On August 3, British Columbia’s FNs
Health Authority (FNHA), the only organisation of its kind in Canada, released
a report titled Overdose Data and FNs in
B.C.-Preliminary Findings.
The study is based on the cohort
of male and female members of the FNs n British Columbia who have Indian Status
and their children who may be eligible for Indian status. The FNHA’s “FNs
Client File” (FNCF) comprises this cohort.
To put it differently, the FNCF
comprises only Status FNs members who
are eligible to be and are registered by Bands or by Indigenous Affairs under
the Indian Act .It excludes FNs members who did not bother to register or chose
not to register as Status Indians under the Indian Act as well as non-Status FNs
people and the Métis.
The study is based on data
collected with respect to overdose cases during the period January 31, 2015 to
November 30th, 2016 and with respect to overdose deaths during the
period January 31, 2015 to July 31, 2016.
According to the Report, the
study compiles a) the total number and rates of overdose and overdose deaths
for: i) the members of the cohort as a
whole and for the males and female members in the cohort; ii) the non-First
Nation population and for the males and females of this population provided by
the B.C. public health authorities; and b) compares the two sets of figures.
The comparison of the two sets of
figures discloses a tragic picture for the First Nations cohort compared to the
non-FN statistics, the preliminary details of which are provided in the report.
Part II- High Time to Conduct Sophisticated Research to
Get to the Real Causes of the Problem in Order to Develop Effective
Intervention and Treatment Strategies to Address Properly the Individual and
Collective Problems and Challenges Faced by the First Nations peoples
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but not to their
own set of facts.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Introduction
1. I first read
about the report in the Globe and Mail. And as I read the article, I was struck
by the following statement of the FNHA’s Deputy Chief Medical Health Officer
Dr. Shannon McDonald: We recognize the root cause of where we are
today, and the root cause rests in colonization, displacement, connection that
has been broken.
Given the preliminary nature of
the results, to me this statement sounds like on taken from the ( imaginary) chapter devoted to
slogans in an (imaginary) FN political strategy handbook rather
than the kind of calm, balanced and reflective pronouncement the public and stakeholders
would expect from a professional focusing on the development of effective intervention and treatment
strategies to address the problem of overdose
among the members of FNs .
1.1 The report
also identifies inter-generational trauma and systemic and institutional racism
towards first Nation peoples as “possible reasons” for substance abuse.
1.3 What
particularly struck me about Dr. McDonald’s statement, is her a) over-simplification
of the questions and issues raised by the
problem of overdose; and b) her apparent disregard of the absence of considerable body of
material evidence capable of confirming or infirming the validity and
reliability of her statement made as if it is an incontrovertible established
fact of universal application to all FNPs across Canada.
The last but not least problem
with her comments is her over-generalisation of the causes of the problem at
this preliminary stage of findings expressed in percentages. Mere percentages
are not synonymous with causes, but merely a point of departure for more
sophisticated statistical analysis of the data using, for example the factor
analysis technique.
And this is what prompted me to
write this note.
Objects
2. The objects of
Part II of this paper are: first, to do a critical analysis of the narrative in
the first part of the Report of Preliminary Findings, and second, to raise the
kinds of questions which do not appear to have been a) ignored and/or studied
properly in order to fill the serious gaps in our knowledge base about the
FNPs.
2.1 Judging from the phrasing and
footnoting, I have the feeling that the narrative must have been authored by an
academic or person with experience in or knowledge of publishing in
professional magazines. I find the absence of the author’s name and credentials
regrettable.
About evidence
3. I use the term
evidence to mean evidence that is: a) generated by a properly designed and managed
research project that makes use
of the best of available methodologies appropriate to the subject – matter and
objectives of the research ,and b) data
is analysed and interpreted free of
ideological stain, such as pre-conceived ideas and beliefs; pre-determined
outcomes; personal biases based on identity and affiliation; considerations
related to future employment and career advancement; subjective preferences and
wishes for certain outcomes.
“Some evidence” based on the
results of a study of limited scope cannot and do not justify its use to support
hypotheses, conclusions and generalisations that reach beyond the scope of the
study.
About the report of preliminary findings
3.1 Normally,
reports of preliminary findings provide the full particulars of the objectives,
design and methodology of the research project, and a general outline of the
organisation and of the specific subjects to be addressed the final report.
3.2. In
this instance the report in question provides merely information about the
source of the data by reference to the specifics of the sample.
Instead, the introductory narrative
consists of set of broad propositions that purport to explain the historical causes
of the present state of affairs with respect to the current deplorable state of
the health and wellness of FNPs, illustrated or demonstrated so to speak, by the
comparative overdose rates generated by the study.
The problem with the narrative is
that the broad propositions beg more questions than prove anything.
Ideal Research Model; action generated research
focusing on the
3.3 Given
the nature of the current ideological and political narratives where beliefs
are used as facts, the role of researchers interested in determining the real cause(s) and nature of a particular
problem must be:
First, the "show-me"
stage: to get the appropriate individuals and/or groups of people, namely the
persons or collectives who are adversely affected by a social, cultural,
communal problem to tell the whole story
about the problem, warts and all;
Second, the let’s find out stage:
design and carry out a research project capable of identifying the true cases
of the problem;
Third, first stage-revisited: in
the event, the narrative of the informants is not borne out in whole or in part
by the key findings of the research, to
resume the first stage and ask the informants to address the discrepancies
between their narratives and the research results;
Fourth, the feed-back stage; to
provide the group or community with your synthesis of the research results and their
revisited narratives;
Fifth stage, In the event the
target group or population is prepared
to buy into the synthesis and make it
its own, move on to the intervention stages (1): to design the appropriate
intervention and problem-solving strategy in partnership with the target
population; (2): to carry out the strategy, and
Sixth stage: to assess the
outcome of the intervention strategy: a) if satisfactory to the community and
to the researcher, design a plan to enable the target population to take
possession of the strategy and carry on with it, with such additional external
resources that may be warranted; b) if not, identify and assess the causes of
the unsatisfactory results from the target population’s perspective and c)
input the narrative into the researcher’s assessment of the results.
Final stage, to return to the
third or fourth stages, depending on the outcome of sections b) and c) of the sixth stage to
restart again at the fourth stage.
This approach has multifold
potential benefits, namely;
At the third stage, when the
situation described above arises, the target population will, hopefully realise
and learn the importance of analysing and describing the problem independently of
the pre-cooked ideological or defensive narratives they may have internalised
and to relate it to the researcher; by so doing, to assume the responsibility to
get at all the facts and
circumstances, and in the process to take possession of these facts.
With respect to the third stage,
I should point out that, in my experience as a trial lawyer in cases concerning
aboriginal and treaty right issues and the cultural customs and practices
related to these issues, during cross-examinations once the aboriginal
witnesses get over giving the expected answers to the expected set of
questions, they become candid, by far more candid than almost all types of
witnesses I encountered.
The fifth stage will (a) reinforce
the lesson learned at stage three; b) require
the target population to realise
that i) if the problem is to be resolved, it must take possession of it and ii)
the act of taking of possession is likely to generate a sense of empowerment to
address the problem that will be reinforced by a) of the sixth stage.
I also believe that this process
will also have therapeutic benefits.
The First Nations peoples
4.. The report
keeps referring to FNsPs without always specifying whether these are the FNsPs
of Canada as a whole or the FNsPs of British Columbia. In the circumstances, I
propose to construe the meanings of FNs,
FNPs, FNsPs, literally except where the text suggests or states otherwise.
At all events, as the report is
about the members of FNsPs with Indian
Status of British Columbia leaving out
an indeterminate number of members of FNs who are either not eligible to
register as Status Indians; and, according to the report, those who either did
not bother with registration or chose not to register.
The title of the narrative in the report
5. The title of
the narrative reads:
Good health interrupted: FNs perspectives and
experiences in holistic health and wellness
Good health interrupted? Interrupted
by whom, when and how? On the face of it, the statement minimally suggests that
FNPs enjoyed good health and wellness prior to the day when the newcomers
entered their lives. And indeed, this is confirmed by the quotation in my next
paragraph.
5.1 The author writes:
FNPs have a rich history of wellness that extends back
in time for thousands of years. FNs people’s practised hunting, fishing and
gathering of traditional foods and medicines and enjoyed good health and
wellness due to a lifestyle that was active, based on healthy traditional diets
and enriched by ceremonial, spiritual and emotional healing practices. However,
the arrival of Europeans marked a significant change in the health and wellness
of FNPs.
And what is the evidence for this
breathtaking assertion? Not even a
footnote reference.
Traditional medicine
5.2 Based
on the preceding narrative, the FNPs must have lived for as long as Abraham or Sarah
have been said to have lived. But did they? And if they did not, why not?
What were the common causes of
illness and death prior to contact? What were the pre-contact, mental, psychological
and physical illnesses and conditions which traditional medicine a) was able to
cure or heal, and b) was not able to do so?
After contact with the Europeans,
what were the mental, psychological, or physical illnesses and conditions of FNsPs
which traditional medicine a) was able to cure or heal, and b) was not able to
do so?
At present, what are the specific
mental, psychological or physical illnesses and conditions which FNsPs
traditional medicine a) is able to cure or heal; b) can no longer do so?
Life expectancies
5.3 What
do we know about a) the total size of the historical aboriginal population at
contact with the French and English newcomers respectively; b) the size of
the populations of various aboriginal
nations i) pre-contact ; ii)
after contact and during settlement until 1867, and iii) since Confederation?
What was the life expectancy of
aboriginal peoples of Canada before a) the arrival of Europeans, and b) after
they started to arrive, and settle compared to c) their life expectancies, during
the 19th and 20th centuries?
Certainly, the arrival of Europeans
did not prevent the aboriginal peoples from hunting, fishing and gathering. In
fact the arrival of the Europeans and the fur trade gave FNsPs great incentive and
all the freedom they needed to pursue their traditional activities with even
greater vim and vigor.
And I can think of no specific
edict, law or regulation that ever prevented aboriginal peoples from consuming
their traditional diets and medicines and, save for the formal ban of the
potluck ceremony, nothing prevented them from maintaining their ceremonial,
spiritual and emotional healing practices.
If the author is not in
possession of the correct answers to the foregoing questions, then on what basis
did the author make the statement in paragraph 5.1 supra?
The fact of the matter is that
the health and wellness of the FNPs periodically changed a great deal both before
and after the European contact.
It changed as a result of such
things as a) natural disasters; b) periodic cycles of nature that affected the availability of the
harvested wildlife, resulting in famine
or near famine conditions; c) socio-political
disorders and communal strife and disarray
caused by such things as the
implosion of bands or larger aggregates, and d) tribal wars.
On the last point, for example,
Huronia was decimated by the Iroquois
and the Hurons that were not killed were removed from their traditional lands and moved to
those of their captors; the St. Laurent Iroquois (distinct from the Iroquois of
the Confederacy) vanished (generally believed to have been the victims of the
Mohawks of Mohawk Valley in the U.S.); the same Mohawks abused and persecuted their
fellow Mohawks who converted to
Christianity, and the new Christians fled
their traditional lands out of fear for their lives, to the land of the French
colonisers in Quebec.
One thing for sure, the arrival
of French, and more particularly of the British, put an end to the violence and
wars among various aboriginal peoples, while successive governments entered
into treaties rather than make war on them, as did the Americans. Indeed in the
vast Northwest Territory insured peace an order with merely 60 mounted police
officers or less.
Hence, my question, why not test
the validity of the statement quoted in paragraph 5.1 and let the facts speak
for themselves?
Some introspective research questions
5.4 To
date, I have the distinct impression that the FNSPs have shown little
inclination to introspection. For example,
a) Historically, what was it that rendered
the FNsPs, their cultures, social and political values and spiritual belief systems so to
cause them to feel helpless, vulnerable,
and victimised and to passively submit themselves to European rule- which they
accused to have been and continues to be
relentlessly oppressive, and, quietly
resigning themselves to their individual
and collective fates under their new rulers; and
b) What are the present day
vulnerabilities their cultures, social and political values and spiritual
belief systems?
To put it differently in a
historical perspective, with a couple of minor exceptions, such as the tragedy
of Big Bear and the actions and fate of two of his sons, if the new order was
as oppressive as it is currently claimed, why did the FNs not dare to challenge
it as the Métis did and join their struggle in full force?
If nothing else, the results of
the research into these questions would help the FNsPs to free themselves from
some of their beliefs and to gain helpful insights into their collective socio-cultural-political,
mental, emotional and psychological make up, as well as into the socio- cultural,
political and economic matrix of their historical and current communities that
may have materially contributed and continue to contribute to their plights.
Such personal and collective insights
and knowledge are the conditions precedent to self- and communal liberation
which in turn, are the conditions precedent to dealing with the problem of drug
abuse and overdose.
5.5 Personally,
I have both the feeling and the distinct impression that whenever some
interesting evidentiary facts and insights- that would not be taken kindly by
the leadership of the FNs surface, it is
self-censored either by the researcher
or by the organisations where the researcher is employed.
For example, back in the early
1980s, when I lived in Saskatchewan, I recall a staff member at the Regional
Office of the former Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
telling me about cases where a new Chief and Band Council is elected, one, more
or all of band employees in place are replaced by the Chief’s favourite set of
people. In many cases, the ones out of a job with no prospect to getting
another one on the reserve during the term of the new Chief and Council, move
away to the nearest city to look employment and in the process are forced to
deal with the realities and challenges of urban living for which they may not
be prepared or able to handle.
Some years later, this
information was confirmed when a first rate researcher with a soft heart for
the FNsPs, wrote a research paper where the evidence showed that a fair
percentage of the urban migration from reserves was involuntary and caused by
the fact that their lives on the reserve became unbearable as a result of
losing their employment due to the nepotism or simply became otherwise unbearable
under the Band administration.
The paper was deep-sixed by
someone or another out of fear of insulting Indian leaders. Personally, I think
that if this paper was made public, in the long run, it might have done some good in the hands of reform minded
leaders and activists. As it was, the paper did no good at all.
In the present context, providing
information about what actually caused the victims of overdose to
move to the city, would have been better than keep harping, as the author does,
on “ forced assimilation” ,
“colonization as an ongoing process”
the “on-going legacy of colonization”.(Emphasis mine)
At all events, colonisation
stopped long time ago. The notion of
continuing colonisation as a contemporary process, simply flies in the face of verifiable
facts and is utterly useless in addressing the assertions in the narrative.
Certainly, the term
“colonisation” and the related phrases , would sound quite bizarre to the immigrants
who have been streaming into this country
since World War I and I very much doubt that they would even think of
themselves as “colonisers” and of the
FNsPs. as “being colonised” by them.
6.
The narrative begins with a visual and a written descriptive summary of the FNs Perspective and collective philosophy of health and wellness.
The problem with this perspective
and philosophy is that there have always been many FNs (and I not mean merely “Indian
bands”, which at some point or another in the relatively recent past were inaccurately
renamed FNs) both within British Columbia and across Canada, each endowed with
its own distinctive culture.
What then is the evidence that
all of these different FNs had or have a collective philosophy? If there is no
such evidence, why is this being asserted as a fact?
6.1 This premise is followed by the
over-sweeping statement that colonization
introduced devastating impacts on FNs’ peoples’ health through forcible
displacement from the land and disconnection from culture, family and
community, ceremony, language, knowledge and traditions.
Forcible displacement from the land
6.2 Forcible
displacement from the land? I don’t not know which First Nation or Nations the
author is thinking of, but certainly
the opposite is the case in the areas covered by the
numbered treaties. The Indians who signed these treaties chose the location of
their reserves and identified their traditional lands for hunting, fishing and
harvesting.
If anything, this process
insulated them to a considerable extent from regular contact with the settlors
and prevented or significantly reduced outside interference with their way of
life.
At all events, there were no mass
forcible displacements from land and therefore the alleged kinds of disconnections
have no basis in fact.
(Then again, it is fashionable nowadays
to accuse the government for deliberately establishing reserves in out of the
way locations, in order to keep the Indians out of the way of the settlers.)
If anything, the establishment of
reserves would have helped to reinforce, strengthen aboriginal communal life and
preserve aboriginal values, activities and practices.
At all events the premise of the
sentence “colonization introduced
devastating impacts on FNs’ peoples’ health” is not particularly informative,
since the author does not provide any specifics of the intended meaning of the
term “colonization”; of the specific time period during which period the alleged
devastation occurred, and of the nature of the devastation.
I suspect that the part of the
sentence starting with the words “through
forcible displacement from...” is yet
another way of referring to residential schools, and possibly, what is
colloquially referred to as “the scoop of the 60’s”.
In various segments of this
paper, I raised a number of evidentiary questions to test the validity of the
apocalyptical allegations made by the author in relation to the issues of
health and residential schools. Until these questions are answered, these
allegations remain just what they are: apocalyptical myths.
About culture, community, ceremony, language, knowledge
and traditions (1)
7. By
way of prefacing my comments under this heading, as an immigrant, I am only too
conscious of the important, in some instances, critical role played by one’s
native culture when beginning to learn how
to live in another society and culture
which while in some respects resembled mine, nevertheless differed in a number
of critical respects.
Having gone through the
experience and observed others going through the same experience of adaptation
and integration- and that is what the FNs will ultimately have to do in order
to become self-sufficient and prosperous and to protect and promote their respective culture- , I
reached the conclusion that knowledge of and pride in one’s native community, culture, language,
traditions, beliefs and ceremonies play a critically important role in facing
the problems and challenges encountered in the adoptive country and to address
them successfully, by acquiring the new culture without losing one’s native
culture .
This knowledge and pride acts as
a mental, emotional, and for the more
religious ones, spiritual shield against the many ways in which the adoptive
culture and society at times appear to
assault one’s senses and identity.
While in my case, adaptation and
integration turned out to be a relatively easy process, I was immensely helped
by the fact that when things got muddled, adversarial, right down confrontational,
offensive or destructive, my native culture offered me a safe harbour, provided
me the outlines of possible ways (used in my native land) to deal constructively
with each situation at hand. All else failing, it provided me with the
ingredients that enabled me to think and feel that my values and beliefs are as
good and worthy as those of the dominant French-Canadian and WASP cultures.
Likewise, I have no difficulty
whatsoever in appreciating the capital importance and roles of culture,
community, language, knowledge and traditions in sustaining and strengthening the
aboriginal persons and communities in their dealings with those with whom they have
to do business and to co-habit.
7.1
However, I have considerable difficulty with
a) sweeping statements and generalisations
devoid of empirical evidence; b) bombastic
accusations such as “cultural genocide”;
c)
the refusal to admit that AFNsPs can
adapt to and integrate into the Canadian society without sacrificing
their culture and all that the concept entails;
d) d) the implied suggestion that
culture of FNs and that of the Canadian society are mutually
incompatible or irreconcilable;
e) the implied suggestion that cultures
must remain in their authentic pre-contact form and cannot or should not be
modernised in order to adapt to the changing realities over time ; f) the refusal to admit
to or to assume any responsibility or accept any share of the blame for some
of the FNs historical and contemporary plights; and
finally,
g) the refusal
to acknowledge that compared to all the European colonisers and
their respective “evil” deeds,
those that settled in Canada and governed it to the present day, were and
continue to be those that, in relative terms, and in the long run turned out to
be the least evil, the more peaceful, caring
and generous of them all, bar none.
Disconnection from culture, family and community,
ceremony, language, knowledge and traditions (2)
8. Both in some segments of the narrative and in a good number of the works to which it
refers, the phrases “FNs” and “FNsPs” are used to refer to all those located
across the country.
Yet, as we all know, these FNs
and their peoples are not identical but distinct and different.
In the pre-contact period, each of
these FNs, had its own distinct culture, value system, social and communal
organisation, language, knowledge, traditions and not to mention its own
historical trajectory; albeit with some common features between or among those FNs
that lived in similar geographical environments or in close proximity. And
inevitably, in due course, some of these entities and cultures disappeared, as
they did all over the world.
In due course, all the entities
that remained were governed by the Indian Act and by same policies and practices,
such as the residential school system (save for the Maritime provinces).
In the absence of evidence to the
contrary, it cannot be assumed that all
of these FNs reacted, responded and ultimately adapted themselves to the new
foreign regime in a uniform fashion or that that they uniformly experienced the
same impacts and consequences.
8.1 In
the premises, the validity of the proposition that the residential school
system caused a disconnect with land, culture, family, community, ceremony, language, knowledge and traditions
has to be tested empirically on a comparative basis.
And while at it, it would be most
productive to insert the non-Status Indians, the Métis and the Innu into the comparative framework as the
latter were also subjected to some “traumatic experiences” that in some ways
are comparable to those experienced by the FNPs
In the absence of such
cross-cultural comparative evidence, it would be impossible to identify and
assign the appropriate weight to each of the factors that are alleged to have caused
or contributed the formation and transmission intergenerational traumas.
8.2 To
the extent, information about the identity of the victims of overdose as
non-Status and Métis was available; the study is methodologically
flawed from the outset in that there are no sound conceptual and methodological
grounds on which their exclusion from the target population can be justified.
The comparative data generated by
their inclusion, may well have generated a number of valuable insights into the problem, even if for no other
purpose than to discard erroneous thinking, wrong or defective hypotheses from
future consideration.
8.3 At
all events, this segment of the narrative raises the question as whether this
is yet another way of referring to the cases of children who attended
residential schools or whether it refers to specific cases of physical forcible
displacements of FNs from the land that caused the alleged disconnections.
On the other hand, to the extent
the alleged forcible displacement was the relocation of an entire band from one
location to another, in the absence of evidence, the proposition that this type
of displacement caused the alleged disconnections, begs credulity.
Unless the author is confident
that the final report will provide a breakdown of the membership in FNs of the
victims of overdose and death by overdose and the factual history of forcible
displacement of each of these First Nations that addresses the allegations, the
statement must be taken as speculative.
In fact, unless the full report
is grounded on the study of all the variables pertinent to the proof of every
assertion in the statement set out at paragraph 6.1 the statement must also be
taken as speculative.
9. The assertion
at paragraph 6.1 is then used as the
premise for the following speculative assertion:
The resulting loss and trauma, intergenerational
trauma and internalized racism continue to be experienced today through
symptoms such as substance abuse and harmful behaviours that result in early
loss of life and other health outcome disparities for FNPs.
I say speculative, because the author
fails to provide a corroborating footnote.
At all events, if the premise is
not substantiated, the assertions based on the premise cannot fare better than
the premise.
Racism
10. The
heading of next paragraph reads Racism toward FNs and intergenerational
trauma are barriers to health care.
This paragraph begs the question:
what are the causes, contents and dynamics of racism at the inter-personal
level, in the context of policy making and at the institutional level?
For example, is inter-personal
racism based on
- No reason (as is the case with
some anti-Semites) other than to gain
admission to a peer, social or political group
by establishing that he or she shares the same views as the group;
-socialisation;
-physical appearance;
- private encounters
and experiences;
-stereotypical imagery;
-a value system and thinking, by
way of illustration, to the effect a) after being exposed to the white-man’s
ways of doing things and earning a living for centuries, the Indians still
depend on and demand government handouts, or b) if only they can get off the
booze, they might be able to get a job, or
-various permutations and combinations of some of the foregoing
illustrations?
10.1 I
am not familiar with the actual facts and figures. Nevertheless, based on my
knowledge and impressions, I am inclined
to accept the proposition that racism or
racial discrimination disproportionately affects FNPs, not necessarily because
of their race but more likely because they are perceived as people who are powerless; socially,
culturally, emotionally or physically
incapacitated in some fashion or another, or educationally disadvantaged, the
very kind of people that almost inevitably
get the short end of the stick, and in the case at hand they get the
short end of the institutional sticks.
Having said that, I would have
thought that a comparative study of the treatment of the FNsPs based on the
type and structure of health institutions
among other pertinent variables, such as the composition of their medical, nursing
,adjunct services such asocial work, psychological testing, support personnel, their
geographical locations, the regulations,
policies and practices of the provincial
government to prevent, excise and deter institutional discrimination and their
enforcement or lack thereof, would enable us to identify particular types of institutions that are vulnerable to racism, and target them
to reform their medical care delivery systems.
In the alternative, taking a
shorter route, one could study those institutions that have already been has been identified as
racist or engaged in racial discrimination against the FNPs,” to name them and
shame them” and request the provincial or federal government, as the case may
be, to sort out the institution forthwith.
Further, the FNsPs, individually
and/or in groups ought to be afforded the opportunity to learn how to face and
fight institutional discriminatory practices with the help of aboriginal
organisations; and, where possible, the immediate assistance along the way by
representatives of one or more advocacy groups. Something that unfortunately
will not be possible for people about to succumb to overdose.
Intergenerational trauma
10.2.
The narrative in paragraph 9 then goes on to state: Trauma can be transmitted across many generations. Addressing it is complex and residential school survivors and
those with intergenerational trauma may have distrust of the health care system, which impacts
access and appropriate care.
10.2.1 The
first thing that troubles me in this segment of the paragraph is the use of the
term survivors.
Could it be that the term survivor is meant to refer to those
children who despite having had one or more traumatic experiences in the school,
came out and managed to make a life for themselves?
In the alternative, is the term
intended to refer to the fact that some
of the children who attended these schools deceased while attending school? If
that is the case, unless the majority of the students who attended these
schools deceased, the term survivor
is hardly appropriate.
In the further alternative, could
it be that the term is meant to refer to the children who attended these
schools and managed to get through without being subjected to the kinds of
harrowing traumatic experiences which other children had to endure? If it is, I
find the term grossly inappropriate, because the latter children did not die
but did come out and returned to their communities.
In the final alternative, is the
term survivor meant to refer to those
who came out of the residential schools without losing their aboriginal culture
or having lost some of it, managed to assimilate back into their respective
communities and cultures; implying the implausible
proposition. that all the others lost their aboriginal culture altogether; were
no longer able to assimilate back into their respective communities or to
retrieve their aboriginal culture?. If it is, again, I find the term grossly
inappropriate.
I find the third and fourth
alternative grossly inappropriate because the term survivor, save for its use to describe those who did not die in an event
involving fatalities, is almost a term of art and almost exclusively used to
refer to persons who survived the Holocaust and more recently, it has been sometimes
used to refer to those who survived genocides.
Clearly the residential program
was not intended to be and was not in fact a genocidal scheme of any kind by
any stretch of the imagination. And the use of the phrase cultural genocide to describe the objectives that led to the
establishment of the schools and/or to the effect or impact of the attendance
of aboriginal students at these schools is nothing short than obscene
intellectual dishonesty; especially in the case of persons who, by reason of
their education, profession and status, should know better; such as the current
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The FNs kids were not the only
ones forced to speak English and forbidden to speak their native language, and
punished when they were caught cheating.
For example, so was the case of Ukrainian
kids who attended public schools in Saskatchewan, when they relapsed on school
grounds, and indeed so was the case for
both Ukrainians and members of other ethnic groups of immigrants in a
number of jurisdictions.
I do not dispute the proposition
that trauma can be transmitted from one generation to another; the number of
generations involved is subject to debate and presumably depends on the nature
of the trauma in question and a series of related variables.
However, the clinical fact that
traumas can be or rather may be
transmitted, from one generation to the next, is not the end of the matter.
10.3. The
author writes: Feelings of shame, loss
and self-hatred are common for survivors [of residential schools] and many
have passed this historical trauma on to their children and their families.
(Emphasis mine).
Again, this statement raises a
multitude of questions such as a) Were and
are feelings of shame, loss and self- hatred common to all survivors
or to some of them?
b) What factors distinguished or distinguishes those who experienced
these traumas from those that did not? c)
What is the empirical evidence on this topic? What does it demonstrate? d) Were these negative feelings
specific to those who attended residential schools or were they experienced by
those of the corresponding generations who did not attend residential schools?
10.4 The
statement further asserts that many of the persons who attended these schools
have passed their personal trauma on to their children and families? Once
again, the statement begs such questions as: a) What
percentage of these parents did pass on this trauma? b) What percentage did not?
c) What factors distinguish those
who passed on their traumas from those that did not? d) What factors distinguish the children to
whom this trauma passed on from those to whom it was not passed on?
These questions in turn beg further
questions such as
a) What kinds of traumas are
transmissible? b)
Whether these are consistently and uniformly transmitted to i) the entire next
generation in the family and/or in the reserve community or ii) only
to part of one or both?
c) In the event it is the latter
case in b), what are the critical variables that explain the different
outcomes? d) Have the cases where the cause of the drug
abuse has been attributed to intergenerational transmission of trauma been studied
systematically in those cases where, neither the father nor the children
attended a residential school?
Unless these questions have been
researched and the answers are consistent with the author’s allegations, what
is the point of making such unsubstantiated allegations?
The oppressive and assimilationist colonial policies
and practices
11. The
subject of residential schools is taken up again in the following paragraph
with the statement that reads: practices,
such as residential schools, threaten FNPs’ identities and have contributed to
high rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, substance use and despair.
The author, numerous others,
aboriginal politicians and activists are simply unable to get off the subject
of residential schools to illustrate and argue their points. Under this
heading, I will put aside the matter of the residential schools.
The statement of causation
predicated on the alleged existence of oppressive and assimilationist colonial policies
and practices is simply too broad and too vague to be assessed on its merits.
Further, the alleged adverse
impacts of the policies and practices described by the author are not very
illuminating. All of these, save one,
refer to various stages of a particular kind of psychological affliction.
The last one, substance abuse, as
the author later points out, is one
of many possible mechanisms used by
people in order to cope with their state of mind ,with the qualifier that
substance abuse, considered independently
from all other causes, can also be one of the causes of such states of
mind and possible death by overdose.
Having regard to the repeated
references to various variations of the term “colonial”, it would have been
helpful for the author to identify the specific colonial oppressive and assimilationist
policies and practices in issue? What exactly were and are they?
Equally useful, would have been
for the author to specify the meaning of the term “contributed”; first, by identifying
the specific policies and practices that are alleged to have specifically contributed
to high rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, substance use and despair”;
second, stating the manner in which these caused the specified pathologies, and
third, the quantification of the extent of the contribution to for each type of
problem.
Mere comparative overall percentages
of the incidence and rates of the pathologies identified in the paragraph,
dramatic as they may be, would not sustain the causation argument.
Threatening FNsPs’ identities
11.1
Threats are in the eye and mind of the beholder. The allegation that the alleged policies and practices may have
threatened these identities in the past is neither here nor there, since the
author does not assert that the threats were carried. Further, while they may have threatened in
the past, judging from the actions of the successive Federal governments since,
1982 the latest, the alleged policies certainly have not threatened identities.
At all events, putting aside for
a moment, the painful human record of
the residential schools system, save for those schools that functioned
professionally as an educational institution, I suggest that the statement is
purely speculative as there exists no evidence to substantiate it. And more
specifically the answers to the following comparative set questions:
a1) Which FNs felt
threatened?
a2) _________ did not feel threatened?
b1)
from a1) In what manner and to what end did they feel threatened? b2)-------
c1)
from b1) Did they succumb to the threat?
c2)
------ d1)
Why did they end- up succumbing to the threat?
e1)
What was the result of succumbing to the threat? f1)
Do they at present feel their identity
threatened? etc.
This being the case, I am at loss
to understand why the allegation is being made in the first instance. This is a
typical example of political discourse sneaking into research narratives.
Finally, from the text, I am not
clear whether the author is claiming that the threatening of the identities one
of the causes of the high rates of these pathologies? If he is, again, we are
confronted with an absence of evidence
The interesting paradox
12. And
yet, listening to some aboriginal leaders and activists speak about, and extol
the strengths, capabilities and virtues of aboriginal cultures, cultural practices,
knowledge and their medicine and healing systems, the terms survivors and the phrase cultural genocide, and all the generalised recriminations
set out in the narrative raise
questions about the authenticity and validity of both the positive and negative
narratives
My initial reaction to this state
of affairs was to think of the adage and say: You cannot suck and blow at the
same time. On further thought, I came to
the conclusion that one of the functions of the negative narratives is to
demonstrate the strength, stamina, resilience of the aboriginal cultures over
time, despite all the colonial oppression of one kind or another, FNs have been
and continue to endure. Another probable function is to reinforce the arguments
with respect to other demands such as self-government. And yet a third function
must relate to demands for increased government funding.
Back to the role of the residential school system
13. The next
paragraph reads: Intergenerational trauma
is associated with risk of substance abuse....The residential school system
is a key contributor to historical trauma through forced relocation,
spiritual, physical, emotional and
sexual abuse, and intergenerational impacts on the descendants of the
survivors. Feelings of shame, loss and self-hatred are common for
survivors, and many have passed his historical trauma on to their children and
families resulting from intergenerational trauma. Recent research in BC has
helped us to understand the impacts of historical trauma on substance use among
FNsPs. (Emphasis mine).
13.1 What
were and currently are the other specific key contributors? What are the criteria
to determine whether something is a “key contributor”?
Some further unanswered questions about the
residential school system
13.2 I
gather that between the years1874 and 1996 when the residential school system
operated some 150,000 pupils went through it: roughly 1230 students per grade
over 122 years.
Surely, on any given year, there had
to be far more aboriginal kids of school age than the number that attended the
schools.
An indeterminate number of these
managed to make themselves scarce altogether:
a) How many of these were there? b)
How did they and their lineal descendants or more narrowly, their children fare
compared to those that went through the system?
Another indeterminate number made
themselves scarce after entering the system: a)
At what ages and after how many years of schooling did they make themselves
scarce? b)
How did those who went through the whole program and those that managed to drop
out at some point in time in terms fare in the short and long term after they
were done with their schooling?
Substantiation of paragraph 13
14. The author
purports to illustrate the key role played by the residential schools asserted
at paragraph 13, by referring to the Cedar Rapid Project (2003). He writes: For
example,…[the project which] interviewed indigenous young people (age
14-30) living in Vancouver, Prince George [and] Chase ,B.C…who use substances,
found that historical trauma, such as
having a parent who attended residential school, increased the risk of
substance use. Substance use has been commonly conceptualized as “coping”
or ” numbing” mechanism for dealing with trauma of abuse, stress and
grief. (Emphasis mine)
Yet, when I examined the report
of the Project, I found that of the 191 participants in the study, 92%
experienced any [some] form of childhood maltreatment; 48% had a parent who
attended residential school, and 71% had been in foster care. Thus, of all the
causes of intergeneration trauma noted in the group, the percentage of
substance users with a parent in attendance in residential school is the
smallest although, admittedly and sadly enough, the percentage is substantial.
However, does 48% figure tell the
whole story or the right story? For example, on closer examination of the
numbers and percentages, in an indeterminate number of cases of attendance at
residential school also involved either or both child maltreatment and foster
care. Hence, how do we know whether and to what extent there exists a material
relationship between attendance and drug use? Certainly the study, does not
determine the relative weight to be attached to the attendance factor when this
factor is combined with or other factors.
Foster care is a service
generally provided, upon the death or physical disability of both parents or of
the primary care giver; due to parental mental disability or deficiency; in cases
involving: sexual, emotional, mental and physical abuse and other types of maltreatment;
emotional or physical neglect; exposure to a single serious instance or to chronic
inter-parental violence; parental drug addiction or alcoholism, and/or a
dwelling unfit for a child to live in.
With respect to foster placement,
the study refers to the fact that according to the - notoriously deficient -2013
Household study survey, while only 7% of the children in Canada have
Indigenous ethnicity, 48% of these children are placed in foster
care. Obviously this is a horrendous figure and demands urgent and corrective
action.
I am not aware of the studies
that have been conducted into the legislative provisions general policies and practices
in each of the provinces and territories that generated this overall
percentage, and well as of the distribution of the percentage on a territorial and
regional basis.
Hence, the underlined segment in
paragraph 13 is simply not borne by this study particularly since it is not
possible to determine whether attendance at residential school is causally
connected to foster care and child maltreatment.
Some further research questions
15. At
all events, while it would be quite expensive, it would not be particularly
difficult to test the propositions as to whether
a) The residential schools
committed cultural genocide;
b) Whether those who attended
these schools but did not experience forced relocation, spiritual, physical,
emotional and sexual abuse, see themselves as survivors, and
c) If so, exactly, i) what it is
that they lost? ii) what it is that they survived?
d) Whether those who attended
these schools and were able to complete their studies but experienced some kind
of abuse, what was the nature of the abuse and what are the particulars of it?
Finally, what are rates and the
causes of suicide, depression, anxiety, substance use and despair for those who
1. Attended residential schools,
a) Did not manage to complete the
course but did not suffer of any kind of abuse;
b) Did not manage to complete the
course but suffered i) spiritual; ii) physical; iii) emotional; and/or iv)
sexual abuse;
c) Successfully completed the
program without suffering any kind of abuse d Successfully completed the
program but suffered i) spiritual; ii) physical; iii) emotional; and/or iv)
sexual abuse.
2. Did not attend residential
school.
Redux: Colonisation; dispossession from land; an disruption
of their culture related land, and land based healing
16. The author
carries on with broad and, to the best of my knowledge unsubstantiated statements
which in essence repeat some of the earlier claims by substituting land related
claims for residential school traumas. He
writes: One
major stressor of colonization is the dispossession of FNPs from their land and
disruption of the cultures tied to it. Hunting, trapping and fishing are
important traditional activities that foster an attachment to the land and
promote the teaching of traditional cultural practices in families and communities. Land- based
healing protects FNPs from stress in a holistic way and decreases the risk of
substance abuse.
Questions:
a) What were the other specific
major stressors other than residential schools?
b) What is the nature of the
interplay, if any, among all these stressors?
The phrase “dispossession of
their lands” is misleading.
First, I am not sure which FNPs
the author is referring to, but surely the FNs who entered into the numbered treaties
were not dispossessed of their lands; unless, that is, the author is using the
term “lands” to refer to all the
lands that comprised British North America after 1763. If that is the case,
this is an absurd statement.
At all events, the phrase makes
no sense except for those parts of the present day- Canada that fell outside
the territories identified in the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
With respect to the lands falling
outside the scope of the Royal Proclamation covered by the numbered treaties, to
the extent, the treaties opened up lands for settlement by the new comers and
thereby diminished the size of an area which may have been available to those who signed the treaties, this
surely does not amount to dispossession having regard to the sizes of their
respective reserves and of the lands on which where they were able to continue
pursuing their traditional activities.
As a matter of fact, the FNs who
entered into one of the numbered treaties would have presumably chosen the
location of their reserves, within or adjacent to their traditional lands.
At all events, the treaties are
the bargains the FNs peoples agreed or chose to make to protect their rights
and interests in the land.
Admittedly, the FNs were prohibited to engage in hunting, fishing and trapping
activities in the circumstances and at
the locations specified in the treaties
.Further, from the late 19th
century on, the latest until 1982, certain provinces interfered with the
exercise of the off- season hunting, fishing and trapping activities. And in
some instances, parts of reserve lands were secured with improperly secured
surrenders.
Surely, the magnitude of the
adverse events cannot be said to amount to dispossession of lands, writ large.
Insofar as the alleged causal
connection between the disruption of the cultures tied to the lands from which
the dispossession occurred, it is unclear as to how the loss of part of an immense
territory could and would have disrupted the culture tied to it, since the same
culture would have been carried on the remaining lands reserved to each First
Nation.
Surely, the FNs in question,
their communities and cultures were not as weak, fragile or rigid bereft of
the capacity to come up with imaginative adoptive solutions to deal with
the kinds of adversity alleged or implied by the ,the nature of which I illustrated.
This is particularly the case
with respect to FNs that had already experienced dispossession as a result of
armed conflict with other FNs.
Finally, putting aside the matter
of the residential schools for a moment, in the light of the assertion that land based healing protects FNsPs from
stress in a holistic way, I am at a loss to understand why this healing
method was and remains ineffective to protect the FNsPs from the alleged
stresses caused by the arrival of the colonisers and their colonisation
activities.
The “so-called” assimilationist policies and the residential
schools as the instrument of assimilation
17. No doubt, like
most other government sponsored and managed schemes of social engineering, the
residential schools system established with the best intentions, did not quite
work out the way it was intended. Clearly, the aims ascribed to the system by those involved in
the conception, management and the execution of the project, were , as one
would expect, in accord with the British cultural, social and moral values of
the 19th century when the system was established. With the evolution
of Canada’s cultural composition and values, these are no longer considered to be
in accord with the Canadian values of the latter 20thcentury and so
far, those of the 21st.
Further, in those days, respectable
society could not have imagined and would not have believed that their clergy
and nuns could or would engage in the kinds of disgusting and repulsive
activities against kids with whose education they were entrusted.
By and large, for the Canadian aboriginal communities
subjected to the residential school system, the whole scheme was and remains an
abomination, and contrary to the evidence, without a single redeeming feature
or outcome; one which will remain
unforgivable and unforgiven so long as the current reconciliation process is not
concluded successfully to their satisfaction .
I think that those involved in conceiving the
scheme and later managing and executing it were far too ambitious in their aims; not quite realistic in their expectations, and
overall, lacked the cultural sensitivity
and know how finesse to manage the scheme. They were the creatures of their
times.
Nevertheless, I think they would have happily settled for an outcome
that enabled the FNs to integrate into the society they were destined, or
condemned to live in and with ,depending on one’s perspective .
17.1 As
it turned out, at a certain point in time and since, the FNsPs also had to
start living or putting up, with Canadians who belonged to a variety of races,
ethnicities, national origins, cultures and religions and various combinations
and permutations thereof, who are not familiar with the history of this country
and do not necessarily share the guilt feelings of some of the descendants of the original French and the
British colonisers and of those wedded to the liberal and humanistic
multiculturalism of our times.
17.2 Leaving
out Canada for the moment, it is fair to state that just about every corner of
the world was colonised in some fashion or another temporarily or for the duration.
In response to this new state of
affairs, the colonised peoples, had to learn sooner or later the way the
colonisers, thought, felt, lived and worked, their values and belief systems in
order to be able to function effectively
in the new society. And where the new masters, permitted it or demanded it, the
colonised sent their children to schools taught by the teachers provided or
approved by the colonial masters.
In fact, some western colonial powers
promoted literacy by encouraging their colonised subjects to get some schooling
in order to increase their contributions to the colonial economy.
The noteworthy thing about this
schooling process is that the natives did
not inevitably and invariably lose their aboriginal identities, cultures,
customs and practices, communal arrangements and what else that goes along with
these things.
And the irony in all of this is
that, the aboriginal peoples living under a less enlightened colonial power such
as was Spain, which did not encourage or care to have their respective
aboriginal peoples “civilised” through some western schooling and coaching
ended up being culturally denigrated, in every possible way with great many
numbers of them being killed, maimed or physically incapacitated by the colonials
to the point of destroying their communities and cultures. In this regard, it
is worth looking into the fates of the aboriginal communities of Mexico and of
Central and South America and compare it with the fate of the Canadian FNsPs.
17.3 There
is no doubt that, the overriding goal of the residential school system in the
minds of those who conceived it and implemented it, was to help -even if at
times they had to resort to coercion to pull the kids into the system, the FNsPs
to start to integrate into the Canadian society of which they had become a part
and in which they were destined to live.
The scheme was motivated by a
sense of charity as befitting good Christians of good will; and in part by
those who had the wisdom and foresight to predict the negative long term consequences
of a failure to educate the FNsPs and integrate them into society by teaching
them the kinds of skills that would enable them to earn their living to provide
for themselves and for their communities.
Needless to say, they also were
motivated by pragmatic considerations: the prospect that the scheme would
reduce and ultimately reduce substantially the amount of public monies that had
to be spent to provide for aboriginal communities as their traditional
avocations would not generate sufficient revenue for their individual and
communal needs.
As a friend of mine, who was not
a lawyer, joked; considering the billions spent, misspent or spent in an unwise
manner to date by the successive incarnations of the Department responsible for
Indian Affairs, the newcomers could have purchased every inch square of the
whole country at fair market value as the boundaries of the country expanded
north and westward.
This was not and is not a joking
matter .The overall failure of the residential school system to accomplish its
objective of integration, did produce the predicted economic negative long term
consequences for the FNs.
A fair number of First Nation communities,
especially those in remote areas, became welfare basket cases that depend on
government largesse in order to meet some, but unfortunately not all, of the
material individual and communal needs; and a large number of these are simply unable
to pull themselves out of their predicaments. This most regrettable state of
affairs, in turn created chronic negative results and consequences generated by
dependency.
I consider, the ultimate tragedy
of the history of the residential school system was its double failure,
First , its failure to treat all of the students respectfully,
thereby causing the kinds of both generational and intergenerational
traumas that have been identified, and,
Second its failure to deliver on
its implicit and explicit promises to
the aboriginal communities that the graduates of the system though their knowledge,
skills and employment would propel both themselves and their respective communities,
to material sufficiency that would give them the degree of independence.to
nurture and protect their cultures and everything else that goes with it.
17.4 On
the other hand, personally, I have considerable difficulty to accept the
proposition that the success of the scheme, in accordance with the expectations
of those who advocated, established and implemented it, would have caused the
degradation and ultimately, the loss of aboriginal identities, cultures, values,
practices and beliefs.
Despite the fact of having lived
in Canada for sixty years, arriving at the age of 17, I still have and abide by
my original ethnic and religious culture, and instincts, my first mother
tongue, values, beliefs, thinking, even superstitions, as well as the old home
medicine remedies for some illnesses that came through centuries of practice.
Although, I have acquired the
Canadian culture and integrated into the Canadian society, at all times, my
thinking and instincts remain connected to my old world mental apparatus.
Despite the assertions to the
contrary, the cultures into one is socialised during infancy, early childhood
and failing part of the childhood, during early adulthood are resilient and
while it may no longer be possible to ride a horse, engage in one’s historical
avocations on a full time basis, the basic native cultural instincts survive
and thrive in a creative fashion.
And this has also been the case
of hundreds of thousands of immigrants originating from non-Western countries
such as the China, Japan, the Koreas, Vietnam and India.
Notwithstanding, the negative
residential school experiences, I fail to see why that would not also be the
case for the FNsPs who attended these
schools. As matter of fact, I am inclined to believe that the greater the
oppressive nature of teaching generates a correspondingly intense resistance to
what is being said and taught. Then again, I may be projecting my native
culture and experiences unto the FNsPs.
Conclusion
18. In conclusion,
the introductory narrative to the preliminary findings reads and sounds like a political
manifesto where the author seems to be obsessed with colonisation and the
residential schools and simply unable to put the past in a more disciplined
perspective.
If Canadians ever heard the ideological
interpretations of history and the, inflationary, and at times inflammatory
language that accompanies them, that put all the blame for whatever ails the
First Nation societies and peoples on the colonisation and colonialism and the
consistently evil intents and destructive policies and practices of the
colonisers, they heard it at least 100 times.
These hardly advance their case
and surely do not deliver to these communities and peoples that which will
enable them to overcome their problems and challenges successfully. .
I would have thought that these
leaders’ and activists’ time would have been and still is better spent on
a) a much, and in some instances,
urgently needed critical examination, analysis, interpretation and, where possible, application of the
evidence available to date that touch
upon certain aspects of the problems and
challenges that are being alleged and
those that have been framed accurately identified on the strength of empirical
evidence; and
b) ascertaining the actual or true
causes of the problems through research that
in turn will illuminate for us the kinds
intervention and treatment
strategies that are responsive to the these causes instead of fiddling around with the alleged causes based
on ideology and political posturing, prejudice or sheer ignorance.
Certainly Canadians would like to
move to a balanced narrative, frank and civil dialogue and to the formulation
of empirically indicated strategic initiatives that will be of considerable
benefit to all concerned.
And so do I.
It is bad enough to witness FNsPs
suffer; and it is quite something else, for us to sit on our hands, instead of
researching and establishing the causes of the each problem that is causing
such suffering and to get on to formulate strategies based on the results of
the research that will alleviate and hopefully in time, eliminate the problem causing the
suffering.
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