hot wasabi peas

Is this a test?

There are plenty of examples of issues and influences. I'm choosing not to list them because you'll just mock, or otherwise poopoo them. I've heard that all before and I'm not a masochist. Perhaps if you researched and answered your question yourself you might learn a lot more about Aboriginal peoples in Canada instead of just knowing what you need to know to defend your myopic mainstream views. If you want any references to reading material or directions to a good sweat lodge on the west coast, just let me know.

I suspect you'll view this as a cop out. I don't really care.

dbd33

I don't see this response as a cop out but as confirmation that aboriginal matters are not part of mainstream life in Canada. That's not to say that aboriginal culture is without value, I expect a visit to a sweat lodge would be an enjoyable experience, but like all secondary cultures it's something better dealt with outside the school system.

Lapsed Canuck

This would be like saying that the Roman period is not worthy of study in British history... Aboriginal life is not a secondary culture but has had an impact on Canada in a big way and on Canadians as many of us learn about both in school and in visiting any Canadian museum.

I would really hope current British expats would know better and would work harder to come to terms with Canada's aboriginal history instead of repeating what has been done for centuries - sidelining a whole people because they don't fit into your world view. Shame on you.

dbd33

I asked for examples, hwp chose not to get into it. Do you have any ? Can you, for example, show that aboriginal people have influenced modern Canada as much as, say, Italian-Canadians or Chinese-Canadians ? Since you cite the Roman's, what would be the Aboriginal equivalents of the influence of Latin on the English language or the road network on the physical structure of the UK ?

I'm not sidelining anyone. I'm suggesting that aboriginal people in Canada have already been marginalised. I see no point in attempting to attribute influence on the country to people who have had very little. (I assume here that you're not going to come back with an impressive list in response to the first point.) It's not that I think aboriginal culture is somehow less valuable than western culture, just that I don't think it has much relevance to Canada.

Lapsed Canuck

I think it might have been good for you to take some Canadian history then! I grant you that it is difficult to site individual feats or battles contributed to in the way that European is written. However, the comparison to Roman roads and language is a good one in terms of being similar to the ways aboriginal people contributed to the foundation of Canada.

First, many of the early settlers would not have survived were it not for the help of First Nation people. They contributed their medicines, knowledge of the terrain and helped people develop their knowledge of vegetation and hunting and fishing species the European settlers were unfamiliar with.

Second, as anyone who knows anything about Canadian history knows, the fur trade is the backbone of the creation of Canada - roads, cities, towns, etc were developed to facilitate the trade. Aboriginal people, although often being used and abused by traders, were crucial to the success of the fur trade and subsequently, to the ability of Europeans to establish a base in CAnada and bring future generations over.

You cannot seriously live in a country and say that those who first occupied it are not relevant to their history. It is hugely arrogant and smacks of the old colonial viewpoint.

dbd33

It's a better analogy if we see the aboriginal peoples in the role of the ancient Britons. The Romans built infra-structure and brought their language, roughly what the Europeans have done in North America.

Significant contributions in their day but contributions to a resource based economy. Even if we accept that Canada has a resource based economy now, it's based on oil, logging and industrial farming, not fish and fur. Fur is, indeed, next to unsaleable.

Oh, they're relevant to their history, but a footnote in Canada's, something like the Chinese who built the railway.

hot wasabi peas

How does me choosing not to cite examples of Aboriginal issues and influences confirm that Aboriginal issues and influences are not indeed part of mainstream life in Canada? It doesn't. It just means that you don't see them. And, obviously, just because you don't see them doesn't mean they doesn't exist or that the rest of Canada doesn't see them. The smog in T.O. is a lot thicker than I thought.

Judy in Calgary

The aboriginal people knew how to live sustainably. We do not.

We're living a lifestyle that, to all intents and purposes, is like living in the space shuttle Columbia, an artificially propped up environment that I believe cannot be maintained indefinitely.

The latest disquieting environmental news I've heard is that large swaths of permafrost in Siberia are thawing. Many scientists fear the thawed permafrost will release vast amounts of methane, which is a green house gas that apparently has twenty times the heating effect of carbon dioxide. They refer to this as the "tipping point," i.e., the point at which there is nothing we can do to reverse or even halt the trend.

Another thing that is happening is that glaciers are melting and releasing more than the usual amount of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean, thereby diluting the salinity of the sea water. This, in turn, is having a disruptive effect on ocean currents.

Many scientists predict that global warming will interrupt the conveyor belt effect of the North Atlantic Drift that carries warmer surface water past the west coast of Europe and carries deeper, colder water southwards under the Atlantic, past Tierra del Fuego, and out into the Pacific.

Apparently there are three places in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean in which cold water plunges downwards. Collectively, they form the northern edge of the conveyor belt, the point at which the water turns around and begins its return journey.

These three "sinks" have grown considerably weaker in recent years. One of them even has disappeared altogether for months at a time.

If the North Atlantic Drift fails, another ice age could start.

The aboriginal people knew that nature bats last. We ignored them. I believe we did so at our peril. I believe there is a high probability we will be a footnote in history, if indeed there is such a thing as history any more.

MikeUK

I think this is a point that is often used out of context…

The native population managed a sustainable existence… surviving in a harsh environment is not the same thing as eco management

dbd33

You accused me of having "myopic mainstream" views and said that I could learn about aboriginal affairs by visiting a sweat lodge on the west coast. I could do that but if I have to then it seems to me obvious that I have to step away from the mainstream. Surely, if such influences are important in Canadian life, you should be able to point me to one feature of life here in Toronto which illustrates the point.

hot wasabi peas

I'll probably regret this because I won't be thinking it through thoroughly as I have other stuff going on behind me but wtf... I'm a bit high on chocolate covered espresso beans and feeling really horny (too much info).

I'll stick with Italians ... as a sort of representation of non-British or French European and other immigrants. I mean no offence to Italians. In the following it's just a word as a symbol.

Does the Canadian government have lands claims issues with Italians? Are there issues surrounding the concept of Italian Self-Government in Canada? Are Italians redefining themselves as members of separate Nations within Canada? Are Italians legally sanctioned to conduct sentencing circles in various jusidictions? Does the Canadian government send in the army to overpower Italians for defending land that is legally theirs? Is Canada criticized by human rights organizations all over the world because of its treatment of Italians? Did the Canadian government force Italians into residential schools to have 'the Italian' butt-*****ed and beaten out of them? Are there still outstanding issues between Italians and the Canadian government because of this? Are there Treaties between Italian immigrants and the Canadian governement? Are there genocidal policies still in place to irradicate Italians in Canada? Did the architechs of South African apartheid come to Canada to learn how to 'do it' by observing how the Canadian governments treated Italian immigrants? Is the symbol of the Winter Olympics in 2010 Venue in a seashell? Are Italians conceptualizing their neighbourhoods as Nations? Do Italians have the legal sanctions to do so according to International law and the supreme court of Canada? Do tourists and art dealers come to Canada to buy Italian-Canadian art? Are Italians legally allowed not to participate in the Canadian census? Are there disagreements between Italians and non-Italians over fishing, hunting, logging and other uses of the land? When these disagreements overboil and non-Italians start hurling rocks at Italian children and women do the RCMP just sit and watch? Are Italians allowed to kill whales? Does the government have a Department of Italians and Northern affairs? Do individual rednecks seek out and murder hundreds of Italian women and no one in the authority to do something about it does anything until the media catches wind of it? Have Italians been a fundamental influence on environmental policies (that exist) and attitudes in Canada? Is it Italians who have the world's oldest participatory democracy? Is the very fact that Europeans even survived in what would be called Canada because of Italians? Who did the early settlers trade with and allow the financially feasability of settlement possible? Italians? Was it a group of Italians that marched into New York City and the world's media protesting the Quebec Hydro's illegal damn building bonanza? Was is a group of Italian grandmothers who first started boycotting and raising Canada's attention to clearcutting by McMillian-Blodel and it's damaging effects of the environment? Do people interested in various indigenous North American cultures come to Canada to learn about Italians? Did the Canadian Government perform a Royal Commission on Italian Peoples? Does Italian culture and Italian people survive despite centuries of colonializtion and genocide? Have Italians worked with conservation and environmental protection groups and scientists to protect environmentally sensitive areas in their ancestral lands? Have Italian women had a influence on Canadian feminism? civil rights? Have Italians been instrumental in a better understanding of diabetes? Have a sub-culture of Italians ever become extinct because of non-Italian Canadians? Are the men with the tallest, hottest, fittest, smoothest, broad shouldered, well-developed brown bodies, best teeth, melty chocolate brown eyes and best gorgeous long black hair in a long sexy braid Italian? (oh god my brain fell between my legs). Have Italians been cheated out legally binding agreements and lost a lot of their culture because of that? Can people get BAs, MAs, PhDs, jobs, full-filling careers in Canada and abroad in Italian Governance? Are Italians the hate object of racist Canadians? Are Italian academics shifting paradigms in Canadian universities? Are Italian lawyer shifting paradigms in Canadian law? Do the problems faced in many Italian communities force people to stop and think about the damage of colonialization and the mentality of mainstream Canada that allows it to continue? Does Italian mythology offer non-Italians new stories? new myths, new ideas? that haven't already? Do Italians offer a perspective on modern Canada that allows non-Italians to see the world very differently? Do little boys and girls in Canada grow up playing Cowboys and Italians? Is Italian an official language in any province or territory? That pack of Marlboros – did Italians come up with that? Have concepts of gender found within various Italian groups been hugely fundamental and influential in the study of gender and gay rights?

Ok there was an Italian on the Beachcombers but he wasn't as sexy as Jessie, so he doesn't count. (I need a cold shower).

(that was a thick paragraph, sorry)

I could come up with a lot more and don't bother nit-picking the above - it's not perfect, my mind's in the gutter and I'm not interested in going there (the nit-picking) - but I think the above makes it fairly obvious that Italian (and other) Canadians though lovely as they are have a completely different relationship to the Canadian Government and all it's tentacles both historically and right now. Plus because of the dominant culture's historical and continued marginalization of the contributions, influences and issues of Aboriginal peoples and of the peoples themselves, it's just so easy for non-Aboriginals to white-wash history and the here and now. Morally, I find that repugnant. Intellectually, I find it lazy.

dbd33

[QUOTE=Judy in Calgary]The aboriginal people knew how to live sustainably. We do not.[QUOTE]

I don't think that's true. They didn't kill all the buffalo because there weren't many people and there were lots of animals; their small population could afford to be inefficient in a way in which we can't. Hunting and gathering won't sustain us as it did them, we have to farm.

dbd33

No to all of the above and that's the core of my problem with the aboriginal peoples. They are part of Canada now, like the Italian-Canadians, they should have no more or less rights and obligations than the Italian-Canadians.

On edit : I haven't looked at each individual point in the thick paragraph, I accept that aboriginal peoples have all manner of merits and I expect they're good in bed.

hot wasabi peas

Going to a sweat lodge isn't about learning about Aboriginal affairs. That's pretty basic info - even Hollywood knows about sweat lodges.

Just a tip: Toronto is in Canada, not the otherway around.

hot wasabi peas

[QUOTE=dbd33][QUOTE=Judy in Calgary]The aboriginal people knew how to live sustainably. We do not. Various Aboriginal cultures in Canada did farm and in some places (particularily the Pacific Northwest and the Niagara Valley) Aboriginal populations were densely populated with millions of people.

Did you know the more societies move away from hunter-gathering societies the less free time they have? Hunter-gathers 'worked' on average 3 hours a day. I'm imagining what went on the rest of the time and I'm enjoying that.