Critical Examination of the Idle No More Movement

The entire Women’s Movement in the United States has been quite extensive. It can be traced back to 1848, when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. After two days of discussions, 100 men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this document called for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women. This gathering set the agenda for the rest of the Women’s Movement long ago (Imbornoni). Over the next 100 years, many women played a part in supporting equal treatment for women, most notably leading to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed women the right to vote.

Indigenous governance is filled with legislations and amendments that began with the Royal proclamation act of 7th October 1763. Since then, there has been a massive effort to civilize the indigenous population in order to integrate them with the non-indigenous population by the government of Canada. The main purpose of such a congress is debated till date.

With the proposal of the ‘Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy’ (hereafter referred to as the White Paper) in 1969 by Jean Chretien, existing tensions over the role and future of First Nations within Canadian society would finally come to a head. Prior to the introduction of this policy, government bureaucrats and missionary organizations had finally begun to realize that directed change and economic development were not taking place amongst First Nations communities as they had wanted, and decided in the favor of a change. This change in policy brought about the White Paper, which was a cleverly veiled assimilationist proposal of the Canadian government to the First Nations peoples of their country. This shift in policy

The Indian Act was a challenge by the Canadian government to adjust the aboriginals into the Canadian culture including bring in residential schools, separating every First Nations in trying to “improve”, and practice them for standard society (Emberley, 2009). First Nations people were also not allowed to possess any land or offer the land that used to be theirs before the Indian act as this segregation put limits maintaining or even owning anything (Emberley, 2009). This lead to the point on everything being restricted for the First Nations including losing history, practicing

To reconcile the relationship between Canada and the Aboriginal community means to effectively restore peace and instil positive relations amongst the two parties. In the interest of reconciliation, the Canadian government must undo its actions against the aboriginal community and furthermore acknowledge responsibility on its part. In 1949, the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons considered and delegated the content of the Indian Act. By 1949, the Indian act was modified to allow first nations students to be educated in public schools. The Canadian government recognized the inexcusable conditions Aboriginal youth were exposed to through residential schooling and yet failed to formally accept guilt and liability. Furthermore, bill C-31 was introduced in 1985 as an act which aimed to amend the horrific laws enforced through the Indian Act and gave. This gave the Aboriginal community hope for equality amongst non-Aboriginals within Canada. The bill aimed to reinstate Indian status to all individuals whom were forcibly stripped of their status because of the Indian act. However, the result of the bill proved it to be extremely unproductive as large numbers of women and children were still not reinstated with Aboriginal status for over thirteen years, thus failing the Aboriginal community.

INM originated when four women — Nina Wilson, Sylvia Mcadam, Jessica Goredon and Sheelah Mclean — organized a work shop focused on how the conservative omnibus bill, Bill C-45, would affect first nations people. This bill proposed changes to various acts and regulations that would directly affect Aboriginal sovereignty. These include; the Indian Act, the Navigable waters protection act, the environmental assessment Act and the Fisheries Act (Graveline, 2013: 293). These proposed changes mobilized aboriginals and non-aboriginals across Canada to come together in solidarity and form the largest movement for indigenous rights in Canada since Oka in 2002. With an excellent campaign strategy involving social media such as Facebook and Twitter, the INM movement has been inspiring youth and women to come together collectively to demand change. Through rallies, protests, round dancing and road blocks, the INM movement has gained national coverage in the news media (not all of which has been sympathetic to the INM cause). In particular, the six week hunger strike of Chief Theresa Spence gained immense news coverage, and put pressure on the Prime Minister to quickly organize meetings with chiefs of first nation tribes (Graveline 2013: 293). While exposure in the news media, is necessary in order to win the

The Indian Act was enacted in 1867 by the Parliament of Canada. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development administered the act. The act defines who an “Indian” is and the legal rights of the Aboriginal people in Canada. Regulation of the economic system between aboriginal people and the government of Canada is included in the Indian Act. It also includes the power the ministers have on the aboriginal people including children and disabled Aboriginals. If the laws are not obeyed, the punishment is written in the act. The Indian Act was influenced by the legislative foundation of the Royal Proclamation, 1763, which recognized Aboriginals as a distinct political unit (Residential schools). The Royal Proclamation, 1763, thought that it was their duty to protect the Aboriginal people from the Canadian society. The Royal Proclamation, 1763, had the responsibility for Aboriginal affairs in Canada with British imperial authorities. However, by the mid-1800s Britain began to transfer this responsibility to Canadian colonies. Then the Canadian authorities passed the First Indian Act. Over the years many amendments have been made to the Indian Act.The Indian act passed out a law that any children under the ages of 16 had to study at Residential schools (Residential schools), the children there were physically abused, especially girls. (Churchill, 55-56). The Indian act is significant today because on June, 11 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on behalf of the

This paper is going to examine the social movement of Idle No More. An explanation of how the movement started, its goals, and its progress will be explained. Different sources of media interpreted and portrayed the movement differently; this essay will show how the movement was visualized in a much more positive light from insider and alternative media then that of the corporate media. This essay will examine both the difficulties I would have in participating in Idle No More and the strengths I have that could be used to help with the movement.

For several hundreds of years, Aboriginals have been impacted by the Indian Act in many ways. They have dealt with numerous challenges that have changed their lives forever. Laws were created by the Canadian government with the purpose of controlling Natives and assimilating them into Canadian culture.For multiple years,

The Indian Act was an attempt by the Canadian government to assimilate the aboriginals into the Canadian society through means such as Enfranchisement, the creation of elective band councils, the banning of aboriginals seeking legal help, and through the process of providing the Superintendent General of the Indian Affairs extreme control over the aboriginals, such as allowing the Superintendent to decide who receives certain benefits, during the earlier stages of the Canadian-Indigenous' political interaction. The failure of the Indian Act though only led to more confusion regarding the interaction of Canada and the aboriginals, giving birth to the failed White Paper and the unconstitutional Bill C-31,

The Canadian government has great control of where the aboriginals are situated and what resources and services are made available to them. In 1876 the Indian act was created by the Canadian government (Indian Act). “The Indian act is a Canadian federal law that governs and matters pertaining to Indian statuses, bands, and Indian reserves”(Indian Act). A part of the Indian Act made the government give some crown land to the Aboriginals; the

Treaty benefits, health, rights to living on the reserve and property are forfeited as a result of losing Indian status. This also happens when an Indian women gets married to another Indian man. She loses her rights to her own band, and has to become a member of her husband’s band. Ultimately, if the women becomes widowed or abandoned then she loses all status of being an Indian all together. On the other hand, men can marry a non-status woman and all of his rights would be kept. With strides of equality throughout history, it takes a step back when Aboriginal women are entirely dependent of their husband. Several cases were took to court in the 1970’s, but not until 1980 is when there was a connection found between the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Canadian Human Rights Act. With this section in direct violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the removal of a woman’s Indian status while marrying a non-Indian man was done and Bill C-31 was passed so victims of the Indian Act can be reimbursed. However, Bill C-31 is still under scrutiny because those who have their status reinstated to them can only pass it on for one generation. This is a violation under Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Payne, 1992). The Indian Act is a controversial piece of legislation that was passed in 1876. It has been amended throughout the times, but the core concept of the Indian Act still

More than 600 of these marches took place all over the world, the largest being at the nation’s capitol in Washington D.C.. Those who participated did so for a multitude of reasons. Marching for not just equal rights for women, but for equal rights for the LGTBQIA+ community, for Black Lives Matter, for raising awareness about climate change, and much, much more. The hashtag Why I March has garnered up millions of Instagram posts, Tweets, Facebook updates, and articles, all from men and women standing up for their beliefs. The coordinators of the Women’s March on Washington put together a document outlining their guidelines and principles, and illustrate modern day feminism very well. They go over the basic principles that human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights. It also demonstrates intersectionalism, calling for an end to police brutality, reformations for the criminal justice system, an end to human trafficking, rights for immigrants and refugees, among many others. Just as the first women’s convention in American history drew up a doctrine, the guiding vision and definition of principles of the Women’s March is eerily similar to the Declaration of Sentiments and Grievances written 169 years

Women have always been fighting for their rights for voting, the right to have an abortion, equal pay as men, being able to joined the armed forces just to name a few. The most notable women’s rights movement was headed in Seneca Falls, New York. The movement came to be known as the Seneca Falls convention and it was lead by women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton during July 19th and 20th in 1848. Stanton created this convention in New York because of a visit from Lucretia Mott from Boston. Mott was a Quaker who was an excellent public speaker, abolitionist and social reformer. She was a proponent of women’s rights. The meeting lasted for only two days and was compiled of six sessions, which included lectures on law, humorous

In the reading “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism”, the author, Karen J. Warren, explains her argument on the inevitable connection between the oppression of women and the oppression of nature. She further suggests that ecofeminism provides a framework to re envision feminism and create an environmental ethic which takes into account the connection between sexism and naturism.