Why do we discuss Canada's attempted cultural genocide as it's

[Riverwind]

So all the first nations were deemed mentally defective? Why would the government be giving 300 dollars for every Indian woman sterilized?

I doubt the problems with addicted mothers having more children than they could care for were any better than today. That would be grounds for the 'mentally defective' label in a days before addiction was recognized as a medical problem.

On a related note:

Did you know that the Canadian government knowly sent it solidiers to war with defective rifles in WW1 which happened to be manufactured by a politically connected businessman? Canadian soldiers were reduced to scavenging rifles from dead British soliders yet the Canadian government refused to find a new manufacturer.

http://www.histori.ca/prodev/lp.do;jsessio...omcat1?id=19229

The point of the story is to illustrate that the political leadership in the past had much less concern for the lives of citizens than it does today and although the stories of how the govenment failed to act in order to prevent deaths are horrific today they are very typical for the time. That is why I object to the attempts to paint the mismanagement of the schools as something equivant to Nazi death camps.

[charter.rights]

People and community regularily rewrite history in order to provide a narrative that better suit themselves. That is what appears to be happening with the residential schools within the native community. This push to rewrite the historical narrative encourages people to exagerrate or event fabricate events.

Where did I say that the government did not have responsibility for mismanaging the schools? The point I can making is your claims of genocide are ove blown hyperbole that is not supported by evidence when the evidence is place in the context of the times.

Now all you are trying to do is rewrite history according to your own myths....

Plenty of EVIDENCE has been presented to not only the government, but the courts in the lawsuit that created the Residential survivors agreement and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission . Further many of the residential survivors did not take the "pay-off" and are still pursuing the lawsuit.

There is no doubt that some exaggeration might have taken place, but there is enough commonality in the majority of complaints to give their facts legal standing in the courts, and before the Prime Minister of Canada (who BTW has acknowledge the harm).

United Nations

"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

( Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

© Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:

(a) Genocide;

( Conspiracy to commit genocide;

© Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;

(d) Attempt to commit genocide;

(e) Complicity in genocide. "

So which sentence of the definition to you want to debate first?

[eyeball]

The point of the story is to illustrate that the political leadership in the past had much less concern for the lives of citizens than it does today and although the stories of how the govenment failed to act in order to prevent deaths are horrific today they are very typical for the time.

...he said wistfully...

[Riverwind]

So which sentence of the definition to you want to debate first?

Genocide is about intent. None of the definitions apply to schools that were set up with the intention of providing an education to a minority group.

[DogOnPorch]

Plenty of EVIDENCE has been presented to not only the government, but the courts in the lawsuit that created the Residential survivors agreement and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission . Further many of the residential survivors did not take the "pay-off" and are still pursuing the lawsuit.

Hear-say evidence isn't really evidence. Plus there really isn't that much...my hippies @ Woodstock analogy still stands.

[Machjo]

I'm sorry, but we did not have a 50%+ death rate in regular schools.

[Machjo]

I doubt the problems with addicted mothers having more children than they could care for were any better than today. That would be grounds for the 'mentally defective' label in a days before addiction was recognized as a medical problem.

Addicted to what? Being Aboriginal?

So an addicted woman will go out and get married and plan to have children and a family?

Think about it for a moment.

[Riverwind]

I'm sorry, but we did not have a 50%+ death rate in regular schools.

Regular schools were not residential so deaths of children would not be attributed to a school. The only way to understand those numbers in context would be to find the rates of child death by disease at the time. It is unlikely to reach the 50% mark but that is the extreme example.

[CANADIEN]

Because it is ancient history. The residential schools were grossly mismanaged and that left the door open to allow criminals to get away with abuse of children. However, gross mismanagement by bureaucrats is nothing new (look at the recent case of teh Somalian woman in Kenya) and it certainly does not qualify for the hyperbolic label of "genocide" by any reasonable definition of the term.

I t is not ancient history for those who still be bear the psychological scars of that they endured. And the clear intent of the residential school system was the destruction of Aboriginal cultures.

Edited August 16, 2009 by CANADIEN

[Riverwind]

So an addicted woman will go out and get married and plan to have children and a family?

You made a claim with no context explaining the rational used to justify sterilization. I pointed out that addiction - an endemic problem within some native communities - could have been the rational used. I suspect you don't actually know complete context behind your factoid which makes it impossible to determine its relevance.

[DogOnPorch]

Regular schools were not residential so deaths of children would not be attributed to a school. The only way to understand those numbers in context would be to find the rates of child death by disease at the time. It is unlikely to reach the 50% mark but that is the extreme example.

TB was raging in every population globally. I'm old enough to recall the screening vans and such...shot programs...etc. Perhaps you are as well.

[charter.rights]

Genocide is about intent. None of the definitions apply to schools that were set up with the intention of providing an education to a minority group.

You might want to read up a bit. Intent need not be present (or proven). The actions themselves are the cause and the effect. Having a policies that result in genocide is enough.

Discussion:

It is a crime to plan or incite genocide, even before killing starts, and to aid or abet genocide: Criminal acts include conspiracy, direct and public incitement, attempts to commit genocide, and complicity in genocide.

Punishable Acts The following are genocidal acts when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence:

Killing members of the group includes direct killing and actions causing death.

Causing serious bodily or mental harm includes inflicting trauma on members of the group through widespread torture, rape, sexual violence, forced or coerced use of drugs, and mutilation.

Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts.

Prevention of births includes involuntary sterilization, forced abortion, prohibition of marriage, and long-term separation of men and women intended to prevent procreation.

Forcible transfer of children may be imposed by direct force or by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or other methods of coercion. The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as persons under the age of 18 years.

Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence.

The legal definition of genocide

"“I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.” Duncan Campbell Scott, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, in a 1920 letter.....

It was the policy of the federal government to get

[CANADIEN]

It is a waste of time to judge historical acts by modern standards. Times were different and everything must be placed in the proper context.

The proper context of attempts by the Birtish Army, during the Pntiac War, to dissiminate smallpox isthat it was an attempt to kill as many people as possible in a certain population. Hard to miss.

[Riverwind]

I t is not ancient history for those who still be bear the psychological scars of that they endured. And the clear intent of the residential school system was the destruction of Aboriginal cultures.

Assimilation was what was believed to the best way to help minorities succeed within society. Today people don't believe that but that does not alter the fact that the intent was to help people - not destroy them.

[CANADIEN]

People and community regularily rewrite history in order to provide a narrative that better suit themselves. That is what appears to be happening with the residential schools within the native community. This push to rewrite the historical narrative encourages people to exagerrate or event fabricate events.

And how do we call your wistful discarding of history? Edited August 16, 2009 by CANADIEN

[CANADIEN]

Assimilation was what was believed to the best way to help minorities succeed within society. Today people don't believe that but that does not alter the fact that the intent was to help people - not destroy them.

The intent was to destroy cultures, not much difference.

[charter.rights]

You made a claim with no context explaining the rational used to justify sterilization. I pointed out that addiction - an endemic problem within some native communities - could have been the rational used. I suspect you don't actually know complete context behind your factoid which makes it impossible to determine its relevance.

Addiction was not an issue in the 1800's and early 1900, s when government policies existed to "kill the Indian in the child". There was poverty as an issue but that was a direct result of government policies as well.

Today the majority of addictions in native community can be directly attributed to residential schools, through the addict, his parents or grandparents. According toe Dr. John Bradshaw an expert on additions research in the 1980's, addictions are inter-generational.

[Riverwind]

Punishable Acts The following are genocidal acts when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence

Which is my point. Residential schools were intended to assimilate the group into the majority culture. There was no intent to destroy the group (i.e. kill off). Trying to equate assimilation with murder is silly.

[charter.rights]

Which is my point. Residential schools were intended to assimilate the group into the majority culture. There was no intent to destroy the group (i.e. kill off). Trying to equate assimilation with murder is silly.

The intention to assimilate native people into mainstream against their will, is by definition, genocide.

Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence.

[Riverwind]

And how do we call your wistful discarding of history?

An attempt to balance the blantent misrepresentation of the past being presented by others.

[charter.rights]

An attempt to balance the blantent misrepresentation of the past being presented by others.

So you admit to ignoring history in an attempt to counter what others are presenting?

[Riverwind]

The intention to assimilate native people into mainstream against their will, is by definition, genocide.

Not by the widely understood the meaning of the word.

Changing the meaning of words has long been a tool of activists pushing an agenda. The invention of the entire 'cultural genocide' nonsense is one of more rediculous examples.

[Riverwind]

So you admit to ignoring history in an attempt to counter what others are presenting?

I am not ignoring anything. I acknowledge what occurred. The problem is you want to go way beyond the actual facts and impose a narrative that is not supported by the facts.

[Machjo]

Evidence of genocidal mortality:

http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/mort_rate_index.html

[Machjo]

How do we explain that at the hight of tuberculosis, when we all knew that quarantine was necessary, that in the residential schools, healthy children were actively encouraged to play with the sick ones? How do we explain that the doctor responsible for overlooking the residential schools had his position abolished by the government right at the hight of the tuberculosis epidemic soon after his report of intentional exposure?

Co-incidence?

And you can't say it was a sign of the times because this was a doctor expressing concern over this at the turn of the last century.