Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies

This thesis provides a comprehensive overview of the extractive industry operating out of the Alberta tar sands region to determine how environmental violence is enacted against Indigenous women, girls, and queer or Two-Spirit peoples in the Lubicon Lake Cree Nation and beyond. Through an analysis of existing literature in the field, a case study on the Lubicon Lake Nation and a policy analysis of the Calls for Justice from the Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, this thesis draws links between industrialization, capitalism, the heteropatriarchy, and colonialism. Finally, this thesis offers a pathway to resurgence, through the subversion of colonial gender and sexual norms, and collective action to reclaim Indigenous territory as an alternative to state-sponsored solutions and policies.

Author Keywords: Colonial heteropatriarchy, Environmental violence, Land Back, Lubicon Lake, Tar sands, Violence against Indigenous women

This thesis is about the ways in which Indigenous dance serves as a social determinant of Indigenous health and well-being. Utilizing both contemporary and traditional versions of the Medicine Wheel for the framework, analysis and organization of the thesis allows for a holistic perspective which includes the spiritual, physical, emotional and mental aspects. The importance of Indigenous dance for Indigenous health and well-being is confirmed through: existing literature; interviews with Indigenous choreographers, dancers, theatre artists, and performers; Indigenous exponents of the forms; and Indigenous Elders. In order to contextualize current practices of Indigenous dance, the history of Indigenous dance in relation to colonization is presented. The research and experiences of co-researchers show the need for Indigenous dance and culture to be supported as a social determinant of health and well-being.

This thesis examines how political and social issues have molded and alteredCanada's penal system since the nineteenth-century. From early Anglo-Canadian society to Joseph Archambault's 1938 Report of the Royal Commission to Investigate the Penal System of Canada, the Canadian penal system waxed and waned against social and political tides. As rehabilitative justice took hold throughout the developed world in the early twentieth century, Canada attempted to shift its justice ideologies only to find that punitive justice had created strong footings. This made reform challenging to implement.

Author Keywords: Archambault Report, Canadian penal system, Canadian prisons, prison press, prison systems, prison writing

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

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

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

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

Canadian authored diverse LGBTQ2S children's picture books can help counter socialized aspects of heteronormativity and other forms of oppression. This thesis outlines the challenging process for identifying and locating Canadian authored diverse LGBTQ2S children's picture books, with suggestions provided for mitigating this process. Twenty-two books (list and summaries included) are collected and then analysed through three different lenses: Sipe's Semiotically Framed Theory of Text-pictured Relationships; intersectionality; and Canadian Studies. Findings include: the significance of a micro press in offering representation for queer intersectionality, the shift from the portrayal of discrimination against queer parents to an attention to the policing of children's gender identity and expression, and the embrace of the child on their own terms. In addition, a Canadian queer children's book has been created by the researcher, developed through the process of writing of this thesis.

Author Keywords: Canadian authors, Canadian identity, children's picture books, countering heteronormativity, ethnic diversity, LGBTQ2S

This research is a critical analysis of coordinated access as an approach to addressing homelessness focusing on Peterborough, Ontario as a case study. This study is situated in scholarship that explores the presence of strategies of New Public Management in social service and healthcare delivery. Balancing the methods of Smith's (2005) Institutional Ethnography and Bacchi's (2009) What is the Problem Represented to Be approach I investigate the way that Federal, Provincial and Municipal homelessness policies organize themselves as instruments of power and I connect this analysis to the accounts of staff working within the homelessness response system. I discover the frame of vulnerability through which homelessness is addressed to be an individualizing mechanism that facilitates the downloading of responsibility for social welfare to local governments without adequate resources. I argue that the consequence of an under resourced system is that only the most extreme forms of suffering can be addressed, and the tools used to decipher who is most vulnerable do not account for structural inequalities.

Author Keywords: Coordinated Access, Homelessness, Homelessness Policy, Institutional Ethnography, Neoliberalization, New Public Management

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