Graduate Theses & Dissertations

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Barriers and Facilitators to Indigenous Knowledge Incorporation in Policy Making
The inclusion and application of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) has become a central and often demanded element of policy making involving Indigenous peoples. However, there are very few examples that exist in the literature and elsewhere that show how IK can be effectively integrated into decisions, policies, and programs. In response to these challenges, this research explored what processes are used to incorporate IK into policy and their effectiveness through the development of a framework that sought to identify critical factors related to IK inclusion. The framework was then applied to evaluate IK incorporation opportunities in the Nunatsiavut case, focusing on the development of the Nunatsiavut Government's Environmental Protection Act. The case study analysis was used to test and provide adaptations to the initial framework. This research identifies the importance of governance structures and processes, community participation and engagement approaches, and IK research and support programming in enhancing opportunities for IK to be integrated and reflected in policy outcomes. The Nunatsiavut case largely supported, but in some cases challenged critical factors of IK incorporation identified in the framework. The findings of this study are valuable for policy and decision makers (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) regarding approaches and programs that can assist and support IK inclusion into policy processes and decisions. Author Keywords: environmental assessment, Indigenous Knowledge, Inuit Knowledge, Nunatsiavut, policy, self-government
Local Immigration Partnerships
Introduced as part of the Canada-Ontario Immigration Agreement, Local Immigration Partnerships (LIPs) mark a fundamental shift in local settlement policy. To address the gap in knowledge about the implications of this policy change, this thesis research features a case study of Durham Region's LIP. Objectives were designed to examine the impact of Durham's LIP by interviewing 52 key-informants within six sectors involved in settlement and integration. Findings indicate an effective application of the LIP policy with participants pointing to the LIP's vital role in bringing Welcome Centres to Durham, increasing the attention and profile of immigration issues and improving governance relations amongst different sectors in settlement and integration. A product of local circumstances, the LIP has engaged in a quasi-advocacy role educating mainstream service providers and institutions on how to respond to a diversifying population. Results contribute to the relatively under-studied but growing knowledge of the LIP policy while demonstrating that the localization of immigration policy under the appropriate terms can be successful. Author Keywords: Governance, Integration, Local Immigration Partnerships, Ontario, Regionalization, Settlement
Exploring Indigenous Contributions to (Indigenization of) the City of Saskatoon's 2012-2022 Strategic Plan
The self-determining autonomy of urban Aboriginal communities in Canada's Prairie Provinces can be strengthened at the local scale through decolonized municipal governance frameworks. The City of Saskatoon's Strategic Plan 2012-2022 is highlighted to explore two interrelated questions: do Saskatoon's Aboriginal engagement strategies represent a co-produced or indigenized mainstream planning and policy-making process? Does the potential indigenization of municipal planning and policy-making represent a promising pathway to facilitate local decolonization through collaborative municipal-Aboriginal governance in Saskatoon? Results from qualitative interviews reveal that the City of Saskatoon's distinctive Aboriginal engagement strategies were not entirely meaningful for participants, though the planning process included elements that, if expanded upon, could deepen co-production. Indigenization through co-production necessitates a thorough integration of Aboriginal community input at every stage of a planning and policy-making process, shared control and decision-making mechanisms between municipal governments and Aboriginal communities, and ancillary considerations for increased Aboriginal representation and participation in the administrative and political functions of City Hall. Author Keywords: aboriginal governance, decolonization, indigenization, policy co-production, self-determination, strategic municipal planning
Unexpected Journeys
The last two decades have seen thousands of Canadian university graduates go to teach English in places such as China, South Korea, and Japan. In this thesis, drawing on Clandinin and Connelly's concept of narrative inquiry, I situate the stories I heard about the experiences of 15 teachers who taught English as a Second Language in South Korea between 2003 and 2012. While my interviewees expressed intrinsically personal reasons for taking on such temporary professional employment, they also acknowledged that they felt somewhat forced to do so by an increasingly bleak job market at home. I position their decisions in the neoliberal employment context in Canada over the past two decades, highlighting the personal and socioeconomic factors that influenced them to take up such opportunities. Additionally, I examine how these experiences shifted their views of Canada and what it meant to be Canadian, both while they were away and upon their return home by revealing the contradictions between expectation and the lived realities of young Canadians. These contradictions unmask the deceptive nature of dominant narratives in Canadian society. Author Keywords: Canadian Identity, Canadian Job Market, Narrative, Neoliberalism, Teaching Abroad
Sustainable Development
While there is an emerging body of literature on the role and effectiveness of community-based research (CBR) in addressing the needs of local communities, few studies have explored its promise in areas lacking established collaborative models. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential of CBR to meet the sustainable community development needs of the primarily urban Durham Region in Southern Ontario. Semi-structured interviews with twenty sustainability-focused community members from the academic, municipal, private and non-profit sectors were conducted using Glaser and Strauss' grounded theory to develop a working hypothesis that was analyzed with the aid of the qualitative data software program ATLAS.ti. The results reveal that while the region's academic and community groups have little time to initiate formal community-campus collaborations, the additional manpower and expertise that a well-structured CBR model provides could significantly assist local organizations complete unfinished projects and undertake new initiatives. Author Keywords: Community-based research, Community-campus collaboration, Cooperative education, Durham Region, Experiential education, Sustainable development
Ontario's Aboriginal Education Strategy
Since 2007, Aboriginal education initiatives in Ontario have been supported by the Aboriginal Education Strategy (Strategy) under provincial Liberal governments. Using a comparative analysis, this thesis seeks to identify how the Strategy supports and/or does not support components of critical pedagogy to promote transformational learning for all students in Ontario's publicly funded schools. A brief historical timeline of Aboriginal education in Canada and the current situation of educational attainment for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples provides context for the thesis. Through an examination of policy documents and resources related to the Strategy, I identify both strengths and areas for improvement in the Strategy to meet expectations of critical pedagogy. Finally, I suggest recommendations to improve the Strategy in order to achieve its potential for the benefit of all students in Ontario's public schools. Author Keywords: Aboriginal students, Critical pedagogy, Education, Ontario, Policy
Tłı̨chǫ, Co-management and the Bathurst Caribou Herd, 2009-2011
Since time immemorial caribou have been and remain central to Tłı̨chǫ life and culture. As early as the late 19th century, Canada began to implement wildlife management policies in the NWT in response to concern over the health and future of caribou populations. However, the 2005 Tłı̨chǫ Land Claims and Self-Government Agreement (Tłı̨chǫ Agreement) signed by the Tłı̨chǫ, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Canadian Government outlines that Tłı̨chǫ will have a say in wildlife management on Tłı̨chǫ Lands. Co-management is the power-sharing model used in an effort to ensure that the Tłı̨chǫ voice is heard in these decisions. My thesis centres on the 2009-2011 co-management process and the resulting final management decisions regarding monitoring and management actions to promote the stabilization and recovery of the Bathurst Caribou herd. I focus my analysis on the Tłı̨chǫ perspective as expressed during this co-management process. I conclude that while Tłı̨chǫ perspectives were presented in the hearings and related processes, they were not well represented in the final management actions. This omission speaks to the wider issue of how aboriginal people are treated and understood in Canada. Author Keywords: Canada, Caribou, Co-management, Northwest Territories, Tłı̨chǫ
Rights, Resources, and Resistance
The development of pan-Indigenous political organizations in northeastern Alberta in the context of oil and gas development during the 1970s created disparate effects on Indigenous communities in the region. Resistance to assimilation policies led the Indian Association of Alberta to transform itself into a unified voice that represented Aboriginal and treaty rights in the late 1960s; however, the organization lost legitimacy following the divergence of goals between influential Indigenous leaders, Harold Cardinal and Joseph Dion. Tripartite agreements began to unfold between the federal and provincial governments, the oil and gas industry, and individual local leadership; environmental degradation spread throughout the landscape. Some communities benefitted financially whereas other communities, like Lubicon Lake Nation, received little compensation and felt the full force of industrial contamination of their traditional territories. Without the support of pan-Indigenous political organizations, Lubicon Lake developed an individual response that was successful in gaining international attention to their conditions. Author Keywords: 1970s, Indigenous politics, Lubicon Lake Nation, northern Alberta, political economy, tar sands
Reconceptualizing Immigration in Canada
This thesis challenges the contemporary framework of immigration in Canada. Despite Canada’s effort to promote cultural diversity and multicultural citizenship, immigration policy in the last decade has moved towards a model of cultural assimilation. The recent Bill—Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act—devalues non-European cultures and hinders the successful integration for new immigrants. The problem of contemporary immigration in Canada lies in the narrow and exclusive understanding of immigration. That is, the current immigration framework is rooted in Eurocentrism, which draws exclusively from the economic and cultural values of the West. The Eurocentric understanding of migration not only hinders the successful integration for new immigrants, but it also hinders economic growth and weakens the social cohesion of Canada. For this reason, this thesis offers an alternative framework for understanding immigration. I focus on Chinese migration in Canada and take an interdisciplinary and a conceptual approach in order to present an inclusive understanding of Chinese migration. In particular, I apply the idea of "connected histories" to the context of immigration, and I demonstrate that immigration is a complex and interconnected phenomenon which cannot be reduced to the narratives of economics and ‘Canadian values.’ Instead, immigration should be understood as a process of transnational interactions because it not only allows us to understand benefits that transnational interactions would bring to immigrants, their country of origin and Canada, but it also recognizes different values and the agency of immigrants. Author Keywords: Bill C-24, Chinese Canadians, Eurocentrism, Immigration, Multicultrualism, Transnational
Dissent Denied
In June 2010, the Group of Twenty (G20) met in Toronto, Ontario. The summit drew large-scale protests that culminated in mass arrests and extensive civil rights violations. Given these outcomes, this thesis examines the security spectacle of the summit to assess the evolving state of public order policing and social movement protest in Canadian law and politics. Connecting the securitization of the summit to the politics of neoliberalism, I argue these overlapping forces helped foment the criminalization of political dissent during the 2010 Toronto G20. Author Keywords: mega-events, neoliberalism, public order policing, securitization, security, social movements
Imagining a National Research Centre
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) convened in 2008 and focused on the impact of the residential school on Indigenous people in Canada. It was intended to initiate healing in Indigenous communities while contributing to new understandings between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. In 2015, the TRC's mandate must be completed, and its final task is creating a National Research Centre (NRC) at the University of Manitoba that will hold all of the documentation generated and collected throughout the TRC's tenure. In this thesis I examine many of the challenges the NRC faces, such as lack of funding, institutional oversight, and the enormity of balancing the needs of Indigenous survivors and their communities against building an accessible archive. At a broader level, questions remain about how successful the TRC has been in achieving reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians, and how the NRC can work to fulfill this goal. Author Keywords: archives, Canada, Indigenous, museums, residential schools, truth and reconciliation
Workplace Bullying in Ontario Healthcare Settings
This thesis builds on scholarship that highlights how expected gender roles serve to both normalize and obscure forms of violence and hostility in health care workplaces. An analysis of 25 labour arbitrations involving cases of bullying reveals how gender relations is a factor in these grievances and relevant policies in Ontario health care facilities. Reinforced by underlying expectations around women as nurturing and men as aggressive, responses to bullying are found to reflect and reproduce embedded gendered power inequalities in labour. While bullying in the workplace is often treated in policy discussions as an individual and identity-neutral phenomenon, this research provides evidence to the contrary. As a consequence, we must interrogate existing legislation and policies, asking how we can develop approaches that account for, respond to, and mitigate the causes of bullying rooted in unequal power relations, including gendered ones. Author Keywords: gender, health care, labour arbitration, policy, workplace bullying, workplace harassment

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Format: 2024/03/28