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How Did Canada Treat Aboriginal People

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Canada’s History with Aboriginal Peoples
How would one feel if their cultures, land, and even children were taken away from them? Aboriginal peoples of Canada would know the answer to that from personal experience after the Europeans began to take over Canada. Their relationship grew tension through many historical significant events after the Indian Act was passed in 1867. Despite recent improvements, Canada should not be proud of it’s history in respect to its treatment of Aboriginal peoples because of it’s policies of assimilation, limitation of rights to basic citizenship, and neglect of Aboriginal claims. Firstly, during the late 1800s and onwards, Canada’s goal was to assimilate Aboriginal peoples. The government forced them into many …show more content…

For example, in 1867, the Indian Act was passed and that act was made to eliminate First Nations peoples’ cultures and they had their rights and land taken away without any warning. This was the beginning of how Canada began their process of assimilation with the Indian Act. Along with the Indian Act, the major expansion of residential schools was a major factor in Canada’s history with Aboriginal peoples and how they treated them. The intention of residential schools were to assimilate the children into Euro-Canadian cultures without any influence from the parents. Kids age 7 to 15 were removed from their homes and were forced to live far away. Children were given new names, stiff uniforms, and European haircuts to replace their traditional ones. They were disciplined if caught speaking their own languages and the badly trained teachers only taught about English and French societies. Residential schools were …show more content…

The government did not have Aboriginal peoples concerns as a priority and it led to many unsolved issues. This even resulted in violence and a prolonged poor relation between them. The Mulroney government had a meeting to take Aboriginal concerns seriously but failed to make progress and to address Aboriginal land claims. This results in events such as the Oka Crisis. The Oka Crisis started in 1989 when Oka, a village in Quebec, announced to expand a golf course. This created conflict with the Aboriginal peoples because the expansion would use land that an Aboriginal group believed was a sacred burial ground. They’ve attempted to stop the project with the court system but failed. Then in 1990, they set up a blockade to block the workers from starting construction and other Aboriginal groups supported them. 2500 Canadian soldiers were brought to end the standoff and after long negotiations, the barricades were removed. The federal government finally settled to buy the disputed land and give it to the Aboriginal group. Another act of carelessness from the government is when Mulroney tried to convince Quebec to sign the Constitution by presenting the Meech Lake Accord in 1987 but he was unsuccessful. This was due to his failure to address the problem of Aboriginal rights so Manitoba rejected the accord, Fast forward 5 years, Mulroney attempts again to get Quebec to sign the Constitution with the

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