Residentialism In Canada

In terms of indigenous nations taking part in constituting a political community with the rest of Canada, the land issue is one of the most prominent issues in which the colonizers exploited leading to continuous tensions with the federal government and the fragility in Canada’s political community. For indigenous nations, colonization deprived them of the relationship with their land in which indigenous identities are defined along (Hudson & MacDonald, 2012, p. 429). Although indigenous people and the British had treaty-like agreements, much of those treaties were ignored and the indigenous land was taken without the consent of the indigenous nations. An example of a treaty that was ignored by the colonizers is the Royal Proclamation of 1763

Although residential schools were founded before Canada’s confederation in the Indian Act, attending residential schools became mandatory under the federal government’s amendment to the Indian Act in 1894 (Miller, 2012). Despite being crimes at the time they were committed, the Canadian government permitted the physical, sexual, cultural, and spiritual abuses at residential schools (Roach, 2014, p. 566). In fact, the objective of the Canadian government was to “kill the Indian in the child” as that was believed to be the best way to assimilate the indigenous population in Canada into the more dominant culture (Anisman, Bombay & Matheson, 2014, p. 322). In other words, residential schools did not provide proper education and indigenous children were taught that their language, cultural beliefs, and traditions are shameful and uncivilized (Anisman, Bombay & Matheson, 2014, p. 322). In addition, many of the children that attended residential schools and survived suffered from mental and physical health problems that persist today as generations of indigenous children were forced into the Indian Residential School System (Anisman, Bombay & Matheson, 2014, p. 323). Thus, the indigenous nations in Canada’s political community remain in a state of trauma while fighting

For many indigenous nations, surviving in the aftermath of residential schools is troubling as many suffer from historical trauma (Anisman, Bombay & Matheson, 2014, p. 320). Other than experiencing mental and physical health problems due to various forms of neglect and abuse, the indigenous population in Canada will continue to suffer as “attending residential schools across several generations will have cumulative effects” (Anisman, Bombay & Matheson, 2014, p. 320). In fact, historical trauma will further undermine the well-being of contemporary members of indigenous nations throughout Canada as historically traumatic events will accumulate across generations (Anisman, Bombay & Matheson, 2014, p. 322). It is, therefore, hard for indigenous nations to forget that they have lost their identities, culture, rights, land, and language under the Canadian government and fellow Canadian who they are constituting a political community