[Music] Good evening. I'm Rob Canoe. I'm Anishinabe from the Alderville First Nation in Ontario. Welcome to APTN Fire. On this show, we're looking at how your people can get along better with my people. Get over it. That's something I hear a lot, and I know what some of you are thinking. Oh great, another boohoo poor little Indian story. Good news, it's not that. What it is, is an in-your-face argument for why we all need to get over it for the sake of the economy, but more importantly, for the sake of the country. It's been 500 years, it's time to fix it. So here comes a story stiffened with straight talk and leavened with laughter. So for my white friends in the audience, Oh yeah, I just don't want you leaving a little while that fat Hawaiian was hilarious. So, certain comedians take the badness that they've grown up with and figure out a therapeutic way to vent it out. The First Nations, I'm Aboriginal.

Sick you're tired of all the political correct crap. You just call me Caucasian Lee impaired is that better than that my people should be kings and we were never viewed as that way we were viewed as a pest. [Applause] [Music] at the annual Edmonton powwow. Howie Miller and his four sons seem a bit out of place. They dance on the edge of Canada's most troubled relationship. We should go in there and do your own dancing mom. Howie's high school sweetheart Jen Houseman is what and how he adopted was essentially brought up white by the Miller family. There was always a part of me that didn't know where I was from you know who my people were and now his son Tyson is asking similar questions. My oldest son he moves out to Vancouver right. He graduated was I'm gonna move Vancouver be an actor so he moves up there. He's there for like all of like a month basically right phones me up a month later says hey I did an audition just out of the blue and I got a part.

was a cool what is it right what would you like a commercial or somewhere it says theater play. He goes no I play cool a terror that Twilight movies. I'm cool it Tara you guys want to meet him you guys wanted me. I said Houseman how big is the role in the for Twilight movies. Well if you're a tween somewhere in the universe you've likely drooled over and dreamt about the endlessly pouting Wolf Pack all buff all young and all aboriginal. Yep finally made the pack welcome to the Edmonton home of a suburban kid made good made native. Growing up I knew absolutely nothing about my identity my grandparents were were white. I heard their stories of their lives and whatever Canadian culture that was that's really all I had was Canadian culture there was no specific vibrance of any other culture there was no Aboriginal culture when I was growing up so I didn't like I knew that I was native but I didn't really understand what that meant. [Music] this is a huge opportunity for me to be

a role model for Aboriginal youth. I don't really know where we need to go right now, but I know that things aren't right in Canada with all of the native issues that we have. And for me, this is a huge opportunity to do something about that. And there's lots to be done because things sure ain't right when roadways are blocked, histrionics replace reason, fisticuffs are a first resort. Caledonia ever while Oka and countless other clashes have made this relationship look like a face on [Music]. So what went wrong? It wasn't always like this. When we started down the path, when the settlers first arrived, the natives welcomed them and helped them out. It wasn't like they showed up and the natives said, Oh, there goes the neighborhood. And the relationship grew stronger, fashionable even. Remember these? It's a beaver hat. This was considered cool back in the day. That's right, our rodents were all the rage in 17th century Europe. That led to the fur trade and of course the

fur trade gave us Canada. For a time, the Aboriginal people had this warm and fuzzy feeling, love, and understanding. We documented that in wampum belts like this one, but depict two canoes traveling down the river in parallel paths, neither one interfering with the other. It's cuter. An English and French, well for their part, they signed all sorts of big agreements with great seals. Ever since the Royal Proclamation of 1763, there's been banner promises like the natives will not be molested or my personal favorite, the Queen's promise to the Cree of bounty and benevolence. You know, we Aboriginal people thought we were getting a seat at the big table, but it turns out we had a reservation at a much smaller table at the back, near the garbage cans. At the big table, they got Canada and all of its bounty. At our table, a total lack of benevolence. We got the plague, a plague of whiskey, and our parents and grandparents were molested in schools designed to kill the Indian in the child. So where did all of

that go wrong. Well, step into my office, grab a seat on the big couch, and let's talk. I wanna stay when Heritage Center outside of Saskatoon, a random bunch of folk gather for a little therapy. Among them, a steelworker and a retired farmer. Aboriginals still feel that society owes them. They hold up their hand for something, and it magically comes to them. We'd pay for them to live. I mean, what more could they ask for us as a society, you know? Well, good evening, everybody. Welcome to Honest Gaelen. My name is John Lackey Madera, and I'm gonna be speaking with you for the next couple of hours about First Nations and Métis issues here in Saskatchewan. My company's called ECS Aboriginal Consulting Services, and it was formed about 14 years ago to go out and work with companies looking to hire and retain Aboriginal people. It's a daunting task every day, confronting the misconceptions that mire this relationship. No matter what the crowd is, I'm gonna tell them the same thing, and I'm going to deliver it in the

same way, and I'm gonna be as blunt and honest and truthful as I can, whether it's a pack of priests or a bunch of miners or a bunch of bikers, miners, and priests across Canada. 35 percent of people living on reserve are reliant on welfare. These sessions might work for bikers, miners, and priests. What about farmers? My mother's people were dumped on the shores of Cape Breton in 1799 with nothing. Eight generations later, and as far as I know, nobody ever took welfare. Different situation though. There's what's the situation I'm over here. We're talking about an isolated group inside of a community that was put on reserves, that were not legally allowed to even leave the reserve, that had administrative people that administrated their bans, that left them perennially poor. The point John is making is that Robert's ancestors didn't have every detail of their lives prescribed by a special law, Chapter XXXII, an act to amend the Indian Act of 1876, which still

governs life on reserves held fast to John a McDonald's declaration to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people's dense with detail. It at times banned natives from hiring lawyers, banned traditional ceremonies. It even banned natives from pool halls, and in all the crowded texts, no room for complaint. What do you do? Go to your Member of Parliament. No, can't vote till 1960. Go to your MLA. Not my issue. Go to your Indian agent. Works for the government. Also, you had to have a permit to sell your cow. If you wanted to go to the neighboring town and sell your crop, you had to get a permit from the Indian agent. They controlled your economy. And if your leader stood up to the government, they could remove the leader. Good God. And this is all legislated stuff. Okay, we're gonna let them talk for a little bit, and we'll come back to them. And talking's good. The Supreme Court has even provided a framework for the discussion. What am I talking about? Well, remember in '82 when Pierre repatriated

the constitution section 35 says that Aboriginal and treaty rights are hereby affirmed. And since then, the Supreme Court has stated in numerous cases that if you want to do something on Indian land, Aboriginal people have to be consulted and accommodated. It's not a veto, but we have to talk. And here's an example of how that can work to everyone's advantage. Consider the lil' one. Nobody used to talk to them. Whole resorts were built on their land without a single word. Then BC decided they wanted to invite the world to Whistler. [Music] Today, the mountains seem untouched by the great feats of the 2010 Olympics, but on the ground, the change is remarkable. [Music] The Olympics came to Whistler, and the local bands gained a voice. For generations, they'd been ignored. There was no relationship with anybody, I think, prior to the Olympics. Now Chief Lucinda Phillips of the lil'wat sits in the middle of things. Her people celebrated in a spanking new cultural center in town. And when the

world traveled up the Sea to Sky Highway to get to Whistler. They were duly informed they were passing through Aboriginal land, and the recognition has continued. Relationships and negotiations have, I would say, 75% improved acknowledgement/recognition. All of that is happening today. A relationship lifted by the Olympics continues to make steady progress. The Lil'wat got money, land, and jobs for playing host. Now a hydro track is taking Lucinda to another historic meeting. BC Hydro in the past had no relationships. They would come into our reserve or within our territory. They would build the transmission lines, they would build wooden poles, they would do what they had to do with the infrastructure they had on the ground, but they had never ever talked to us. They'd never let us know what they're doing. We had no relationship. We had a BC Hydro bill, that was it. From the early 1900s, BC Hydro laced these mountains with wires, flooded the valleys, and dammed the rivers to make the place hum.

got power the locals the culture shock. But today is a new day and a chance to celebrate. Government and hydro officials have come to sign a deal. Lyle Viereck speaks for BC Hydro. First Nations were very clear that the governments of British Columbia in Canada had not negotiated with them. They had not being defeated in conquest and that these territories remained theirs. I'm still waiting for a chief pat and chief Perry after a hundred years. This is the first major agreement that they reached with a crown. It's a huge milestone in this province and it's a huge stepping stone for for these communities. Lucinda and the other chiefs are granting hydro permission to build a new line of required. In return, they are receiving two hundred and ten million dollars, promises about employment and training, and contracts. Most of the deal is about past wrongs but it's also about embracing a new relationship. You can never put a price on land, language, culture, but I hope that we can.

be a part of a growing community. I hope for economic development. I hope for unity even with regard to First Nations and non-First Nations. Yeah, I hope for a lot of things. The land has always shaped the relationship between Aboriginals and settlers, and for too long it's had a jagged edge. But the court rulings that give First Nations a say on what happens in their traditional territory give reason for hope. The truth is, there are a lot of reasons why we need to solve this relationship. In just hard economics, there are 300 billion dollars' worth of reasons. That's the estimate of one study on the number of projects in need of consultation. Here's the equation: Asia is booming, and they need our stuff - timber, minerals, oil - and much of that stuff is in Indian country. For example, the proposal to get Alberta oil to Asia involves a pipeline that passes through the territory of 50 First Nations. We need to prepare the of tomorrow. And here is the official declaration of Kbecque fastening its future to an economic blueprint called

planar again much of it on Aboriginal territory, and if 300 billion doesn't do it for you, well, here's at least one more reason why we need to sort this out. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin: I think this is a tremendously important issue. Many of the First Nations, many Aboriginal Canadians, are sitting on a vast storehouse of resources, and we're going to have to consult and deal with them in order to basically be able to develop them. I think that's an important argument, but I believe there's a stronger one, and that is that we are 34 million people. We're in competition with countries like China and India with populations that exceed a billion. We cannot afford to waste a single talent, and original Canadians are not only the fastest growing, they are the youngest members of our society. The P gang kids make the point: the Aboriginal growth rate is almost six times that of non-Aboriginals. They live in Regina, and within their lifetime, a third of Saskatchewan's population will be

Aboriginal a lot of talent might have gone to waste just in this house had mum not dramatically defied her own destiny. I was abused. I learned how to abuse. No, it's a cycle. Vanessa's story was a sori stereotyped pregnant at 16, again at 17. Parents alcoholics, a high school dropout with two kids in an abusive relationship when she decided it all had to change. I said to myself, What? What are you doing? Your kids are gonna get there great well before you in no time. Like I said, I can't do that. I told myself, What kind of role model are you, Vanessa? What kind of role model are you for your children? She shed the abusive partner, finished high school, entered the University of Regina, and is about to graduate with the business degree. She's been married for 12 years to Justin, and there are now six kids. Today is a bit special. [Music] It's picture day for the family, and it's not going to be your average family photo. It's going to have the urban edge.

that distinguishes the work of hardest nadiak wand events if you did see First Nations people in the media it always had a negative vibe and that got me to thinking I there's something I can do as an artist. [Music] I remember one time my dad telling me this nickname for needing people moving into the city. He said they called him concrete Indians. I thought hey that's that's the name for the series. I scouted this little section in here I think I'd be good because of the stairs really do you like that yeah. I like the concepts for each portrait that don't actually come from me they come from the people themselves. We're all adapting living in the urban setting here we go guys and for Vanessa it's a record of the ground she's gained. I really believe that where I came from made me the woman that I am today. I'm a strong Aboriginal woman and I won't let anything stand in my way when I'm determined I'm here and I'm gonna do

something, and here's her chance: a job fair with a difference. [Music] It's called Inclusion Works, and it's a sight unimaginable even just twenty years ago: hundreds of Aboriginal graduates flowing into Montreal, courtesy of corporate Canada. It's cold economics and the new demographics that work, forcing everyone to take a new look at this relationship, urged on by fire-breathing billionaire Brett Wilson. What's a former star of the CBC show Dragons' Den doing here? A dragon came today because he had an opportunity to work with Aboriginal youth. I see the business world as the greatest playground to encourage relationships to be built between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. And for the 32-year-old mother of six, it has been full of surprises. I never thought it was going to be like this. I was, you know, it's probably just workshops, you know, interview skills and just... and I don't think the interviews are going to be like, 'When can you start?' and 'What are your salary expectations?' By day three, most of the graduates we talked to had job offers, including

Vanessa in September. I because they want to get me going in the man. We train up ready for summer [Music]. Increasingly at dinner and Howie's house, Aboriginal issues are part of the menu. Like I remember when I was younger and you told us about reserves and like I was completely baffled by the idea. Is like reserves will do something about it. That's completely wrong. You don't. His son Todd is taking native studies now and that is spiced up dinner conversation. But those people didn't go away to the hills. They're still here. All the boys so far as they get older, they're just more interested in learning about their history and where they come from. I'm so extremely happy to be born in Canada of all the places in the world. I didn't. I feel so strongly proud to be Canadian. But that's at the same time. I don't know what that really means in terms of being Native tonight's discourse. The lack of knowledge that be devils the relationship. History classes and social.

classes in high school in all grades. They start when colonialism started. Like they start when people should be taught in all schools so that way people wouldn't grow up as ignorant to some. Do I make a joke out of it where I say, you know we get free cab rides other cop cars. There's always somebody some young person in the audience goes, 'native people get free cab rides, they get everything for free, why don't they just go home getting things for free is one of the Bugaboos Jon Laaser muddy air takes on in his awareness training but first I want to just get into who pays what taxes and where I went to rent a car or lease a car when I was a younger man at a major dealership in Saskatoon the guy came back showed me the deal I says you're missing two lines there GST and PST he says your matey guy you don't pay taxes I says we pay every tax just like everybody else very strictly defined hunting right other than that I'm a Canadian citizen right I also

believe as myself as a Canadian citizen off the start. Anyways, I happen to have matey's status. Now we have to talk about Indians and Status Indians for this, and we're gonna give the Saskatchewan example, but first let's list ten taxes. It's fun. What turns out it's complicated, but in Saskatchewan, unless you work for the ban, you pay income tax and corporate tax. You buy stuff off reserve, you pay tax, and some things you buy on reserve that are tax-free like tobacco and booze. Individual bands will levy their own tax. In case you're wondering, I do pay taxes: property tax, income tax, sales tax, but if I lived on reserve, I might not have to. It all goes back to the deal that we made to share the land: treaties, remember those. They're an important part of our history and one of the things that make us different from Americans. In the US, they had the Indian Wars that gave us all those Italians falling off their horses in Hollywood. In Canada, the situation was dramatically different. Treaties take a different path from that.

John Burroughs is Anishinabe and a law professor at the University of Victoria. So, there was a big meeting in 1764 in Niagara where representatives of 22 different First Nations came and met with the British crown. 2,000 people camped at Niagara representing these 22 nations for two months. And there they founded Canada. This, for example, is one of the founding documents. It's a wampum belt that shows the Aboriginal understanding of the Treaty of Niagara. Chains binding together two strong and equal partners. Canada wasn't just formed through British law alone. It was an intermingling of British law with indigenous peoples' law. And putting those two sources of law together with the wampum belts with the agreement is the foundation of our country. Founded on peace, friendship, and respect. It's a story I think we'd love to celebrate. Hey, it still gets celebrated. A treaty day. The Mounties come and hand everyone on the res five bucks. Why? Because that was what was negotiated. Shake the officer's hand and you get yourself a double.

Double and the donut. Unfortunately, the Chiefs in the 1700s didn't demand indexing for inflation, but they did demand other things. Treaties were not just a quick one-off. These Chiefs had time to get ready. Some had several years to get ready, right? According to stories I was told, Chief Ataka coop and Chief Mr. Wasis each sent one of their people to Quebec where they walked around universities and they studied post-secondary education before they negotiated the treaties. So I'm gonna put you folks in a bit of the Indians' moccasins here. Imagine it's 1870, right in this territory here. What do you think they asked of the crown? And if you can give me ten things, I will be duly impressed. Education, that's right. They agreed to share the land in return for a few things, right? Shelter. They asked for help with shelter, among them housing, health care, and education. They asked for it. And I got a cut right to the chase. The crown said when it, sorry-sorry, that's exactly

everything is everything they asked for exactly. We negotiate a treaty with them, and that's often the time when the lights go on. Hey, when people realize what was agreed on and why and how the process worked, that starts to flip on the lights. [Music] That's because few of the promises have been honored. Statistics on the underfunding of housing and healthcare are as stark as they are lamentable, and on education, well, 30% less will be spent on these kids than on other Canadian children, and it shows. We underfund Aboriginal education, First Nations education on reserve. We underfunded health care, we underfund welfare compared to what other Canadians get. Take a look at the facts, and then all I would really say is let's give every single Canadian, whether they be Aboriginal and non-aboriginal, the same funding with the same quality, and let's see what happens. Okay, Canada, welcome back. I've been thinking about the occasional bursts of anger, the gnawing in your gut, the sleepless nights. I think

there's something in your past that we have to deal with. I know you don't want to go there, but it might help. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to offer an apology to former students of Indian Residential schools. This was a start, a measure of atonement. It is a sad chapter in our history. I was watching it at the White Buffalo Youth Lodge in Saskatoon. Stephen Harper comes on. Hendra stands up. Next year, sniffles, people crying, people leaving because they can't handle it, because of the impact on their families. I don't buy this. They were the whipping boy all the time. We're not the ones that are at fault here for all of the alleged mistreatment and misunderstanding of First Nation. I wouldn't say alleged. I would say mistreatment and misunderstanding, okay? And the impact of the Indian Residential schools to this day is still in there, right? We've got to come out of it, and we've got to go forward for the better, the common good here. Yet we can't be

dragging everything behind us all the time gotcha. I don't think it would be very right to tell a Jewish person to get over it, you know. The Holocaust can over move on time to move on people, you know. You can move on, but it's still, it's still part of you. Yeah, it's, I'm sorry, it's. It's not gonna be done with until we can start again, and until it's fixed. That's why I'm not gonna get over it. It's not fixed yet. What we're gonna do today is that we're going to talk about residential school. We've done a high school class in Port Perry, Ontario, gets the straight goods from history teacher Nancy Hammerstraw. I think of anything that I teach, any topic that I've ever taught, this one is the most emotional impact. This is the one that you'll get tears. It can be a jolt to learn that your government once abducted children from their parents and forced them into special schools, but the official policy was to kill the Indian in the child.

they were shorn of their culture language, and identity. Students will go home and tell that tell their parents about this because they didn't know, and their parents probably didn't know, didn't know the children their age, and much younger, were subject to terrible abuse. We're left hungry and alone. This went on from 1870 for over a hundred years, for seven generations. It was happening while I was growing up. I had no idea. And when you pull a class and ask them how many people knew about this, you get two hands up. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that it was in fact in this class that I that I first heard of it. Well, for me, it was last year when we started talking about natives, and then Miss Hamish doll introduced us to the residential schools. You hear about things all over the world that that are horrible, but it was so close to us. It's weird how we've never heard of it before, even though I've taken Canadian history before. It what we're going to do today.

is I'm going to give you all a set of tiles for the whole class to complete and remember why you're doing this that these are for children. These is easier a gift that you're giving the children. Is everybody good with that? In this class education is mixed with reconciliation. The students are completing a module called project of heart. It involves painting tiles in commemoration of children who died in residential schools, died in the wilderness trying to get home, died of abuse, died of hunger and disease. The schools were not given the resources to fully implement, I guess, better health care for these children, and not only not they weren't giving them high quality food, so they were starving and they died. It's one of these dark secrets and Canadian history, that dark secret is now being investigated. [Music] Hard to imagine we're in Canada and investigators are searching for the graves of children who never came home. I don't think we have a sense of how many children went missing, but we do have a sense that that it was an unconscionable

number. It looks as if most of them are late thirties, early forties. Alex Moss and Eldon Yellow Horn are archaeologists. They're inspecting the residential school cemetery in Mission, BC. We've noticed that this is one of the more unusual headstones. Alex has been hired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Part of its mandate is to unearth what happened to the missing children. That's very unusual to have the marbles. Those marbles belong to the child or their friends. Yeah, many lie in unmarked graves in unknown fields. I imagine that there are a number of children buried here that we don't know about. A haunting presence is all that remains of the school. So how old were you when you first came to this school? I was 7 years old, 7 years old. Yeah, I think that part was where the shower was. According to Dolores Adolph, the policy to kill the Indian in the child too often just killed the child. When we used to get up at night, you know, looking for

which way whom was there was a for people walking this way. It was a little casket, and they were bringing it into the graveyard because they didn't want anybody to know what was going on. Because there's a lot of there's a lot of babies in here back in Port Perry. The students are finishing their tiles. It's hoped that these and batches from other schools will be put on display by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The project was devised by another teacher, and the number of tiles she gives to each school is deeply symbolic and reflects what we know so far about the number of deaths. She wanted it each school to take ownership of half the population of the school that you're in. So we have 1200 students here, and so we got 600 tiles to have a physical representation of the fact that half the students in the residential school would not have made it out of that residential school. So they could actually see, Well, if this were my school, half of these people wouldn't be here. So it's pretty powerful.

[Music] [Music] Students need to know about the fact that there, but there are still things that this country needs to work on. That they have, they have a role to play to make things better and that it's not already done. A shroud of silence has long settled over Burns Lake in remote northern BC. The railway track cuts through the town, but the real division has long been drawn by racial tension. This logging center with two bands in town and a half-dozen on its outskirts had no trouble harvesting friction, and as it was dubbed then, Brass Knuckle High was often the arena for settling the score. Drama teacher Ray and Charlie was fresh up from Victoria. She was shocked. It was almost like apartheid here. It felt like apartheid. It felt like First Nations on one side, non-native on the other side. You walk into an event or to even a restaurant or you go out dancing, that was where it was the most obvious. Nobody wanted to deal with her. Nobody. It was a simmering pot. It was

simmering what the silences that strain any relationship and that beg to be addressed. For example, for years, nobody spoke about the cheese lotta, a local band flooded out of their homes at the last moment in 1953 because Alcon needed hydro for their smelter. The people who lived off the land forced onto welfare, the contours of their culture flooded out under a hundred and forty feet of water. [Music] The spirit houses that she's Lada built on top of their graves will forever be emblematic of what went wrong. These days, they place them on high ground for good reason. The great flood couldn't even leave the dead undisturbed. It's a story no longer stranded in silence. Some of the facts, at least for instance, about the chess lattice story. It's the time now to pull those stories up, to pull the stories up that are all over Canada that we need to use to enlighten the Canadians because they don't know the stories, they don't know the truths, and until we do that

until everybody hears, then it's too easy not to look. It's too easy to stay in denial. Rayann and others are challenging that denial, and tonight it seems to be working. The many faces of Burns Lake are strikingly evident in the lineup to get into the school auditorium, and this is a first. It's just too easy to just hold. Eventually, it'll all balance out, you know. No way. It's not gonna balance out unless we really get together and build networking and bring in people who can help us. [Music] [Applause] You guys are the first. You guys are the first to spoil. I met the young movie star offers a new Aboriginal image to a new generation. I'm going down that road, doing as much research as I can on the history of Native Affairs and Canada and stuff like that. I want to be able to do something important with this. We're slowly getting there, you know. It's tough, and some generations have had it harder than others, but I think in the future

it's it's it's looking up, it's like, and it's looking better. [Applause] History, right? And I don't go out and say, This is your fault, this is, and this is not about faults, right? This is what back in Saskatoon at our therapy session has anything changed for steelworker Rob Peel or farmer Robert Gordon? I'd say that my views and opinions have completely changed. There were things there I didn't know. I've done quite a bit of research on this type of thing, on those things there I didn't know about. We need as society to have more programs like this incorporated into our everyday living, as far as maybe in our schools. Okay, guys, so now what we have to do, we need to put them and pack them in the boxes. We have to send them. In terms of this idea of guilty, we should know our history, and our history isn't very pretty here. But I can't answer for what happened 50 years ago. But if my grandchildren asked me what I

did in my life in terms of this issue, and there hasn't been an improvement that I certainly should feel guilt, and I don't want to, and I don't think any Canadian wants to. [Music]

8th Fire - Episode 2 - It's Time

8th Fire - Episode 2 - It's Time

Scripts