Newhouse, David, Kevin Fitzmaurice, and Yale D. Belanger. In addition, it controls for the power of individuals to make their own decisions to change any aspect of their life situation. Respondents were also asked to place in order of priority a list of 11 government tasks: improving the quality of life of Aboriginal people came in second-tolast. Others, more blunt than Cairns, do not hesitate to maintain that Canada’s Aboriginal policy is ill-conceived and that the Canadian state is unwisely giving in to Aboriginal claims, thus pursuing a course that is antithetical to egalitarian objectives and the foundations of Canadian citizenship. How do existing modes of governance, the control exercised by local elites over access to and distribution of collective resources and the political and administrative proximity of some chiefs and band councils to the Canadian state bureaucracy affect the ability of community members to enjoy a fair measure of well-being? “The Supreme Court’s Van der Peet Trilogy: Native Imperialism and Ropes of Sand.” McGill Law Journal 42 (4): 993-1009. Nevertheless, there seems to be some agreement that social capital can be broadly understood as, networks of social relations which are characterised by norms of trust and reciprocity and which lead to mutually beneficial outcomes…For individuals, this can mean access to social connections that help the processes of getting by or getting ahead. In this paper, the term “Aboriginal” is generally used to refer to First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Finally, they also contend that culture plays a significant role, as the economic success of Aboriginal communities rests on a strong and widely accepted fit between the culture of the community and the structure and powers of the governing institutions (Cornell and Kalt 1992, 1998, 2000; see also the Harvard Project Web site, www.ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied). Cairns, Alan C. 1988. Aboriginal quality of life as a vantage point to clarify how in Canada, provincial governments may address, or fail to address, Aboriginal poverty. “Citizens (Outsiders) and Governments (Insiders) in Constitution-Making: The Case of Meech Lake.” Canadian Public Policy 14 (supplement): S121-45. McGuinty Government And Right To Play Launch Hockey Program. Cornell, Stephen, and Joseph Kalt. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Finally, insofar as the wider community is concerned, the medicine wheel incorporates the political and administrative environment, where the quality and effectiveness of people’s participation and decision-making power in matters that directly affect their lives are indicators of the good life; the social environment, where societywide patterns of human interactions are defined and where a measure of the good life would be the community’s openness to and support of individuals and groups working toward positive social change; the economic environment, where the development and maintenance of long-term, sustainable systems of production that empower individuals, preserve the environment and contribute to community capacity are objectives meant to ensure a good quality of life; and the cultural and spiritual environment, where the presence of a respectful dialogue on values and an appreciation for diversity are important indicators of well-being (Four Worlds International Institute n.d., part 1). Simply put, “[t]he more people are engaged together in a variety of associations, from singing groups to informal loan cooperatives, the higher the level of generalized trust and cooperative problem-solving in the system and the greater the strength and productivity of that community” (77). Report of Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People — Mission to Canada. Suicide is perhaps the most dramatic indicator of distress in Aboriginal communities and, understandably, an important focus of attention in the specialized literature on the mental health and well-being of Aboriginal people. Overall, notwithstanding the variations reviewed here, the literature on social cohesion, social capital and capacity-building rests on the firm belief that the social and economic strengthening of communities is the key to greater measures of well-being for Aboriginal people. In truth, however, all is not as bleak as sensationalist news reports might imply. Second Thoughts (2000), political scientist Tom Flanagan undertakes to debunk what he calls the “Aboriginal orthodoxy,” a set of beliefs that holds, among other things, that, prior residence in North America is an entitlement to special treatment; that Aboriginal peoples are part of sovereign nations endowed with an inherent right to self-government; that Aboriginals must have collective rather than individual property rights; that all treaties must be renegotiated on a “nation-to-nation” basis; and that native people should be encouraged to build prosperous “aboriginal economies” through money, land, and natural resources transferred from other Canadians. 2000. The trauma of colonialism may keep sowing its hurtful seeds long after it has ceased to be an official policy of the state. Mussell, W.J. Aboriginal peoples is a legal term encompassing all indigenous Canadian groups. Recovering Canada: The Resurgence of Indigenous Law. Ultimately, political efforts to restore Aboriginal rights, settle land claims, and redistribute power through various forms of self-government hold the keys to healthy communities. 2005b. Experts argue that PTSD arises from long-term exposure to external trauma and terrifying experiences resulting in intense fear, helplessness or terror that break a person’s sense of predictability, vulnerability and control and can lead to significant social or occupational distress. They are, in the end, essentially concerned that the legitimization of an Aboriginal civic and cultural identity that would not fully correspond to Canada’s own would threaten the institutional coherence and civic cohesiveness of the Canadian political community. quality of life and well-being (Anxiety BC, 2007-2014). Policy Study 43. Space does not permit one to review all 52 contributions but, notwithstanding the occasional success story of healing and reconstruction, they tend to confirm the picture of social distress, community dysfunction, economic marginalization and cultural erosion that is well known to anyone familiar with the contemporary social and economic reality of Aboriginal people in Canada. Social Capital: Critical Perspectives. Dorais, Louis-Jacques. The notion of PTSD is usually associated with the theory that holds that individuals can be affected deeply by historic traumatic events (civil war, genocide, forced displacement or acculturation of entire communities, and so on) that occurred before their lifetime (Wesley-Esquimaux and Smolewski 2004). In order to bring about the social cohesion that is the key to improved well-being, Aboriginal people must acquire greater capacity — that is, “the ability of individuals, organizations, and whole societies to define and solve problems, make informed choices, order their priorities and plan their futures, as well as implement programs and projects to sustain them” (Nair 2003, 1, quoted in Hunt 2005, 1). Canada’s sport system and the quality of life of all people in Canada. “Real” Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. For communities, social capital reflects the ability of community members to participate, cooperate, and interact. When discussing the Aboriginal quality of life within Canada there are several issues that come to mind, such as health, education, housing and our Canadian-Indigenous relationship (First Ministers And National Aboriginal Leaders, 2005, p. 1). In this book celebrated for its level-headedness, Cairns revives the recommendations of the Hawthorn Report and suggests that Aboriginal people in Canada be granted a special status that would somehow recognize additional rights. Waldram, James B. “The Place of Social Capital in Understanding Social and Economic Outcomes.” Isuma: Canadian Journal of Policy Research 2 (1): 11-17. 2005. He also serves as Co-director of the Concordia-UQAM Chair in Ethnic Studies. Political scientists Kiera Ladner and Michael Orsini argue, using the neo-institutionalist concept of path dependency, that Canada’s Aboriginal policy is deeply set in a long-standing colonial paradigm that so thoroughly pervades the whole bureaucratic and political mindset that it has become virtually impossible to effect any real modification of the unequal dynamics of power relations between Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal Canadians. Daniel Salée is a professor of political science and Principal of the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University. Although "Indian" is a term still commonly used in legal documents, the descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have somewhat fallen into disuse in Canada, and some consider them to be pejorative. In its empirical, evaluative application, the framework is constructed so as to be sensitive to the specific life situations of individuals and to take into account that each person might attach a different importance to each particular dimension of life and enjoy it with different intensity. 2000. “Self-Determination, Citizenship and Federalism: Indigenous and Canadian Palimpsest.” In Reconfiguring Aboriginal-State Relations, edited by Michael Murphy. Papillon, Martin, and Gina Cosentino. Although it rests largely on a politics of the self, it assumes, like the social-cohesion literature — albeit in a more implicit fashion — that the key to Aboriginal well-being is healthy, ordered and well-balanced communities. 2006. Edmonton: M.G. 2004. “Landscapes of Memory: Trauma, Narrative and Dissociations.” In Tense Past: Cultural Essays on Memory and Trauma, edited by P. Antze and M. Lambek. “Social Capital: Its Origin and Applications in Modern Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 24: 1-24. Data were obtained from thirty-three questions derived from the 2001 Determinants of Health and Quality of Life Survey, based on a sample of 687 residents from the Bella Coola Valley area of British Columbia, Canada. Sharpe also looks at three cross-national indexes: the Human Development Index, developed by the United Nations Development Program; the Quality of Life Index, developed by Ed Diener of the University of Illinois; and the Index of Social Progress, developed by Richard Estes of the University of Pennsylvania. Without downplaying the importance of community, they stress instead individual wellness and the means to achieve it. Forthcoming. Gerrity, and R.M. 2005. The flip side of this conventional wisdom is that the onus of success is entirely on the individual: communities that fail to regain control of their destiny and to function well are seen, implicitly, as communities where the bulk of individuals have yet to heal their psychological wounds, rebuild their relations and take charge of their lives. The other focuses more on investment in human and social capital, and the strengthening of civil society” (Hunt 2005, 1). Labelle, Micheline, and Daniel Salée. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. It plays a pivotal role in bringing to fruition any investment in human or physical capital: without the social vitality that high levels of social capital entail the economic viability of a community inevitably will decrease (Chataway 2002, 78). Cat. While one gets from it a good sense of where things stand, the approach does not really offer in the end an explicit vision of the policy direction that would best tackle the most pressing quality-of-life issues faced by Aboriginal people in Canada.11. A large and in many ways more compelling segment of this literature, however, calls attention to strategies of personal healing, psychological recovery and individual transformation. Allard’s analysis has been quoted approvingly in documents of the C.D. In 1995, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples released a special report in which it identified four groups of risk factors associated with suicide: psychobiological (depression, anxiety, schizophrenia), situational (disruptions of family, forced attendance at residential schools, long-term illnesses), socioeconomic (poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing) and cultural stress (erosion of belief systems and spirituality, loss of control over the land, racial discrimination, weakening of political and social institutions). The impression that clearly emanates from the CPRN survey is that the state invariably plays a fundamental and inherent role in providing the constituent elements of the good life. The realization of this latter stage would complete the transition, but would imply the development of a properly educated human resource base, skilled in the requisites of self-government, culturally sensitive and in tune with the self-determination objectives of Aboriginal governments; it would also imply the establishment of accountability, data collection and information management systems, as well as adequate organizational and institutional structures capable of sustaining the activities of Aboriginal governments (Institute on Governance n.d.). Putnam, Robert. Huppert, Felicia, and Nick Baylis. While the AFN and sister Aboriginal organizations are prepared to exercise their inherent rights to self-determination within the institutional parameters of the Canadian state, Aboriginal scholars who have considered quality-oflife issues in Aboriginal communities can have quite a different view on the question. _____. Despite a multitude of targeted government programs and benefits, the life of a typical aboriginal in 21st century Canada remains significantly worse than that of any other racial group, with rates of poverty, addiction, and violence grossly disproportionate to their percentage of the population. Sociology in Question. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Report on Growth, Human Development and Social Cohesion. In the 2016 census by Statistics Canada, over 1.6 million people in Canada identified as Indigenous, making up 4.9 per cent of the national population. As cultural theorist Homi Bhabha put it, although there is always an entertainment and encouragement of cultural diversity, there is always also a corresponding containment of it. September 2005; Social Indicators Research 73(2):295-312; DOI: 10.1007/s11205-004-6169-5. 2005. CONTEXT: First Nations in Canada are affirming their rights and advancing plans to improve the quality of . In this sense, Aboriginal quality of life and wellbeing do not hinge so much on appropriate state policies as on individuals’ readiness to adopt patterns of personal behaviour more likely to promote individual and collective well-being, including, mental awakening through the promotion of knowledge; emotional fortitude and the instilling of emotional and psychological stability; the return to traditional diets and regular hard physical labour to purify and strengthen the body; and the rediscovery of meaning outside shallow materialism and consumerism through the restoration of social connections and spiritual rootedness. In his view, the key to the amelioration of Aboriginal quality of life in Canada lies in the search for solutions that respect and take into consideration the needs of both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, not in the aspirations of self-government and territorial autonomy put forward notably by the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. However, many times Canadians neglect to … an Integrated Life Course and Social Determinants Model of Aboriginal Health as a framework for understanding The m ret Ab’ is ‘ noigal rui sed houtr ghout htis ppar eo t denote he t rsFt i Niotans b(oth utas/not s untas -stand on/off eser vre), nIuit and Métis peoples of Canada collectively. Quality of Life in Canada: A Citizens’ Report Card. One still remains largely unclear as to the reasons and the long-term historical processes that have shaped things the way they are. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Montreal, Quebec H3A 1T1 New York: Greenwood Press. Borrows, John. The virtues of individual freedom over collective or bureaucratic dictates are touted as the way out of the adverse conditions Aboriginal people experience. Fiss, Tanis. Ponting, J. Rick, and Cora J. Voyageur. 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