Discrimination In Canada

Today, Canada is globally recognized as one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, and known for being accepting of all people of different race, gender, and religion. However, this was not the case throughout our nation’s history, and some of the prejudices faced by minority groups exist to this today. The ethnic group that endured the most discrimination and suffering were the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada. They were belittled and exploited by our Nation in many degrading ways, including the seizure and control of their land, denial of rights, and forceful assimilation into the “Canadian culture.”

Imagine a life where you were forced by foreigners to do anything to pleased, in return for absolutely nothing. Just because they

This was marked by the beginning of the Indian Act (1876), which was an attempt to assimilate the Aboriginal peoples into Canadian society by encouraging them, and later forcing them, to give up their own culture and beliefs. The Indian Act provided the Aboriginals with education, medical care, hunting rights and annual treaty payments. This Act also provided the Aboriginals with an “Indian status”, which exempted them from paying income and sales taxes. All of these things were done in order to ease the conflict and tension with the Natives. There was a catch to the Indian Act however, at least for the Aboriginals. Indians did not have the right to vote, but they could trade their “Indian status” for it. The status was revoked if an Indian lived off reserves, married a non-Indian, joined military forces or obtained a higher education than what was provided on reserves. This engraved the subconscious thinking that being an Aboriginal was lesser than being a normal Canadian citizen. The choices available for the Natives were black and white; either live life as a lowly Indian but retain your cultural background, or give up your cultural background in exchange for the joining of the higher class of society. In addition to this cultural traditions were slowly being banned by the Canadian Legislation, such as the

They had their home land torn from their grasp, later to be abused emotionally, physically, mentally and were attacked as a whole for being inferior compared to the rest of white Canada. Unlike the majority of other ethnic groups mistreated in Canadian history, they have not been able to fully recover from the damage done. To this day, they have not been reprimanded for all the things that happened to them, and to some extent, are still looked down upon compared to the rest of the Canadian population. No group of people deserve to experience what they have. Hopefully our country’s attempts to revive the once prosperous Aboriginal peoples of Canada will succeed, however in order to do that we must admit to our wrongdoings and take full responsibility before we can move