Essay On Assimilation In Canada

The government of Canada severely mistreated its aboriginal population according to the assimilation and residential schools, The White Paper and The National Indian Brotherhood, The James Bay Project and land claims, The Calder Case, The Mackenzie River Pipeline Issue, enfranchisement, The Meech Lake Accord, The Charlottetown Accord, Oka confrontation and Ipperwash, Ontario confrontation. Assimilation policy isolated and changed from one of assimilation by a community to one of outright assimilation as individuals in the 1890s. The Canadian government has not always respected Aboriginal diversity. For more than a century, the government tried to destroy Aboriginal cultures through assimilation. This resulted in Aboriginal children removed from their homes and sent them to residential schools where they were taught mainstream ways. About 150,000 First Nations, Metis, and Inuit children attended residential schools. The last residential school, in Saskatchewan, closed its doors in 1996. The residential schools left a bitter legacy. In 1969, a major change in governance was proposed in a government White Paper: the Indian Act and reserves were to be phased out and provinces would take
The intention was a proposed expansion of the municipal golf course at Oka into the disputed lands, that included a Mohawk burial ground. Mohawk at Kanesatake blockaded all approaches through their reserve to the Mercier Bridge, the major traffic artery from the south shore communities to the centre of Montreal. At the same time, one officer was killed and the police were forced to retreat. While the golf course expansion was cancelled, the land purchased by the federal government, it has not yet been transferred to the Kanesatake community. For a brief period, these violent clashes moved First Nations issues to the front of the national agenda, though little in the way of lasting gains