How has the struggle for equality and justice shaped our history?
First Nations, Metis, Inuit
The struggles that First Nations, Metis and Inuint people faced have shaped our history because now Canada is now more aware of how badly the treated them, and even though we have a history of mistreating them. No amount of apologising can make up for it, and we are still ding nothing about it. And they still have to live in unsanitary conditions in reserves, today.
During the War
They were only allowed to join the War when the Canadian government had no other option and not enough people were signing up for the War, Even when they joined, they could not rise in ranks and all instruction manuals were in English.
Were discriminated because they were seen as minorities
Were not allowed to join the war at the beginning
Residential Schools
Residential schools were government-sponsored religious schools established to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture.
Students were isolated, their culture disparaged
These schools left indigenous students left them disoriented and insecure, with the feeling that they belonged to neither Indigenous nor settler society.
These residential schools stripped indigenous people's culture away and left the extremely scarred and hurt for their entire lives.
The line between punishment and abuse was frequently crossed in these schools. . Students who did not adhere to school schedules and regulations received strapping (whippings) and were often humiliated in front of peers. Students who tried to escape from the schools had their hair cut very short.
This had a great mental impact on both the parents and the children, as the children would be taken away from their families, and once they would leave the schools they were barely recognisable.
These residential schools had a ripple affect on the children of the parents because they ended up feeling that they had to discipline their own children, the way that they were disciplined in residential schools.
Experience
The students in these schools were physically, emotionally, sexually abused, they were taken away from their siblings and parents and were allowed no contact. They were forced to speak and learn english and they were not allowed to practice their won cultural traditions, if they did they would have to face severe punishment.
There were too many children and not enough food and clothes, or room for everyone. Conditions in residential schools were extreme poor, and a lot of people faced and gained diseases due to unsanitary and horrible conditions.
Trauma
When the students would run away, or either age out of the system, they felt like they did not belong with their families anymore, due to the fact that they could not speak the same language or relate to them. Some of them even returned to the residential schools because that is where they felt they belonged.
Families
Because these children were disciplined by abuse, they thought that that was the only way to discipline and abuse their own children.
Ripple Effect
The indigenous culture was incompletely lost and so the ripple affect was caused, it led to families suffering from the same affect as in the residential schools, for years and years. With the children's kids.
Indian Act
The Indian Act gave total control to the government over aboriginal affairs
This instilled that the government was allowed to start residential schools, have total control over the land that te aboriginal people lived on, and total control over how much of their culture they were allowed to practice.
Immigration
Immigration has history by the struggle for equality and justice because it has allowed Canada to be the welcoming country that it is today.
Camps
Camps were set up mostly in Canada’s hinterland.In most camps, men were divided by ethnicity and by class.
During the War, enemy aliens were used as internees as low-cost labour.
Four internment camps opened in Canada’s western national parks: at Banff, Jasper, Mount Revelstoke and Yoho.
Internees did a variety of work, including constructing roads and clearing land.
Through their labour, the internees played an important part in building Canada’s western national parks.
When the First World War began in 1914, there was widespread suspicion in Canada that immigrants from enemy countries – Germany, Austria-Hungary, and later Turkey and Bulgaria– might be disloyal
Labelling them “enemy aliens,” the federal government passed regulations which allowed it to monitor and even intern some of these immigrants.
Germans
War fever created widespread hostility towards German Canadians and German-Canadian culture.
The early part of the war witnessed a substantial backlash against many elements of the German presence in Canada.
Public schools removed German language instruction from their curriculum
During the First World War, Germans became Canada's most vilified enemy aliens.
Unruly mobs were allowed to attack them and their properties in cities across the country. German schools closed, and German-language papers suppressed
Japanese
The first wave of Japanese immigrants, arrived in Canada between 1877 and 1928. They were often poor and did not speak English very well. They worked the railways, in factories or as salmon fishermen on the Fraser River. Slowly, Canada began to limit Japanese immigration.
Once the Japanese population began to exceed that of the Chinese, In 1928, Japan agreed to limit its emigration to 150 people per year.
After years of encouraging racist policies, the government allowed the Japanese to vote.
This resulted in a partial success in 1931 won the vote for Japanese veterans of the First World War
During the First World War would not accept Asians for military service.
Were not given the right to vote or to be in certain job industries
Suffered from extreme racism and discrimination
Chinese
While 1 July is celebrated as Canada Day, some Chinese Canadians refer to that date as "National Humiliation Day." This is because the Chinese were the only ethnic group ever to be excluded from emigrating to Canada.
When World War I was declared in 1914, approximately 200 Chinese volunteered for the Canadian Army.
Following the end of the first war, returning Chinese veterans continued to face racial intolerance as well as unemployment.
In 1885 the Chinese became prey to a head tax. The head tax was designed to discourage Chinese from entering Canada.
It was assumed that Chinese people were too poor to pay and therefore would not be able to come to Canada.
o immigrants from any other country ever had to pay such a tax to enter Canada
Merchants and students were exempt from the tax. N
The greatest indignity was the passage of the 1923 Immigration Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Act.
The 1923 Immigration Act
The Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, often referred to as the Chinese Exclusion Act, effectively closed off Chinese immigration to Canada .
Before 1923, Chinese immigration was already heavily controlled by the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885, which head tax on all immigrants from China . Established on July 1, 1923, the Act had banned Chinese immigrants from entering Canada except merchants, diplomats, and foreign students.
It was not until 1947 that Canada finally repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Because Canada signed the United Nations' Charter of Human Rights at the conclusion of the Second World War
Many French speaking Canadians were concerned that the new immigrants would outnumber the Francophone population.
South Asians
The first South Asian immigrants to Canada arrived in Vancouver in 1903
Seeing in them the same racial threat as it saw in Japanese Canadians and Chinese immigrants the government limited South Asian rights and privileges. In 1907 South Asians were denied the right to vote and access to political office, jury duty, the professions, public-service jobs and labour on public works.
In the next year, the federal government enacted an immigration regulation that specified that immigrants had to travel to Canada with continuous-ticketing arrangements from their country of origin.
Main topic
Changing Role of Women
The struggle for the equality and justice of women has shaped history because now women, have more rights in Canada that they deserve., and it costed an upright in feminism in Canada
Famous Five
Alberta's "Famous Five" were petitioners in the groundbreaking Persons Case. Led by judge Emily Murphy, the group included Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise Crummy McKinney and Irene Parlby.
The famous five fought for women's rights to be considered "persons" under the law
Persons Case
The persons case was a very important event in Canadian Women History, and it allowed the famous five women to fight for women to be legally considered "persons" under the law.
Women's Suffrage Movement
Women's suffrage in Canada took off during the First World War. As many men were overseas in the trenches, women entered the workforces and gained new responsibilities on the home front. As well, wealthy highly educated and Canadian-born white women began to question why poor, illiterate immigrant men could vote when they could not.
During the war, women extended their charitable work to the war effort. They knit socks, scarves, and mitts and prepared parcels for Canadians overseas, gathered materials for scrap collection drives, and helped people displaced by the war by providing clothes and setting up refugee centres.
During World War 1, large numbers of women were recruited into jobs vacated by men who had gone to fight in the war.
This led to women working in areas of work that were formerly reserved for men, for example as railway guards and ticket collectors, buses and tram conductors, postal workers, police, firefighters and as bank ‘tellers’ and clerks.
Women's Christian Temperance Movement
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was the largest non-denominational women's organization in 19th century Canada.
This group fought for women's equality rights
Flappers
Flappers were a generation of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior.
Minority Groups
The struggle for equality and justice of minority groups has shaped history because it has allowed Canada to become the multi cultural and welcoming country it is today.
Asian Canadians
Lived in Asian communities (E.g. China Town) where they brought their traditions with them.
Didn’t have the right to vote and government tried to get rid of them.
Asian Canadians faced a lot of prejudice before and coming into the war.
Asian Canadians also suffered from discrimination and was denied to join forces
Asian Canadians weren’t allowed to enlist but some were still accepted.
196 Japanese Canadians were still able to enlist
German and Ukrainian Canadians
During WW1 the German and Ukrainian Canadians experienced a lot of discrimination.
Over 1 million people of German or Ukrainian descent lived in Canada in 1914.
Canadians feared that some of them would be spies so they were labeled as enemy aliens.
Enemy Aliens
They also lost the right to vote and most of them lost their jobs as well.
The Government forced them into internment camps which were similar to prisons.
Internment camps
In 1914, immigrants from Austria-Hungary, Germany and the other Central Powers were rounded up and locked away in internment camps. (for being "enemy aliens"
They had to carry ID documents and report their movements to police.
During the war, German and Ukrainian Canadians were treated very harshly.
Even though they were treated really bad, 10 000 German and Ukrainian Canadians enlisted to fight for Canada and lied about their backgrounds to be accepted by military.
Others believe that it was to support their country.
It was believed that they wanted to sign up to fight rather than be locked up in internment camps.
Black Canadians
Discrimination
Interracial marriage was also not accepted at the time.
Since there was a lot of discrimination, Black Canadians would live in communities mostly consisting of people from their own race.
Many officers at the time, believed that black Canadians would make inefficient soldiers and they wouldn't be able to join the army unless their skin was very light.
Young Black Canadians were eager to serve country. Yet, the prejudiced attitudes of many of the people in charge of military enlistment made it very difficult for these men to join the Canadian Army.
Most Black Canadian applicants were denied but, some did manage to enlist in White Battalions
Faced discrimination from racist groups such as the KKK
May 1916, government created a non-combatant Black Battalion
The No. 2 Construction Battalion was Canada's first and only all-black military unit. Some of the men in the battalion received great honours for their valuable service.
A few of the men from the battalion went on to serve as combat soldiers. Two black Canadian soldiers fought bravely in the battle of Vimy Ridge, one of Canada's most famous military efforts.
Over 10% of Black Canadians served in the war.
They assisted in logging, milling, shipping, repairing roads, providing water, and digging trenches.
They became so efficient that they were sent to the Front Lines
The dedicated service of the "Black Battalion" and other Black Canadians who fought in the First World War is now remembered and celebrated as a cornerstone of the proud tradition of Black military service in Canada.
To honour the No.2 Construction Battalion, their HQ became municipal historical land in 1991. (Their HQ was in Market Wharf, Nova Scotia)
Native Canadians
The recruiters believed that enemies would see Natives as savages and mistreat them.
The residential schools were usually very far away from the reserves.
The rest of their family lived in Indian Reservations where they were able to follow their traditional ways.
During the time, the government also wanted to assimilate them into Mainstream Society by putting the children in to Residential Schools.
Recruiters hid their discrimination by claiming it was a concern for their welfare.
During the war, Native Canadians weren't allowed to enlist before 1915.
