Native rights
...pay out to the native peoples and many of them consider it an insult. The government tried to get land out of them for less than what it is really worth. Native peoples are as much a part of Canada as we are here in Nova Scotia and in other provinces in this country. Treaties were made with the native peoples in the past under Canadian law, and at that time, they were a part of Canadian law and therefore should be recognized today. The Roman Catholic Church ran more than 70 percent of the 130 Indian Residential Schools in Canada. Around 130 residential schools herded aboriginal children like cattle to teach them how to become productive members of "white society." The former Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Matthew Coon Come, calls this system genocide. In 1920, Canada amended the Indian Act, making it mandatory for aboriginal parents to send their children to Indian residential school. The Department of Indian Affairs' policy states that aboriginal children must not be educated "above the possibilities of their station", were upheld. As such, the schools' curriculum included moral training (through physical labour), academic training (although many teachers were insufficiently educated) and industrial training (for farming and menial jobs). Psychological and emotional abuses were constant: shaming by public beatings of naked children, vilification of native culture, constant racism, public strip and genital searches, withholding presents and letters from family, locking children in closets and cages, segregation of sexes, separation of bothers and sisters, proscription of native languages and spirituality. In addition, the schools were places of profound physical and sexual violence: sexual assaults, forced abortions of staff-impregnated girls, needles inserted into tongues for speaking a native language, burning, scalding, beating until unconscious and/or inflicting permanent injury. They also endured electrical shock, force-feeding of their own vomit when sick, exposure to freezing outside temperatures, withholding of medical attention, shaved heads (a cultural and social violation), starvation (as punishment), forced labour in unsafe work situations, intentional contamination with diseased blankets, insufficient food for basic nutrition and/or spoilt food. Estimates suggest that as many as 60% of the students died (due to illness, beatings, attempts to escape, or suicide) while in the schools. Accord...