Treatment Of Aboriginals Essay

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Present Treatment of Aboriginals in Canada Aboriginal people in Canada are the indigenous people within the boundaries of present day Canada. They comprised the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Majority of Canadians treat native people like one homogenous group which fits the stereotype of being lawless or as dependant. “As a country, we are burdened by past actions that resulted in weakening the identity of Aboriginal peoples … We must acknowledge that the result of these actions was the erosion of the political, economic and social systems of Aboriginal people and nations”( State-ment of Reconciliation, 1998). This paper aims to discuss the present treatment of Canadian Aboriginal , emphasizing on the concepts of education, health and culture while applying the …show more content…

During the 1880’s up to closing decades of the 20th century the Canadian government set up a school system administered by churches. The system forcibly separated children from their families for extended periods of time and forbade them to acknowledge their Aboriginal heritage and culture or to speak their own languages. Because the government’s and the churches’ intent was to eradicate all aspects of Aboriginal culture in these young people and interrupt its transmission from one generation to the next. The last residential school did not close its doors until 1986. Many of the leaders, teachers, parents, and grandparents of today’s Aboriginal communities are residential school survivors. There is, in addition, an intergenerational effect: many descendants of residential school survivors share the same burdens as their ancestors even if they did not attend the schools themselves. These include transmitted personal trauma and compromised family systems, as well as the loss in Aboriginal communities of language, culture, and the teaching of tradition from one generation to

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