Blog assignment number 3

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/call+education+aboriginal+issues/6891014/story.html

As a member of the aboriginal community, I think that it is important for all people living in Canada to learn about the hardships that my people have faced since the Europeans came here some five hundred years ago. Many of the problems that we face today, I believe, come from the general public not knowing the extent in which we were treated. This is not surprising based on the on the poll that most Canadians think that our tribes are both well-funded and well- treated by the federal government (Smith, 2012). Many aboriginal leaders disagree with this statement; including myself. Most Aboriginal communities suffer from poverty and social problems, and yet the majority of Canadian population think we are well treated by the Canadian government.This is not the case. Maybe whoever poured cement into our sewage system shared the same views as many other Canadians; that the Federal government will fix it. 

I find it appalling that Saskatchewan is the only province that is authorized to teach non aboriginal students about the residential schools. Without this education how will young Canadian relationships with aboriginal people change for the better if they don’t know? However, hope lies on the horizon, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have released an interim report that urges other provinces to change the curriculum so that it will incorporate more aboriginal history. To me this is a silver lining we have been waiting for. Though it has not passed yet, it is important to see that other people share the same sentiment as us, the same need to show others our history. Hopefully the young students will share the knowledge that they have learned with their parents and break the vicious cycle. The more people that know our history means more people will understand the hardships that we have faced; maybe there will be less demeaning stereotypes, and just maybe the dominate white population will start to understand.

Works Cited

Smith , T. (2012, July 6). A call for education on aboriginal issues. Montreal Gazette. Retrieved from http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/call education aboriginal issues/6891014/story.html

Tsuu t'ina nation: treaty 7 signed 1877. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.tsuutina.ca/default.aspx?page=Reserve History&ID=41 

Blog #2

As an aboriginal council member and someone who speaks the endangered Tsuut’ina, it would be devastated to find out that someone had destroyed early evidence of our language and our history ("11 graduates trained", 2012). Although there are discrepancies about whether or not there were indeed markings on the rock, it is still an outrage. It’s still the precedents that an individual would go out with a set agenda to wreck an item in nature; potentially one with a vast amount of knowledge pertaining to an ancient tribe’s language.

I feel that the language and the history is the “heart” to any group of people. Just like the heart in the body, we cannot exist without one. For groups of people it is very similar. Whether the group is still around or it has become extinct that does not matter. The language keeps the history of the people alive and without it there is nothing for the future generations to learn. Who will be there too tell others the stories about what we have done when we are gone if our symbols are destroyed?

It constantly seems like there are individuals who are out there who purposely sabotage items that are important to our ancestor’s history. Why must they do this do they not realize that we are people with feelings as well? 

Blog #1 Kevin Littlelight

By: Krystine Nichols


Biography
My name is Kevin Littlelight, and I am one of the council members of the Tsuu T'ina band. I grew up on a reserve Southwest of Calgary. I currently work on LittleLight Angus Ranch and I also write, produce, and direct films for my own company “Thunderhorse films.” In the summer of 2004, one of my short films, "Samurai Kid" was featured in the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmaker’s ImagineNATIVE("Zoominfo: Kevin Lttlelight," 2012). I studied English and Psychology at Mount Royal College and graduated with a degree in 2011 (facebook).

During my time as a Council member, the Tsuu T'ina band signed the First Nations Land Management Regime. This gave my tribe the ability to fully manage our own land, and allowed for faster economic development. Under this regime the band has been working on creating a “proper place for the Redwater sewage” (Littlelight, 2012). However upon building these pipes, we discovered that an individual had recently poured concrete into the existing sewage system; creating a blockage (Littlelight, 2012). The we had no choice but to divert the sewage to a reseve because the pipes had been shut down for little over a week. Unfortunately the reserve was the forest floor just 500 meters away from the Elbow River. Under the my direction, the pipe has been fixed, and we are now working on the cleanup of the forest (Tsuu T'ina confirms,, 2012). This is not the first form of financial vandalism that we have faced. This is just an example of the various forms of animosity that the Aboriginal people deal with on a day to day basis.