What more should the federal government do to reconcile how badly aboriginal youth were treated and aboriginal culture was stifled?
Joe:
“I don’t know how you can reconcile that. It’s kind of like what we should have done about Nazism or something, it’s over and done with. We can’t be harping on about it the rest of our lives, we have to treat them well now.”
Kenner Henderson:
“The original issue of the mishandling of the forced schooling needs a study. There are a couple of issues, one is the poverty and extreme errors of the financial running of the reservations and the other is the high crime rate associated with the aboriginal females—the abuse and the unsolved murders. They seem to disappear without proper follow-up.”
Mark Stevens
“Education has been a difficult problem, one of the reasons is that tribalism is weakened by the education system because as kids get educated, they leave and it breaks down the tribal community…There are a lot of highly educated First Nations out there doing a lot of really great stuff, and as their voice is heard then things will start to move. The federal government needs to listen, something they have not done.
Ali Butler
“They should support prevention work and bring back youth funding to friendship centres to help urban aboriginal youth. They need to make sure our natural resources and water are protected for all Canadians to enjoy.”
Finbar O’Sullivan
“They should reconcile. They need to step up to the plate and fix what needs to be fixed and build better relationships with First Nations across Canada.”
Jordan Coble
“They need recognition and awareness of aboriginal issues and where they stand today but also based on the history of colonization which has left inter-generational effects. They should focus on specific issues in specific communities because not every community has the same problems.”