrote, with regard to the Wet’suwet’en pipeline protests: “According to the Supreme Court of Canada, Indigenous people may hold ‘Aboriginal title’ to their traditional territory but only in relation to the Crown’s sovereignty. The Crown was able to assert this sovereignty because hundreds of years ago the land was considered ‘empty’ by Europeans and therefore available to be ‘discovered’ by Europeans. This ‘doctrine of discovery’ has never been renounced by Canadian courts nor have courts explained how its inherent racism can be justified in a modern constitutional democracy…If the rule of law is premised on the notion that we are all equal before law, Canadian courts must be able to explain why Wet’suwet’en law that predates the Canadian constitution is irrelevant…If that explanation rests on the ‘doctrine of discovery,’ courts must be able to explain why that ongoing reliance is justified. In the absence of such justifications, we will be able to dispossess Indigenous people from their land by force under cover of law, but we will be unable to plausibly claim that our constitutional order rests on a rule of law principle worthy of respect. If left untreated, the ongoing oppression of Indigenous people in Canada risks causing an irreparable blight on our constitutional order.” (Toronto Star, November 29, 2021.)
In The War Being Waged, the main character mentions residential schools and how they affected her life. These were schools that Indigenous children were forced to attend and live in, government-sponsored schools that were run by Christian churches. Their purpose was to isolate Indigenous children from their families, culture, language, and communities, instead teaching them religion, Canadian culture, and the English language in order to encourage assimilation into white society. These schools existed from 1870 to 1996. The attempts to assimilate Indigenous children began as soon as they arrived at the school; boys’ long hair was cut short, and the children were given uniforms (and often new names.) The curriculum focused on Christian practices and denigrated Indigenous spiritual traditions. In its Final Report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada called the Indian residential school system “cultural genocide.”
Over 150,000 children attended these schools, and the system disrupted Indigenous practices, culture, and language, preventing them from being taught to younger generations. John Tootoosis, a former residential school student, says of a child who has been through the residential school system, “On one side are all the things he learned from his people and their way of life that was being wiped out, and on the other side are the white man’s ways which he could never fully understand since he never had the right amount of education and could not be part of it. There he is, hanging in the middle of two cultures and he is not a white man and he is not an Indian. They washed away practically everything from our minds, all the things an Indian needed to help himself, to think the way a human person should in order to survive.” (Canadian Encyclopedia)
The Canadian government didn’t properly document or care how children were being treated in these schools, and often, priests and nuns and other clergy had complete power over the children. Beatings, starvation, isolation, medical experimentation, and many other horrific things happened to these children while they were under the care of these people. The emotional, mental, and physical abuse suffered at residential schools still affects Indigenous families today. Children who were abused in the schools sometimes went on to abuse others. Some developed addictions as a way of coping, and countless lives were lost to alcohol and drugs; families were destroyed.
Today, across the country, in places where these schools existed—in towns, reserves and cities—people are finding the unmarked graves of children who attended residential schools. These are children who never returned home to their families, and often no explanation was given as to how or why these children died. Indigenous people are working to recover these children and give them the peace and recognition they deserve.
Note: If you have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419.
Despite having distinct linguistic, cultural, and political systems, many Indigenous peoples share common beliefs such as the interdependence of all living things, and a strong sense of community. This is reflected in their way of parenting and educating children, and traditionally all members of the community (especially Elders) participate in raising children. This was at odds with the European way of child-rearing, which centred on family units. Residential schools removed Indigenous children from their communities for decades, and when the schools began closing, the state intervened via child welfare agencies.
In 1951, changes to the Indian Act allowed provincial laws to apply on reserves. Child welfare authorities began apprehending children on reserves, leading to what is known as the “Sixties Scoop,” a period in the 1960s and 1970s when large numbers of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit children were apprehended and placed into foster care, in most cases without the consent of their families or bands. On some reserves, nearly all newborn babies were taken from their mothers, and by the mid-70s, approximately 70% of children in foster care were First Nations, Metis, or Inuit. In most cases, the children of the “Sixties Scoop” were placed into the homes of Euro-Canadian families. (As well, large numbers of children were sent to white families in the USA.) This resulted in tremendous obstacles to the development of a healthy identity for many children, who were not able to learn their languages or traditions, or sometimes even to know their backgrounds.
During the 1980s, the government made changes that allowed Indigenous child welfare services to operate, but sadly, problems persist. In 2021, more than half of all children in foster care are Indigenous, although they only represent 7.7% of Canada’s child population. The attempts to colonize and assimilate Indigenous people (such as residential schools and the Sixties Scoop) have resulted in intergenerational trauma that continues to destroy Indigenous families.
For too long, white settler society has controlled the way that Indigenous people are portrayed in the media. In the news, reporters often fall back on stereotypes: Indigenous people in general are often seen as resistant to progress, unintelligent, destructive, and stuck in the past. Stereotypes of Indigenous women are particularly pernicious: they are often portrayed as drunks or addicts, as poor mothers, or as having an “at-risk” lifestyle that can lead to death ors disappearance. In films and television shows, Indigenous people are also stereotyped. They may be seen as childlike or simplistic, or, conversely, as mystical figures who dispense wisdom to white characters. The general public’s opinion is informed by the news and the ways Indigenous people are portrayed in entertainment, and these stereotypes are both demeaning and destructive.
It’s important to think objectively about the information you take in. Where does the news you consume come from? Who is reporting it? Who funded the creation of the film you’re watching? Were any Indigenous people involved in its production? Too often in Canadian media we are not cognizant of the context of the media we are consuming.
A protest is defined as a public expression of objection, the disapproval towards an idea or action that is typically political. A group of people come together to stand against what they feel is wrong, often ready to face the consequences that follow.
Indigenous people in recent years have protested about oil pipelines, mines, golf courses, burial grounds, etc, with the goal of protecting the land. This resistance is often seen as anti-progress and anti-economy and is constantly at odds with Canadians who seek to make more money and pay less tax, at any cost to the environment.
Protests by Indigenous people, no matter how peaceful, have almost always been met with force from police and the armed forces. Protesters have been given fines, been sentenced to jail time, have suffered injury and even death. All of this has led to further disenfranchisement from the inherent rights affirmed in the treaties.
The recent “freedom convoy” protests should make us question why such an aggressive gathering was allowed to continue for so long without experiencing the same brutality that Indigenous people have faced from the Canadian government.
The characters in The War Being Waged work to protect the land from harm. The grandmother character raises the question of being able to start a protest/demonstration on her own treaty territory and what that means when the relationship with Canada comes into question.