Indigenous rights

In January 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal released a historic decision finding that the Government of Canada was racially discriminating against over 165,000 First Nations children. Leading up to the decision, the Government of Canada spent more than 8 million dollars in legal fees trying to have the complaint dismissed on technical grounds. After the decision was issued, the Government of Canada tried to evade human rights scrutiny by arguing that reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples would best be achieved through consultations, rather than orders from the Tribunal. The authors argue that this distorted version of reconciliation is in fact incompatible with the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and domestic and international human rights law.

Image: New fellow Partrick Turmel on the panel "Securing the Next Generation of Social Programs" at Progress Summit 2016.

The Broadbent Institute is pleased to announce the relaunch of the Broadbent Institute’s Fellows Program — an integral part of the Institute’s mission to develop and expand a progressive, social democratic vision for Canada.

It has been over a year since the federal government was found to be racially discriminating against First Nations children on reserve by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (HRT). 

Making a prisoner spend four years isolated in a plexiglass cell under the constant glare of artificial light is a form of custody that shocks Canadian sensibilities. It is difficult to believe that such cruel treatment was imposed on Adam Capay in a Thunder Bay detention centre – but it was.

On September 22 and 23, the Broadbent Institute hosted Progress Summit BC to chart a progressive path forward for the province in this critical election year. The first keynote was delivered by Law Foundation Professor of Aboriginal Justice and Governance at the University of Victoria, Val Napoleon. Watch her remarks and presentation below.

A year has passed since the closing event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Ottawa — a brief moment of self-reflection that punctured through a stubborn, willful and long-standing national blindness. 

The federal government knowingly discriminates against Indigenous children and their families. That discrimination is part of the colonial fabric that holds together Canadian political-economic development.

On a hot summer July afternoon, a social worker handed me over to a young Saskatchewan farming couple. I was three months old, and my adoptive mother tells me I wouldn’t stop crying. She eventually realized I was too hot because my foster mother had dressed me in all the clothes that I possessed. 

The tributes emerged mid-afternoon on February 10th, as the news that four artists had died in a horrific car accident that killed five people north of Regina.

Michelle Sereda’s was the first name to emerge, and the close-knit arts family of Regina began to mourn.  Michelle had been a long-time figure in the performance, theatre and movement arts community. The next name heard was Lacy Morin-Desjarlais, who was a young woman recently returned to her homeland, also working in theatre and dance. The afternoon waned as the sadness of many continued to rise.

Thursday’s stunning Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling, extending the scope of Indigenous rights to include the right to permanently control “land conferred by aboriginal title”, has the potential to transform the politics of resource extraction and development in Canada.