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The “good Canadian” myth vs. Indigenous realities 

A 2025 CBC Documentary

Header image: Screenshot from the doc

[CBC Docs] (Sep 30, 2025) The “good Canadian” myth vs. Indigenous realities

Directors:

(Sept 30, 2025) An Indigenous child is being hurt and you can help. Will you?
https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/an-indigenous-child-is-being-hurt-and-you-can-help-will-you-1.7644683

  • ISC has repeatedly flouted orders to comply with Jordan’s Principle, which legally obliges Canada to provide First Nations children with the health, education and social support they need without delays. Since 2016, the CHRT has issued the government close to 30 orders, many of them for non-compliance.   

(Sept 30, 2025) Canada: the true north, strong and free — unless you’re Indigenous
https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/canada-the-true-north-strong-and-free-unless-you-re-indigenous-1.7642274

  • Census data shows that 23.7 per cent of Indigenous children were living in poverty in 2021, compared to 10.8 per cent of non-Indigenous children. 
  • The projected life expectancy for Indigenous people born in Canada in 2021 is 77 years, compared to 85 years for non-Indigenous people.
  • Only eight per cent of children in Canada are Indigenous, but they make up 54 per cent of those in foster care, according to the 2021 census.
  • Indigenous people are overrepresented in the federal correctional system. Only about five per cent of Canada’s adult population is Indigenous, but they account for 32 per cent of those in custody. 
  • According to the most recent figures, 63 per cent per cent of First Nations youth had completed high school — 53 per cent for those on reserve. Meanwhile, the high school graduation rate for the non-Indigenous population is 91 per cent.
∞
  • An apprehension
  • Cindy Blackstock
    • Burns Lake
    • Multi-generational PTSD
      • Higher needs; fewer services
  • Corina Bye; Surrey
  • Dr. Peter Bryce
    • He appealed his forced retirement from the Civil Service in 1921 and was denied, subsequently publishing his suppressed report condemning the treatment of the Indigenous at the hands of the Department of Indian Affairs that had been given the responsibility under the British North America Act.
  • Land ownership
    • Gov 88.6%
    • Private 11%
    • Government owned for “use and benefit of First Nations: 0.37%
  • 06:35 “we’re good people”
  • 07:40 The Indian Act; One of the only countries in the world that has race-based legislation
    • Nature reserves
    • Indian reserves
      • Industrial Schools [Crystal; Industrial Education]
  • 09:40 Oka
    • July 11 – September 26, 1990 (2 months, 2 weeks and 1 day)
    • Mohawks; 9-hole golf course on ancestral land, which included an indigenous burial ground
  • 15:00 Accounting
    • Mostly invisible
    • Funding to the religious to “educate”
      • Erase languages; cultural practices; break family ties; make it difficult to have sustainable economic activity
        • GENOCIDE
    • Metaphor: Belly of the beast
    • “Reconciliation” – follow the money
  • 21:00 Blackstock 400 bureaucrats to follow social media
    • Applied or gov records about her
    • Breached privacy rights
  • 25:30 Evan Adams
    • 28:26 “We inherited this scenario, but we have to solve it”
  • 29:00 Morocco / Ontario
  • 33:13 Death of Joyce Echaquan
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joyce_Echaquan
    • Coroner Géhane Kamel stated that Echaquan’s death was further proof of the systemic Indigenous-directed racism in Quebecois institutions.
    • 36:27 “there is no system” [hidden curriculum]
  • 37:00 Forster care
    • 5% of pop; 54% of those in care
    • More in care now than during Residential School / 60s scoop
  • 39:31 The over-documentation of Indigenous life
  • 42:20 The first phone call: “I think this child is at risk”
    • Though well-intentioned: Error on the side of caution
    • “Per diems”: $1200 /month
    • Outcomes are not good

(Nov 2, 2017)  Indigenous child welfare rates creating ‘humanitarian crisis’ in Canada, says federal minister https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/crisis-philpott-child-welfare-1.4385136

45:45 Incarceration

  • Ernie Louttit – Former cop; mensch
  • Neil Stonechild
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Stonechild
  • The Starlight Tours
    • It was only after Darryl Night [a survivor; 2000] came forward that the deaths of Neil Stonechild, Rodney Naistus, and Lawrence Wegner were deemed suspicious.
  • Stonechild reports destroyed
    • Buddy had a copy
    • Ernie had four kids; 16 years into the job; thought he was hooped

53:03 Brady Knight – Lawyer

  • 55:10 Pipeline
  • Procedural fairness totally fucked

56:45

  • Grad rates
  • Colonial scripts
  • Erasure
    • Savages
    • Books (Kaden had those old books?)
      • Punch magazine
  • 1:00:50 Lost 400 students

01:02:15 Extraction

  • Lu Gu@ng hxxps://www.theglobeandmail.c0m/opinion/article-capturing-the-truth/
  • A new world; Vast, rugged, and empty
  • 01:06:49 “Sales through relationship-building”

01:09:12

01:10:50

  • End Goal?
    • Genocide?
  • Who benefits?
  • “We don’t live in a benevolent state”

An apprehension

  • “I don’t like this; this feels like my childhood”
  • 01:21:40 RPT PRFMTV “I can’t”
  • Blackstock: “We’ve gone to sleep again and so have the governments engagement with TRC calls to Action”

01:25:46 “good Canadian”

Monkman (2018) “The Scoop”: https://www.kentmonkman.com/painting-2001-2019/2018/8/7/the-scoop