Once caught up in mass hysteria, we don’t even realize we are not seeing things clearly Mass hysteria is the spontaneous manifestation of a particular behaviour by many people. There are numerous historical examples: Middle Age nuns at a convent in France spontaneously began to meow like cats; at another convent, nuns began biting one…
An eye-opening description of Aboriginal culture as it was in the 1880s John McLean was a Christian missionary who lived for nine years with the Blood (Kainai) Indians in present-day Southern Alberta, learning their language, customs and traditions. In 1889, at the request of the Smithsonian Institution, he wrote The Indians of Canada, a balanced…
But until all wounds caused by genocide are healed, we cannot be satisfied On October 27, a motion was unanimously passed in the Canadian Parliament recognizing what happened in Canada’s Indian Residential Schools as genocide according to Article II of the United Nations Genocide Convention. It should be noted that this is a culmination of…
New program allows students to create their own skateboard brand and business for high school credit
University of Alberta grad Kristian Basaraba, ’01 BEd, has been skateboarding for over 30 years. But the high school teacher never thought he’d be leaning so heavily on the sport in the classroom. In 2019, he started the Sk8trepreneur program at Salisbury Composite High School in Sherwood Park, Alta., challenging students to create their own…
Doing a little isn’t good enough, especially when we ignore abuses
Prince George, B.C., officials recently decided to change the name of O’Grady Road, named after a former Catholic bishop of Prince George, to Dakelh Ti, meaning First Nation Road in the language of the Lheidli T’enneh. I knew Bishop Fergus O’Grady fairly well and I don’t think anything would have made him happier. The decisions…
Being stuck in the past won’t improve Indigenous lives. We need to focus on what’s next
The overwhelming majority of Canadians regret the history of European contact with Indigenous peoples, and the injustices and hardships that followed over the hundreds of years since. At the same time, they celebrate Canada’s accomplishments, which have created a Canada that is the envy of the world. New Canadians are more than glad to be…
Assisting landmark Indigenous cases, Anita Cardinal-Stewart graduates with even stronger passion
The caption on her junior-high yearbook photo reads, “Dreams of being a lawyer or an actress.” That was when Anita Cardinal-Stewart was full of hope, and anything seemed possible. But that hope evaporated through her teen years growing up in the Woodland Cree First Nation in northern Alberta. “I started to see how hard it…
Catholic church doctrine was used to justify colonization, subjugation and exploitation worldwide
The papal apology to the Indigenous peoples of Canada on April 1 was an extraordinary moment for the individuals whom Pope Francis addressed directly. And it has the potential for much broader implications. In the days leading up to the apology, Francis listened intently and embraced the pain of the residential school survivors who spoke…
Indigenous students engage in the spirit of kinship, learn ancestral languages and enrich lives
Danni Okemaw remembers playing outside with her cousins when her mom asked her to stop and watch the television. It was 2008 and Stephen Harper, then prime minister of Canada, was publicly apologizing on behalf of the Canadian government for its role in Indian residential schools – the first step for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of…
Has ordered a purge of documents that “may offend people”
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov was not a nice man but, for a time, he was an important one. He was a favourite of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and was head of the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s secret police. He was responsible for the arrests, tortures and executions during his master’s Great Purge of 1936 to 1938.…