Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The United Nations is looking into Canada’s human rights record and here's a simple fact
Canada has a big issue.
A big problem with prejudice.
It is all across Canada from coast to coast.
It’s directed at immigrants and it’s directed at Canadians themselves.
people from the west coast feel
prejudice towards the east coast and central Canada. The same goes from central Canada.
There’s a problem with the French and English-speaking people of Canada.
And the biggest problem has to do with the Aboriginals, the First Nations people of Canada
who were here first. This is their land
and they have been subjugated. They've been treated
worthless people. They have no rights virtually.
And the biggest
fallacy out there is that they have it so good. I remember working in construction when
one of my co-workers was saying how good the Native people have it because they got
land given to them and the government gives them housing; they have dental, medical, education.
Everything is paid for the don't even have to pay taxes.
Nobody talks about what the Natives have lost Along the way.
About how they lost their culture, their land, their language, their humanity.
Although it has been lost.
It wasn't until June 2008 of the Canadian government
first apologized
to the native people. But even before apologizing to the native people,
the government took an opportunity to
Thank their inner circle for
coming up with the apology.
How absurd.
Human rights are
dismal for Aboriginal people in
Canada. I’ve seen on the news, where in
British Columbia there are areas were native women have been murdered in large numbers over many
years and there's nothing being done about it, or very little. Task forces are established
But nothing has come it.
I have firsthand experience about Native issues.
The wife that I have talked about, who passed Away ten years, was in a Native Canadian.
She was born in 1954 on the Rosal River Band
She was one of the people that were involved in residential schools
of Canada.
When she was a school-age between 5 and 6
governement people came to the house. They came to get her from the reserve.
because it was deemed at that time, all across Canada
that Natives could not be proper parents They could not bring up their children.
Children had to be taken away from Native families
and put into residential schools so they could taught to be ‘white’ to be
Normal.
That meant that there
hair was cut, their language was denied, culture
There was no nurturing from families, from Grandparents. No stories passed on nothing.
They were denied all that. My first-hand Experience was this - I remember.
Her name is Bernice. I remember Bernice talked about it rarely, but she talked about how
she was frightened when she was that age because they were coming for her. She knew they were.
She ran away from her home she ran away and hid under the houses on the reserve. As she
stayed there for a couple of days till she was found.
She was taken to a residential school where A principal
took a liking to her and because the principal had a family with a couple of kids
he and his wife adopted Bernice into the family. So imagine this.
Somebody comes to your house takes your child Away. No matter what, you cannot stop it.
It’s unstoppable
They take your child away.
And then somebody just adopts them.
Her life wasn't
all negative in a family that family. She grew up - She went to school
She went to university. She’s educated. She became a drug and alcohol councilor.
She worked with the Boys and Girls club in Kelowna,
where they named a program after her, after her passing.
She was also on the food bank board of directors.
She was very active in many fields, socially.
She’s a native Canadian from the Rosal River Band.
She was a loving mother to her child
and yet so many Native people were denied that opportunity to be loving parents
because the government didn't think that they could do that.
That they were up to that task.
In the early 1980’s after we had gotten married
I went through the
Indian affairs and I’ve found Bernice’s natural Mother and I got the two of them to reunite.
I thought because of my history and not having a father when I young, til I was nine years old,
that it would be something wonderful. It wasn't.
Although there was no
animosity between them, Bernice could never warm up to her real mother because
for her, the big issue was always - why did you let them take me?
And why didn't you come for me?
Even though her life was good with her adoptive parents, she wondered why her natural mother
didn't come forward.
Why they didn't and she couldn't understand and she could she knows the law - that they
couldn't.
But it's still - like she was such a devoted Mother, Bernice, to our son Joey.
That she would never let anyone take him.
So I have first-hand experience about Canada’s human rights record
and owe a lot of things to the Native people.
I hope Canada and Canadians can own up to that fact
And that the circle of prejudice stops.
Bernice was a fantastic mother who loved her children more than anything in the world.
She would have given anything for them.
But she was that way with all the people that She dealt with. She was honest and fair.
She taught me a lot about different things in life
She was a very ‘stand on her feet’ type of person who could look after herself.
She had to learn that.
She would have given anything to be present at her son’s marriage
the birth of her granddaughter. She will never experience that.
She will never know.
But the government apologized for what they did to her and so many other natives
and that's why I get so passionate about things in life
All the things that I’ve learned
I want to pass on and I want to leave a legacy
behind for Lexis.
I want her to know
her history,
where she comes from
and to be proud.
Thank you for watching my videos