The story of the Winnipeg Aqueduct, which Adele Perry tells in her book Aqueduct: Colonialism, Resources, and the Histories we Remember, models the immoral way that Canada has treated Indigenous peoples. Indigenous resources were wrongfully exploited to meet the needs of settlers. This is a pure example of colonialism and extraction- issues that are still prevalent in today’s society. The type of colonialism we see in the story of the Winnipeg Aqueduct is settler colonialism- when settlers invade on Indigenous territory. (Barker and Battell Lowman) Often times, the settlers will extract the resources that rightfully belong to the Indigenous- and that is exactly what happened with the construction of the Winnipeg Aqueduct. Canada has a history of settler colonialism within the nation, but they also have colonialist tendencies on a global scale. This is seen through the various …show more content…
The Indigenous peoples faced a variety of complex issues- one of those being residential schooling. Residential schools were put in place to regulate and transform Indigenous peoples. They relate to Richard Henry Pratt’s philosophy of “Kill the Indian, Save the man.” (Peterson 2013) The Presbyterian Church of Canada built the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School at Shoal Lake in 1901. But Shoal Lake 40 Chiefs Redsky and Pagindawind did not simply sit back and watch this happen. They attempted to negotiate an agreement with the administers of the school- to make them comply with several conditions in order to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the Indigenous students that would be attending this school. Some of these conditions included not baptizing children without the consent of the parents, not giving heavy labour to children under eight years old, and allowing children to visit sick kin. All of these conditions were simply to protect the