Indigenous Peoples

The Canadian government has told the United Nations that the situation of Indigenous peoples is “the most pressing human rights issue facing Canadians.” Yet the Canadian government has repeatedly failed to implement the recommendations of UN human rights bodies concerning the protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights in Canada . Amnesty International’s work in Canada has included the land rights of the Lubicon Cree, the police shooting of Dudley George, and violence against Indigenous women. Amnesty International Canada, more here

Indigenous peoples’ organizations and human rights groups welcome yesterday’s decision by the Canadian Parliament to endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Declaration was adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 13, 2007 in a historic vote by an overwhelming majority of member states. Canada was one of only four states to oppose the Declaration. The government of Stephen Harper has since claimed that the Declaration is not applicable in Canada. This claim has no legal basis and is unprecedented in Canada’s foreign and domestic policy.

On Tuesday, April 8, the House of Commons passed a resolution to endorse the Declaration as adopted by the UN and calling on Parliament and the Government of Canada to “fully implement the standards contained therein.”  here

Tracey Deer grew up on the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake with two very firm but unspoken rules drummed into her by the collective force of the community. These rules were very simple and they carried severe repercussions: 1) Do not marry a white person, 2) Do not have a child with a white person.

The consequences of ignoring these rules were equally simple: 1) Lose all status as a Native person and, 2) Deny your unborn child their status as a Native person. The larger tragedy, of course, was that by breaking either of these rules, she would be depleting the growth of “the Nation” and, by extension, betraying everyone she loved.

In Club Native, Deer looks deeply into the history and present-day reality of Aboriginal identity. With moving stories from a range of characters from her Kahnawake Reserve – characters on both sides of the critical blood-quantum line – she reveals the divisive legacy of more than a hundred years of discriminatory and sexist government policy and reveals the lingering “blood quantum” ideals, snobby attitudes and outright racism that threaten to destroy the fabric of her community.  National Film Board of Canada  here