Canadian Studies

This thesis focuses on the Atoskiwin Training and Employment Centre of Excellence (ATEC) in NelsonHouse, Manitoba, and its contribution to Aboriginal adult education and the economic development of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN). The study examines ATEC within the larger history of NCN's relationship with its land, hydroelectric development in northern Manitoba, and Wahbung: Our Tomorrows, the 1971 alternative blueprint to the federal White Paper. I argue that ATEC has played a key role in nurturing a resurgence of the social and economic capacity of people in Nelson House.

The research approach used in this study is ethnographic, drawing on the researcher's livedexperiences and relationships with the community and ATEC. Supporting qualitative data were collected through interviews with ATEC staff and students, allowing for an in-depth exploration of their experiences, perspectives, and the impact of ATEC on their lives and employment opportunities. The thesis examines the historical context of ATEC. It also explores the challenges and achievements of ATEC during two distinct phases: the initial phase focused on training for skilled and unskilled labourers during the construction of the Wuskwatim hydroelectric dam, and the subsequent phase after the dam's completion.

The research shows how ATEC has contributed to the economic and social capacity of NelsonHouse, analyzing its impact on community development and employment opportunities. It also points out the need for greater control, infrastructure and resources for Aboriginal adult education in rural and northern areas. The thesis concludes by discussing the findings and suggesting potential areas for improvement and growth in ATEC's programming and delivery methods.

Author Keywords: Aboriginal, Adult Education

This study examines the formal, informal, and non-formal learning experiences offeminist-identified counsellors and psychotherapists working within the Violence Against Women (VAW) and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) sector of community- based social services in Ontario, Canada. Using critical, feminist polyethnography and intersectional and feminist theories, this study discusses the participants' and researcher's experiences in the field. The participants' narratives contribute to the understanding of intersectional feminist pedagogies in counselling and psychotherapy practices and spaces. Additionally, the study offers recommendations for post- secondary programs, wise practice approaches to intersectional clinical supervision, and a framework for community of practice models of peer supervision.

Author Keywords: adult learning, feminism, feminist theory, intersectional theory, psychotherapy, social work

This dissertation, titled "Echoes of Injustice: Regulating Indigenous Masculinity through Canadian Legal and Colonial Systems, "examines how the Canadian criminal justice system—through its denial of colonial violence and its regulation of Indigenous masculinity—has contributed to the ongoing criminalization and marginalization of Indigenous men. By critically engaging with both historical and contemporary legal frameworks, including the Indian Act, restorative justice practices, and landmark cases such as R. v. Gladue and Blackwater v. Plint, this research traces how colonial narratives remain embedded in Canadian jurisprudence. These narratives often portray Indigenous men as inherently violent, deviant, and in need of regulation. The central research question guiding this work is: How has the Canadian criminal justice system, through its denial of colonial violence and its regulation of Indigenous masculinity, contributed to the continued criminalization and marginalization of Indigenous men? Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Frantz Fanon and Michel Foucault, this dissertation argues that the legal system not only fails to address the structural impacts of settler colonialism but also actively reproduces colonial violence by projecting it back onto Indigenous male bodies. In doing so, it reinforces pathologizing narratives and obstructs opportunities for meaningful healing and justice. Each chapter applies this theoretical lens to specific legal cases and state policies, demonstrating how Indigenous men are constructed as threats to colonial order and denied recognition as victims of systemic trauma. Using a counter-narrative methodology, this dissertation challenges dominant legal and academic discourses, revealing how they obscure the lived realities of Indigenous men and sustain one-dimensional portrayals that rationalize state control. The counter-narrative approach is not merely a tool for alternative interpretation; it is a necessary act of decolonial resistance—one that disrupts colonial knowledge production and reclaims interpretive authority. By centring Indigenous voices and rejecting pathologizing settler narratives, this methodology contributes to the broader project of Indigenous resurgence: the revitalization of Indigenous masculinities, sovereignties, and justice systems on Indigenous terms. Ultimately, this work calls for a fundamental reimagining of justice—one that dismantles colonial legal foundations and embraces decolonial frameworks rooted in healing, accountability, and the resurgence of Indigenous masculinities.

Author Keywords: Colonial Violence, Colonialism Criminalization, Gladue Principles, Indian Act, Indigenous Masculinity, Restorative Justice

A new regime governing cannabis production, distribution, and access came into effect across Canada in 2018. With the passing of the Cannabis Act (2018) a new legal cannabis industry began taking shape across the country, with specific manifestations at the local and provincial levels. In this study, I take up the standpoint of people who use cannabis and explore how access is organized under this new regulatory regime. Following a new-materialist informed institutional ethnographic mode of inquiry, I draw on interviews, observations, and texts to describe the work processes through which three distinct materializations of cannabis are produced: cannabis for medical purposes, retail cannabis products, and cannabis as a corporate good. My analysis then reveals how these materializations are organized according to discourses of medicalization, commercialization, and corporatization in ways that curtail the full liberatory potential of this policy change.

At its core my research is an investigation into the operations of the cannabis industry in Ontario, Canada – currently one of the largest legal cannabis markets in the world. My intent is not to provide a view of the functioning of the industry as a whole. Rather, it is to tease out key operations, including medical access programs, product selection and testing practices, and knowledge practices, and explore both their impacts on people who use cannabis and what insights they hold for reorganizing access to other controlled substances. Importantly, my research demonstrates how state actors and corporate entities remain the main beneficiaries of legalization, which I argue is the result of an over-reliance on state regulation over community organization as the schema for enacting a public health approach to drug policy. While cannabis legalization may not have realized its full liberatory potential in this country, it has offered an invitation to reconsider the criminalization of previously controlled substances and how we might regulate these substances in new ways. In the conclusion to this work I take up this invitation, building on my findings to imagine what the organization of cannabis access outside current ruling relations could look like and how we might cultivate care-full relations of drug access more broadly.

Author Keywords: Canada, Cannabis, Drugs, Institutional Ethnography, New Materialisms, Policy

For this study, I asked Tyendinaga's healthcare professionals if they had any solutions to make the healthcare system run more smoothly when working with settlers. I wanted answers to four questions: 1. what role does our culture play in implementing or delivering mental/physical/spiritual/emotional midwifery/health/social services? 2. are there any gaps in services, or more precisely, any barriers that midwifery/health/social professionals encounter in implementing or delivering our holistic health services? 3. could they identify any problems they might face in completing paperwork to justify funding for their program? 4. could they offer their opinion regarding alternative approaches where they might create space for an intercultural dialogue regarding holistic health?I trusted that this would advance answers to my major dissertation questions: What are the obstacles or gaps and possible solutions to Indigenizing healthcare implementation, services, and delivery in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory (TMT), Ontario? Is there a "space" like the Two-Row Wampum where two distinct peoples can negotiate their relationship regarding health in an equally respectful and reciprocal atmosphere?

Author Keywords: holistic health, Indigenous community engagement, Indigenous methodologies, Thanksgiving Address, Two Row Wampum

This thesis focuses on the Atoskiwin Training and Employment Centre of Excellence (ATEC) in NelsonHouse, Manitoba, and its contribution to Aboriginal adult education and the economic development of the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN). The study examines ATEC within the larger history of NCN's relationship with its land, hydroelectric development in northern Manitoba, and Wahbung: Our Tomorrows, the 1971 alternative blueprint to the federal White Paper. I argue that ATEC has played a key role in nurturing a resurgence of the social and economic capacity of people in Nelson House.

The research approach used in this study is ethnographic, drawing on the researcher's livedexperiences and relationships with the community and ATEC. Supporting qualitative data were collected through interviews with ATEC staff and students, allowing for an in-depth exploration of their experiences, perspectives, and the impact of ATEC on their lives and employment opportunities. The thesis examines the historical context of ATEC. It also explores the challenges and achievements of ATEC during two distinct phases: the initial phase focused on training for skilled and unskilled labourers during the construction of the Wuskwatim hydroelectric dam, and the subsequent phase after the dam's completion.

The research shows how ATEC has contributed to the economic and social capacity of NelsonHouse, analyzing its impact on community development and employment opportunities. It also points out the need for greater control, infrastructure and resources for Aboriginal adult education in rural and northern areas. The thesis concludes by discussing the findings and suggesting potential areas for improvement and growth in ATEC's programming and delivery methods.

Author Keywords: Aboriginal, Adult Education

Memorable Movie Watching: Viewer Ruminations about Memory in Four Canadian Films and their IMDb User Reviews explores how four Canadian films released in the decade around the turn of the millennium tell stories of memory and remembering, and how User Reviewers writing on the IMDb.com engage with, respond to, and re–remember those narratives filtered through their own remembered personal experiences. It embraces a new form of audience research by analyzing films alongside voluntary viewer contributions in order to bring these viewers' voices into the conversation about memory in film and specifically Canadian film.Lilies (John Greyson, 1996), The Hanging Garden (Thom Fitzgerald, 1997), Marion Bridge (Wiebke Von Carolsfeld, 2002), and My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007) are each fiction films that focus on the main character's deeply personal childhood memories. A textual analysis of the four films reveals trends in how the filmmakers create memory explorations and memory works [works based on memory] in Canadian film. A further textual and thematic analysis of the IMDb's 117 User Reviews for these four films reveals how viewers engage with what I term memory narratives and the personal memories these films spark. The four films respectively privilege, through narrative and filmic techniques, each protagonist's telling of remembered childhood events. Yet when User Reviewers of the films comment on the protagonist's remembered childhood events, they choose to contest them, citing the unreliability of the remembered and of memory itself. User Reviewers interrogate the film narratives against their own personal experience, all the while asserting that there is significance to be found in the process of remembering. For User Reviewers, this process of remembering involves engaging with the film and then writing about their memories of watching the film and its narrative through their own sparked memories. In this process, they dig for significant meaning even though Users rarely articulate that meaning or specify for whom it is meaningful. In their writing, Users do reveal their own thoughts and beliefs about Canadian film, as well as their knowledge of filmmakers, related texts, Canadian locations, and their own childhood and youth experiences. Key words Memory, Remembering, Canadian Film, User generated content, Audience, Viewer, Thom Fitzgerald, John Greyson, Guy Maddin, Wiebke von Carolsfeld Content Warning Please note: the memory stories depicted in these films, discussed in the User Reviews and in this dissertation are extremely disturbing and may be upsetting to the reader.

Author Keywords: Audience, Canadian Film, Memory, Social Media, User Generated Content, Viewer

Aligning health services with aging populations is the fundamental issue of modern Canadian health policy, yet rural older populations still experience compromised patient safety and poor-quality care as they transfer between care settings. As such, contemporary scholars acknowledge that more contextually sensitive studies are needed to better understand the unique health and care experiences of this vulnerable population across the care continuum. Informed by inquiry in critical gerontology, health services and human geography, my dissertation attends to this gap in research by revealing the interplay between older adult health construction and the influence of multidimensional contexts on rural older adult transitions in care. Using a community-based approach, I conduct a case study on Haliburton County that encompasses three phases (e.g., a rural community inventory, go-alongs and semi-structured interviews) and focuses on two types of transitions in care (when an older adult is transferred from a hospital to a long-term care home and when an older adult is transferred from a hospital to a home in the community). In total, 19 patients, 24 informal supports, 51 front-line staff and five administrators/managers participated in my dissertation, resulting in 99 total participants being included in 19 go-alongs and 85 semi-structured interviews. My results indicate that multi-leveled facets of the rural care context continually attend to and hinder rural older adult health during transitions in care. In particular, sectored divisions, urban centrism, biomedicine and ageism inhibit rural care providers from leveraging their strengths to attend to the heterogeneity of rural older adult health and the nuances of rural care contexts. I then argue the need for macro health systems reform to embrace the relationality of rural older adult transitions in care and to capitalize on the strengths inherent in rural communities. To foster knowledge mobilization of my findings, I provide a foundation of information and recommendations for the community partners (Haliburton Highlands Health Services and Seniors Care Network) as well as questions to inform research, policy and practice. Establishing the first study of rural older adult transitions in care where a researcher accompanies older adults and their informal supports across care settings, my dissertation will help prepare Canada for the impact of the aging population and transform transitional care provision to meet the needs of all Canadians in the 21st century.

Author Keywords: Canada, Geriatric Care, Health Care, Older Adult Health, Rural Health Care, Transitions in care

In this dissertation, I examine union organizing in the Canadian banking industry between 1940 and 1980. By demonstrating that bank workers consistently sought to unionize throughout the twentieth century, I challenge claims that bank employees and other private sector white-collar workers have low rates of unionization because they are not interested in unions or suffer from false consciousness. This research also suggests, however, that many bank workers saw themselves as different from blue-collar industrial workers; the lived reality of bank work as precarious, poorly paid, and rife with gender inequality intersected with ideas about professionalism and aspirations of advancing up the career ladder. Banks, unions, and workers drew on these ideas and experiences in their arguments for and against unionization.

I also look at why previous organizing efforts did not establish a strong union presence in the banking industry. Most of these attempts failed, I argue, due to several key issues, including the banks' anti-union activity, federal and provincial labour board decisions, and labour movement disputes over ideology, jurisdiction, and strategy. The banks consistently opposed unionization and used a variety of tactics to thwart union organizing, both overtly and covertly. The state, in the form of labour legislation and labour boards, provided unions and workers with some means by which to compel the banks to recognize unions, negotiate contracts, and deal with employee grievances; however, state action and inaction more often worked to undermine union organizing. The attitudes and strategies of high-ranking labour movement officials also shaped the outcome of union drives in the banks. Between 1940 and 1980, the mostly male labour leadership repeatedly used top-down organizing strategies and appointed male organizers with no experience of bank work to oversee union drives in a sector with an increasingly feminized workforce; labour leaders' inability or unwillingness to reflect on this approach and to support grassroots campaigns and alternative strategies hindered bank union organizing. I thus highlight the intersection of gender and class and reveal how these factors have historically shaped the labour movement bureaucracy, union organizing, and the relationship between labour and the state.

Author Keywords: banks, gender, labour bureaucracy, trade unions, union organizing, white-collar workers

This dissertation examines the historical relationship between settler colonialism, capitalism, and the rise of state schooling in what is now known as British Columbia between 1849 and 1900. It aims to "unsettle" conventional views of Canadian schooling history by bringing accounts of Indigenous and non-Indigenous education into one analytical frame, and it shows how the state used different forms of schooling for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children—company, common, public, mission, day, boarding, and industrial schools—to assist colonial-capitalist social formation in the Pacific Northwest. In combining interdisciplinary insights from Indigenous studies, historical materialism, political economy, and critical pedagogy, the dissertation highlights the ways in which state-supported schooling facilitated capitalist accumulation by colonial dispossession. The central argument of the dissertation is that between 1849 and 1900, colonial, provincial, and federal governments strategically took on greater responsibility for schooling as a way of legitimizing the state and supporting the emergence of a capitalist settler society.

Author Keywords: Capitalism, Education, Indian Residential Schools, Indigenous Peoples, Settler Colonialism, Violence