Aboriginal Court System Case Study

We can therefore deem that the Indian Act was specifically put in place to discriminate against the Aboriginal people of Canada. Although the Canadian government has tried to change the Indian Act and has been amended several times since its’ creation in 1876 it still continues to have significant effect on Aboriginal people in

Comparing the justice system of Canadian with the United States legal systems we find some similarities as well differences in the form of the legal system. However, viewing the Canadian criminal justice system it is somewhat separate in its combined judicial legal system where all the courts share the same system to include Canada’s Supreme Court which has the final decision authority throughout Canada. On the other hand, the United States has two parallel and independent judicial systems. The federal judicial system applies to federal law where the state judicial system is independent at the state level.

This criminal code encourages sentencing judges to have recourse to a restorative approach to sentencing. Also, the enactment of s. 718.2 (e) is a definite direction by Parliament to pay particular attention to the circumstances of aboriginal offenders during the sentencing process because those circumstances are unique and different from those of non-Aboriginal offenders. Further, when sentencing Aboriginal offenders, courts must take judicial notice of such matters as the history of colonization, displacement, and residential schools. And they should look at how that history continues to translate into lower educational accomplishment, lower income, higher unemployment, higher rates of substance abuse, suicide, and, of course, higher levels of imprisonment of Aboriginal peoples. (Canadian Law, an Introduction 6th Edition: Neil Boyd 2015; page,

Aboriginal Injustice In Verna St. Denis’ article, Silencing Aboriginal Curricular Content and Perspectives Through Multiculturalism, she is able to persuasively criticize the government’s use of multiculturalism in order to elude the significance of Aboriginal history – both in public education and national politics. The contents of this paper will include: The author’s main argument and the strengths of her evidence, my own personal opinions of the article, the implications and relevance to the current education system, my own personal philosophies regarding the author’s argument, the incorporation of aboriginal studies in technology education, and finally, the movement forward in recognition and reconciliation of Aboriginal history. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Verna St. Denis’ article and to respond with my own personal philosophies in regards to

(King 64) explains the idea of residential schools and how the colonizer culture successfully broke up indigenous families and assimilated children into the settler culture. The culture clash between the Native Canadians and colonizer population was a problem to the western society and was unfortunately solved by the attempted termination of the indigenous culture. Once again, Thomas King portrays indigenous people by stereotypical means. The "wild" refers to them as being animals, savages and uneducated along with tagging them, similarly how hunters tag animals to keep track of them possibly due to them being a threat to society. All these effects of colonialism have caused

There are many theories that could provide an expatiation to overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in justice system. First is the culture clash theory that was purposed by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) (1996), this theory suggests that the overrepresentation occurs when Aboriginal people’s value does not fit to justice system, due to the fact that Aboriginal people concept of justice is different than Euro-Canadian concept. An example of culture clash theory that contributes in overrepresentation of Aboriginal people is a result of non-Aboriginal people understanding the cultural norms of an Aboriginal community. An example of differences in Aboriginal community and non-Aboriginal community is that for Aboriginal

It took the Canadian government a century to lift the prohibition on cultural practices. The Indian Act also played a significant role in the detrimental aftereffects of the Residential Schools. Due to the provision within the Indian Act, Indigenous students of a certain age must attend Residential Schools. This legal mandate facilitated the government's separation of Indigenous children from their families. Removing them against their will caused significant consequences; they were placed in unfamiliar environments, severing family bonds and disconnecting them from their identities' cultural and spiritual

These schools gave traumatic experiences to the Aboriginal youths and haunted them for the rest of their life. the government pursued the schooling to first nations to make them “economically self-sufficient” with its underlying scheme(Miller) the government secretly lied to them and planned on lessening Aboriginal dependency on the public purse (funds raised by the government) Eve Cardinal, a former student of a residential school, still has traumatic memories that even 45 years later, Eva still cries about (Boguski) “Students were punished for just about everything,” -Eve Cardinal (Boguski) getting out of bed at night, wetting the bed, speaking their native language, etc. some students were forced to hold down their peers on a table as the nun beats her (the peer being held down) with a strap “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone…

Indigenous Women are being murdered and are disappearing at a higher rate than other women in Canada. Aboriginal women are five times more likely than other women to die due to violence. High rates of murder of indigenous women have occurred since settlers arrived in Canada. The first European and Canadian Aboriginal contact dates back to the sixteenth century. Indigenous women were the centers of their community and a common tactic of European settlers was to attack women.

By doing this it eliminated all aspects of aboriginal culture. The kids could only speak in English, although many didn’t know how to. They could also not practice aboriginal customs or traditions.

Aboriginal people continue to be victimized and incarcerated at much higher rates than non-Aboriginal people. The overrepresentation of Canadian Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system is a question that has not yet been answered. This research paper will focus on the risk factors experienced by many Aboriginal people, residential school experiences, and institutional racism, and their roles in the overrepresentation of Canadian Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system. The Canadian government system has tried to deal with this issue, but looking at the high rates of overrepresentation, there approach has not been successful.

According to Anzovino and Boutilier (2014), “the legislative definition of Aboriginal peoples includes all persons of “Indian” blood who were known to belong to a specific band, living on specific land, with their descendants [and] all persons intermarried with any such “Indians” who resided among them” as well as all children and persons adopted in infancy (p. 90). These persons are immensely proud of their good character, race, beliefs, values and morals. However, they are receiving abuse and a lack of promised assistance from the government. How can Canada act so neglectful and inattentive to those that live north of the suburban area? Are we not all equal and deserve the same rights, especially basic living conditions in order to survive?

Indigenous people are incarcerated at much higher rates than non-Indigenous in Canada and are incarcerated for longer periods of time (Cook & Roesh, 2012, p.222). Canadians have put Indigenous communities through much heartache and pain. With the colonization of Indigenous people to residential schools, Canadians continue to stigmatize and treat Indigenous people poorly. Indigenous people are more likely to suffer from drug abuse using needles because of the intergenerational trauma suffered through their parents attending residential schools in Canada (Bombay, Matheson, & Anisman, 2014, p. 327). This puts them at a higher criminal risk than others because of what they have been subjected to.

The Europeans caused Aboriginals to have health problems because of all the unknown germs, food and cultures that they brought over with them and that we as Canadians are denying people of healthcare because we don’t want to drive all the way to a reserve to help a ill person and that we as Canadians would rather let a person die than try to understand what they are trying to say. In short, we as Canadians are disgusting for letting innocent people who we basically trapped on a little remote piece of land to die of illness because we wont give them the proper healthcare that they need or

By doing this, colonial Canadians assumed that aboriginal cultural and spiritual beliefs were invalid in relation to European beliefs (244). The problem with ridding the First Nations Peoples of their languages, as Williston points out is to “deprive them of the sense of place that has defined them for thousands of years” (245). The private schooling system was an attack on First Nations identities, and their identity is rooted in “a respect for nature and its processes” (245).