[Music] hi I'm [ __ ] canoe I'm Anishinabe from the Aegean incomings First Nation in Ontario welcome to AEDT fire it's been about five hundred years since your people first met my people and things look a little bit different let's face it though our relationship still needs a lot of work some people call it reconciliation some people call it the eight fire the First Nations prophecy that says that now is the time for all people to come together and build a new relationship if not things could get a little awkward after all Aboriginal peoples are Canada's fastest growing population and more than half of us now live in the cities so come meet the neighbors and I promise honest [ __ ] no guilt trips maybe even a few surprises [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're kind of invisible almost the only time when we really notices when something's going wrong death rate poverty and alcoholism I don't see myself as an Aboriginal being any of those statistics when I hear from other Canadians that we as every show people should just get over it I often think that they probably haven't heard enough the biggest opportunity right now as young people in the city nobody's gonna go nowhere everybody's here to stay now how do we work it out together it's true we're not all hidden away on reserves anymore here in Winnipeg one in ten people is either First Nation Inuit or maytee that's the largest aboriginal population per capita of any Canadian city but how do we form a new relationship if we don't know each other almost half of urban Canadians say that they have little or no contact with Aboriginal peoples and when they do it's often negative yet if you look past the streets you'll find the cities are buzzing with our culture creativity and energy what stereotypes do you have as a Canadian about indigenous people I really really ask you to examine those stereotypes that you carry you may not have ever met an indigenous person in Canada before and I meet many people who haven't but they do know where stereotypes the biggest stereotypes you meet people say well you're not native are you mr. native in Canada non-educated alcoholics and drug addicts lazy very negative very put down taxes that's a big one I'm sorry I feel a lot of taxes Wow and that's just for starters but we all know that those are just comic book caricatures I tell people I'm an average mars-like oh so you carve totem poles oh don't see you paint buffaloes now oh wait drop comic books looks like it means no comic book seems like yes it's not a ridiculous notion to think that you know Steve Sanderson who is a Plains Cree from Saskatchewan isn't drawing buffaloes but he has drawn for a popular animated series in the States and worked on computer games his early influences were big growing up is the Incredible Hulk I was just fascinated with the Hulk I mean there was just some there's a million photos of me growing up wearing my Incredible Hulk swim trunks or my incredible whole t-shirt you know like I was just fascinated by the Incredible Hulk okay you can see his superhero influences but these days he's drawn to telling stories that affect Aboriginal kids in Canada like suicide adoption diabetes and the different ways stereotypes work the most classic idea of of a positive stereotype of Aboriginal people is a noble savage you know the really cool really handsome rugged Indian and as much as it is appealing it is limited because it's an idea that keeps us stuck in a certain time we're no more or no less not and it's from 200 years ago meanwhile me I you know work on a computer and to comic books on represent digital you know I'm saying like I'm I'm not using Flint here you know in the modern metropolis of Toronto a managing partner in a law firm finds it's not that she's a woman but that she is Maliseet that surprises people I have tended to notice that when I first identify as an Aboriginal person and then someone finds out that I'm also a lawyer I tend to get a very strong reaction people are very impressed and like oh wow that's amazing and good for you and I can't help but feel like if they just thought I was a white person that it wouldn't be that big of a deal more of us are joining the middle class even though a lot of people think we're all poor and living on the street and think young half of Aboriginal people living in the cities are under 25 the fastest growing population in Canada they could be the future workforce problem is too many Canadians think they're all gang members let's check out the story of some young guys bang they seem to fit that stereotype gangstas rappers three guys Jhansi Brooklyn and Charlie Feder they call themselves Winnipeg's most in a few short years they've gained a lot of attention it's crazy when you get a kid singing our stuff it's like I think that means more than the money to me is like you know I'm actually changing the way people think and changing the way you know and hitting people's hearts it was John C and feta who first met and started making music together Brooklyn joined them a year later and recorded an album that took off now they're winning awards had a spread in Maclean's magazine they even opened their own store and are swarmed by fans we stopped that Calgary stop on an X plane and two middle-aged white men like in their fling I would say early 50s look at me and John C says are you the most it's like my kids love you cuz I need a picture right now pull us aside took a picture me and Billy were like this is crazy between these guys race isn't a factor great six I started playing guitar I started being into hip-hop charlie feta isn't even Aboriginal yeah if there's like pink he's not even why he's pink our relationship it's like we said we've never tried to ever be racist or ever you know look at that sort of aspect come with two aboriginal guys I know both their families their families treat me the same way so it's a really colorblind when it comes to things like that you see it but I don't Brooklyn who was made tea and John C whose mother is Anishinabe from sag in first nation grew up in the inner city like one out of three Aboriginal kids they didn't finish high school the north end of Winnipeg is basically the lower end of Winnipeg there's a lot of space for underachiever so to speak some in the community say it's more than just underachievement they say it's not that Aboriginal kids are dropping out of school rather that they are being pushed out because they don't feel included if our kids continue to be taunted on the playing fields and pushed out of schools and experience racism and all kinds of other things they're not going to think that they deserve better and they're not going to trust that they can go to a certain program or go to a certain place and make positive changes in their lives because of what other people are still imposing upon them this is a your normal person races antenna factors sex isn't a factor look certain even if factored and you've just be grown up in a negative environment everybody tells it you're stupid everyone tells you you're nothing everyone looks it even if they don't even say anything they just give you that look I don't think you can behave to your full potential Aboriginal kids are five times more likely than non Aboriginal kids to be in trouble with the law and let's come clean on when it pigs most they wrestle with demons of a recent past feta and Brooklyn spent time in prison was a horrible just had no emotion no nothing I was a monster it's estimated Aboriginal gangs could double in membership in the next ten years so why do a higher percentage of our kids join gangs well it's partly because of racism and the effects of colonization and Aboriginal kids are twice as likely as non Aboriginal kids to live below the poverty line I grew up where it was hard everything was never easy for me I went out and I did certain things to get myself nice clothes you know I mean I clothe myself there's a lot of influences out there and when I was young the influences out there was crime it wasn't music it wasn't this it was crime you see their mom get beat up your whole life and seen your dad sell drugs and all that you're probably gonna do the same thing if I didn't find music when I did I'd beat those two options dead or in jail for life [Applause] indigenous youth are caught between two worlds and they're suffering the results of this alienation and this ignorance and all of the kinds of violence's and abuses and pathologies and diseases and all these things that are happening to a much higher degree to our youth than you know to other people so what is it that was lost that leaves Aboriginal peoples caught between two worlds that leaves more in poverty out of school and in trouble with the law the source can be directly traced to our colonial history way back in 1876 the new Government of Canada passed the Indian Act which made Indians Ward's of the crown the Indian Act controlled our lives we were forbidden to practice our traditions or speak our language our ceremonial items were collected and burned we weren't allowed to leave the reserve without a pass and we couldn't go to university unless we gave up our Indian status Indians were forced from their land and given tiny little spaces called reserves which were controlled by government agents we were supposed to live out of the way of the settlers who took our land [Music] this country is founded on I think Daniel Francis Wright writes about it but it's founded on the negation of Aboriginal people to justify the theft that's just you know someone comes into your house and you're welcomed um and then they presume they take over your house you have to have a reason for it well it's cuz they're not really human and because we were cleared away from cities most people don't even know whose land their suburban dream home has been built on you're driving around you're walking around doing well these people have a nice life here it would be nice if they acknowledge then they're on our territory much less give it back but you know that ain't gonna happen tomorrow but at least they could acknowledge it and not just try to wipe us out psychologically and say that we're just like everybody else much of the reserved land we were stuck with was not exactly prime land he couldn't really make a living from it so some people started to move out of reserves seeking a better life in the cities but were treated like strangers on their own land so people were just like okay we have native people we have Indian people they come out of the bush they dress funny they look funny they smell funny but then it's okay because they come in and they go back in the bush but more and more in the 70s native people started to come in the city in town but settle in town so now it was starting to be a little bit more awkward for the non-native population so leaving the community for many is leaving behind struggles and problems and difficulties and crisis thinking that the city is the Eldorado of a new life but more than often you find yourself isolated you find yourself alone and you find yourself marginalized [Music] what do Elton John and Belinda Stronach have in common well they both own paintings by Cree artist Kent Monkman his work can sell for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars muckman questions the colonizers view of history and their view of where indians belong in the world why are Aboriginal people living in the cities and then I started thinking well why are people living on reserves reserves are in many places arbitrary artificial places that were established by a Canadian government I think there's a perception that Aboriginal people all come from a reserve well I don't know if any one of my family actually lived on that reserve if they did it wasn't for very long because it wasn't really a place where we wanted to call home I think a lot of Aboriginal people at some point you know want to live in the cities and I think that was certainly the case in my family it was a very deliberate choice to create opportunities for us to get a good education to have opportunities to get music lessons and go to the art galleries and basically participate in the world [Music] and boy does Kent participate he's a multimedia artist who is breaking stereotypes and tearing down boundaries with his videos and paintings of his alter ego mischeif Eagle testicle his subversive work is shaking up the relationship with the colonizers from Montreal to Paris one of the main themes that I deal with in my work is sexuality and calling I sexuality coming out as a gay man and you know realizing that in our own cultures we had an openness to diverse sexuality that somehow got stamped out by the Europeans who didn't understand it with mischeif as the subject kent's art appropriates the work of nineteenth-century artists like George Catlin who idealized Native Americans in his paintings Kent stands those romanticized ideas on their head so I created mischief so she's really you know this flamboyant an egomaniac artist who's in all of her own paintings she's kind of reversing the gaze where it's the aboriginal artist who's looking at the Europeans I'm dealing with an art history a tradition of making art in North America that really was about obliterating Aboriginal narratives there was such a strong will to disappear us to disappear us from the places where we lived the places where we were born our present is informed by our histories and we have to engage with these histories to understand why we are where we are right now that I thought about it one day and I realized the case of my father once residential school his father went to residential school his father didn't go to residential school because he was still an Indian that was like living off the land that wasn't starting to get grouped up at the time that reservations were being made my great-great-grandfather was a full-on buffalo hunting Indian you know I'm saying that's only four generations that is not a lot of time residential schools that screwed up government idea to take children away from their families in order to kill the Indian in the child that attempt to assimilate us by destroying our languages and cultures didn't work but by the time the last school closed in 1996 it did manage to devastate our families I think the state has done a lot to make sure that we implode and all the forces that were set to work residential school was one of them but there were a lot of different ways of ensuring that we didn't come out of this unscathed and they could say well look they're all drunk once you sanction theft once you sanction the alienation of an entire people once you illegal eyes and render illegitimate everything about it once you paint the face of the person with negative stereotypes and you say that that's okay once you've done that everything else becomes that you do that's destructive becomes okay and so the the social pathology as they say are going to it's going to keep getting worse because native people see a vision of Canada which they just cannot accommodate the effect is huge the tsunami of generational affects are occurring now my mother's certainly never talked about it if we tried to raise it with her she would get extremely angry as a result of her own mother's experience attending residential school Lesley Varley has dedicated her life to breaking down barriers that prevent Aboriginal peoples from accessing good healthcare that way they can heal from the trauma there's a lot of internalized oppression in Aboriginal people and that's part of the challenge of having to heal ourselves I don't think I would do this you know if we were all a really healthy Aboriginal community we were all thriving and you know I wouldn't be doing this I'd be a gardener the education of Canadians I think is by far the most important thing they really need to know and understand what we've been through and then they need to engage with us about what we need to do to make things better for ourselves the irony of this all is that it's far more expensive to keep us contained in the downtown east side of Vancouver than it is to work with us to become integrated into Canadian society the largest concentration of homeless Aboriginal people in Canada live in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Leslie's brother is one of them we're just uh leasing you know good-for-nothin downtown East Siders I kind of get thick skin after one he's just ignore it herb Dixon worked most of his life on fishing boats around the world but when the work dried up he returned to Vancouver and couldn't find a job as I said she's got the Taj Mahal but it's a roof over my head for now like his father before him he fell into a world of alcohol and drug addiction they got tied up in my addictions and I lost it you know it's my own fault I don't blame anybody for it except myself one of the things I know about my brother is that he's always making a plan to get out of there to get a job to find somewhere else to live gotta get out of here once you're there it's very difficult to pull yourself out of a Downtown Eastside [Music] people in inner cities were caught in this web are not only there because of their own feelings they are partly there because of failings of society schools have failed to give them a good educational attainment there's not enough opportunity for them to integrate into the workforce there isn't necessarily always safe housing and real estate that can support I just let him live his life I know he's had issues with addiction to crack cocaine and I don't like it but there's really nothing I can do with that but just be there for him when he reaches out to me herb Varley is also struggling in the Downtown Eastside he's trying hard to stay out of the life his father has fallen into he's taking advantage of programs at the urban Native youth association a place that gives him new skills and training to become part of a community you know it's just fantastic and you see how much if you have meaningful opportunities and culturally relevant programming and people who are just willing to listen what kind of a difference it can make in the life of a young person so herb is a walking example of you know how much people can change he's branched out into photography and this is opening night at a local art gallery where his exhibit deals with the time he was briefly homeless one of the things we came to realize in this project is many people that are homeless are struggling with addiction issues but he's no longer sleeping in doorways this is where I live now it's just a room and this is 12 by 14 a jail cell is 12 by 8 he invited his father to come tonight and he's gonna be here soon I don't think he's actually ever really attended any um too many of my shows but you know can I just start his auntie Leslie showed up and he still holds hope for his father but at the end of the night he's a no-show he wasn't really there when I was growing up I don't have any resentment towards that because yet he was living his own life he's grown to his own struggles for that entire time that residential school was in effect our families were destroyed and now we're really only relearning again how to be families without without constant fighting without constant bickering because we're just not used to it anymore because our families were broken up I think what people need to realize is that things can change so quickly I had such challenges growing up in in my life you know all kinds of things alcoholism and single-parent and living in the projects and my mother passed early but when I look at my children my daughter is a PhD student my son is an established artist so it gives me great hope for the future to see how much things can change within one generation here in Winnipeg rook 'ln is in his neighborhood bar this is familiar territory a refuge from the stresses of his music career this is where he grew up dar Maher has she not murdered a jungle out here as a kid Brooklyn already was a budding rapper and he was a star athlete on a championship baseball team at his local community center this used to be my rec center but he says things changed when they tore it down there's nothing in this area they're just pretty much forcing kids back into the street he's recognized as a celebrity and hero but also for his criminal past it continually comes back to haunt him in general look there's the bad guys right there a just watch it I'll come that's Prefontaine as far as that goes same old never gonna change never no matter how good we do Brooklyn's friend Brent is arrested on an outstanding warrant he will be released two hours later personally in the drug dealer you ask my brother he got pulled over by you and you asked him where's the drug dealer at see that guy's Redman core yeah off him - yeah he's a black guy I guess so see they're Indians or black guys that come on it's like the same old [ __ ] like you guys changed kids lies and I try to change my own and I changed kids kids lives to this neighborhood by being out here day and night making contact making sure people are safe this is the delicate dance that Aboriginal youth and police often do on the city streets yeah that's continuous man honestly I'm so sick and tired of this stereotype everyone is sick of the stereotype everyone wants things to change but how do we do that as an indigenous person I have to know where I came from and where I came from again less than 200 years ago was the land the land and the people were so interconnected what's the core thing that the land gives them the land gives them illness and completeness well let's figure out a way to give them that experience no one says you have to pack up and move out to the bush well you have to have a connection you have to interact and you have to draw spiritual and psychological sustenance from that and then you can go and continue on in the life that you've chosen for whatever reason in the urban environment [Music] that connection to the land is important for many no matter how Siddha fied he was Jordin Tootoo the first anouk ever to play in the NHL the steel needs to go back to his roots obviously the game has brought me to in many places where I've never expected to be going to cities where it's just 24-hour non-stop as you know how do people live like this when the hockey season ends he leaves the big city and connects to his home community in Rankin Inlet I always know that I have people that I can count on to understand me for you know Jordan the one the kid that grew up here not Jordan the the hockey player that is living living the high life I definitely have a connection with nature you got to respect the land you know you really become a humble person when you appreciate what's given to you out there because you know down south everything's just so fast pace for me we can be a native person that has a foot in the bush and a foot in the city but really be who we are and in a modern world in being contemporary and modern ideally I would be very close to the land in order to practice some traditions given that I'm in the city I obviously can't do that but I still have a very close relationship with my Creator and that's something that I believe I'm able to do anywhere in most cities the local native Friendship Centre has become the place to go for cultural activities at the Friendship Centre in Val d'Or a seven-hour drive north of Montreal a new program is proving hugely popular with non-native parents an Aboriginal daycare where native and non-native kids play and learn about native culture together we live in a city where there's a lot of native peoples so I find it interesting that at a young age they learn about each other's culture I find it's a good way to counter racism when we opened our doors we were hearing comments about the quality that could be not as high as non-native daycare because it's in the native environment but now we see that we have waiting lists of non-native family of invalid or that wish to have their children integrate this daycare [Music] Who am I in a sense it's the same problem that our ancestors faced when they were dispossessed and moved to the city in the first place I used to be a hunter Who am I now what good am I know they have to reinvent themselves right and some do and some don't [Music] many Aboriginal people have lived in the city for generations with little connection to the culture so many of our youth don't know their pasts or how colonization affects their lives the boys from Winnipeg's most want to understand their past so that they can move forward but how do you do that well they say wisdom lies with the elders so we arranged a meeting between Winnipeg's most and elders Stella Blackbird and Audrey Bone to see what would happen not knowing about my Aboriginal culture comes from my grandmother and my mom being in residential schooling and and the stuff that was going on there where they were forced to be ashamed of who they were yeah it's a long struggle but then you're well on your way there you're starting to think about it our grandfathers our grandmothers they were not allowed to practice their ceremonies they thought they took it all away from us but you can't take away something you can't see and that's our spiritual way of life and we have that today they couldn't take that away from us and they never will I know it's going to take long you know for people to accept this it's like that all over in a store I'm always being watched you know like I'm gonna put something in my purse today those little things they just bounce off me if we're looking at things that eroded our sense of who we are there was also something called the 60 scoop that's where throughout the 1960s and into the 80s thousands of kids were taken away from their homes and adopted out usually to white families as one report stated the road to hell was paved with good intentions and the child welfare system was the contractor [Music] I don't remember any of this I remember being this age I don't remember getting off the plane I don't remember currently anything basically I was put in almost like a catalog so that my parents can choose which child they wanted and I guess they thought this is a really cute picture so they chose me and off I went from from Manitoba over to Montreal at the age of three naku set was adopted out to a Jewish family where her name was changed misguided social workers thought it would be better if she didn't identify as Aboriginal so I know that my mother used to try to tell me to tell people that I was Israeli because I'm dark so that would sort of make a better story you know I was just a kid you know having a rough time looking the way I do and being brought up like I would go out with Jewish boys and their parents would take a look at me go uh she's hurt strangely enough she discovered her Aboriginal identity through this 1990 Academy award-winning movie it's kind of embarrassing but I saw the movie Dances with Wolves and then I became a born-again Indian I was just like wow I'm gonna wear a braid no I'm gonna wear a choker and I did against her parents wishes she began to explore her Aboriginal identity she changed her name to NACA set which means the Sun a spirit name given to her by an elder she began to feel she belongs somewhere now she runs a shelter for Aboriginal women so now what I need from the rest of you is what are they going to be saying and works to bring all people together to improve lives because we have to work together and also I have a strong feeling that if we wait for the government to address our issues that's never gonna happen and at home she's making sure her kids know who they are and where they come from I gave my children Aboriginal names so people will know right away that they are since their babies they've been to Paolo's so they're not gonna have any issues about whether they are not well no they are [Music] meet Ron Linklater he really fusses over the new additions to his family I take them out twice a day I take him to their walk they mean a lot he seems to live the typical suburban lifestyle but it wasn't always this way I remember as a young boy growing up in the 60s and 70s being on welfare ourselves and having to go in to these places in the city that gave meals out to people so he's thankful for what he has today and he acknowledges it was hard to adjust making friends trying to live in a whole different environment you know it really was a struggle for me and today I've accomplished that life and even more and I think back living in a larger urban center I'm more successful today and I know where I am part of the community today and I try and respect other community cultures other people that I meet and our neighborhood for instance get to know our neighbors all sorts of things for on the good life isn't about enjoying the benefits of the suburbs it's about being true to his culture and traditions and it's about sharing his knowledge with Canadians in his day job here it's with Future counselors at Red River College in Winnipeg it's like they didn't know about our history yet growing up you start to understand who you are as an Aboriginal man no once they started to realize that history or started to learn about the desert look learn about that history it started to change your attitudes towards towards the people and for the better so is it they were affected by residential school or there's no way to resist that kind of life some of his students are new immigrants he finds that some quickly adopt society's negative stereotypes about Aboriginal people he loves to change their attitudes before I had a negative assumption about this I already know people but because I didn't know what's going on with their life without the class I perceived them negatively but when I come to that class now I know them who are they and what they are doing it seems Ron might just have one of the solutions get to know your neighbors the more you know the better it is it's all about education that means raising the level of education for all Aboriginal people educating them in their own history so they can understand the past and begin to heal it means educating non Aboriginal people so that they get to know and understand us it means bridging the divide between cultures small steps like here in Toronto when it pegs most reaching out to mainly non Aboriginal audiences and it's about allowing Aboriginal culture to flourish rather than trying to kill it it means adapting to specific needs like this clinic and valdore that respects native cultures in the end it's all about changing and strengthening the relationship between us a dialogue is created it doesn't just happen out of the blue a dialogue is built with time it's built with people individuals that believe in in the fact that we're sharing the land the good life is where you and I can see each other on the street find each other interesting establish a connection and build a relationship from there that's the good life [Music] you