Religious and Cultural Rights
Final Thoughts:
Overall all these events could have been prevented if people were not against a culture. Residential schools were not needed whatsoever and the aboriginal people should have been left to live their life how they choose, Anti semitism should have stayed in Europe or should not have started in the first place, and the FLQ crisis would not have happened if the rest of Canada listened to the French people of Quebec during the wars. Overall there are a lot of could haves but its too late to change the past. We can only learn from it and move on as a better nation. I think we should be proud of Canada despite everything that has happened in the past because we are slowly trying to make amends with what has happened.
unit 1: Residential Schools
Residential schools were institutes put together by the Canadian government to assimilate aboriginal children into euro-Canadian children. The first school opened in the 1840's and the last one closed in 1996. Speaking their native languages was forbidden as soon as they were taken from their families. many kids were tortured, beaten and raped during this horrific time. when they finally were released they could not communicate withe their family and bonds were broken. Many also did not survive these schools.
Over 150,000 aboriginal children were effected by residential schools.
Many Children as well as their families were affected by residential schools. The Children may have been torched in the schools but their families had to suffer loosing their children. Bonds were broken because the children were forced to speak English, a language the native elders and parents did not understand. I chose this statistic because this many children and even more then this were affected by residential schools.
The Residential schools were horrible and the Apology was well needed for people who survived to start their healing process. Many lives were lost during the residential schools being up and running. Now that their was an apology many people have been able to overcome the way they were treated and forgive the Canadian Government.
unit 2: anti-semitism
The Christie pits riot that took place on August 16th, 1933 was a baseball game that took place at Willowvale park in Toronto, Ontario. The St peters baseball team was beating Harbord Playground, a mainly Jewish team, in a semi- finals game When the game ended, the pit gang went up onto the knoll on the southwest edge of the park and unveiled a white sheet with a large black swastika on it. A massive riot broke out and for 6 hours hundreds fought using whatever they could find as a weapon.
Bitonti, Daniel, "Remembering Torontos Christie pits riot" August 2013,
"As soon as someone saw the swastika raised, they (Jewish men) just started running towards it and thats when the whole thing broke out" Joe Black (an 87 year old survivor who was seven at the time of the riot.)
In this quote Joe Black was explaining what he saw as a young boy at the Christie pit riot. I chose this quote because its from someone who saw the riot break out first hand. It tells us how serious anti-semitism was back then in Canada as well as how not okay it was to the Jewish people.
The Christie pits riot happened because of anti-semitism and hate towards the Jews playing baseball that day. Residential schools happened because of a hate towards native culture. In both cases rights were ignored, at the riot the pit gang did not care about the fact the Jewish people were well people as well as in the residential schools they did not care about rights.
unit 3: FLQ crisis
Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) is a Quebec separatist group. They used bombs to destroy mailboxes and damaged post offices, toppled statues, attacked Murry hill limousine company, kidnapped James Cross and murdered Pierre Laport as well as killed 6 other people in the process. The nickname "The October Crisis" was given to these events because they took place during October 1970. The October Crisis is also notable for the affect it had upon public opinion, shifting separatist sentiment away from violent action and toward political campaigning as a means of achieving independence for Quebec.
Le Canada, "The October Crisis" October 2001,
nearly two dozen of its members were imprisoned
I chose this fact because it states nearly two dozen of its members were imprisoned for the crimes they committed. This is a good thing because it means they didnt get away with what they were doing while trying to separate.
The FLQ crisis was made historically important because it the worst crisis since WW2, seven innocent people died while this group tried to make Quebec independent. During the Christie its riot no one died but it was definitely historically important since about 10,000 people were involved in this riot.
unit 4: Residential School apology
On June 11th, 2008 Prime Minister Stephan Harper
apologized for the residential schools of the past. He apologized to all the families that were effected by the schools and for the treatment of the students while they were in these schools. Over 150,000 children were effected by residential schools while they were up and running. Since the apology many people affected have been able to move on and heal from the trauma they went through.
Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. "Statement of apology to former students of Indian residential schools", September 2010,
"It has taken extraordinary courage for the thousands of survivors to come forward to speak publicly about the abuse they suffered" Stephan Harper
In this quote it talks about how much courage it took to speak out about the things that happened to these innocent people. each person who came forward to speak about what happened was a survivor and it takes a lot to talk about something that has so negatively effected your life. I chose this quote from Stephan Harper's apology because i felt it really represented how greatly this apology was needed for the survivors to move on from this.
After the apology some positive changes happened, Survivors started healing and moving on as well as many survivors and the families of those survivors forgave Canadian government for the way they were treated in the past. This connects to the French FLQ crisis because people were killed in the process of people trying to make something happen. Many aboriginal kids were killed during the residential schools being open because they were being forced into becoming Euro-Canadian individuals, where as during The October Crisis 7 people were killed in the process of the FLQ trying to make Quebec separate from Canada.
