It's breathtaking when it's put that way, because we have a sense of self, that if we are part of a community and we belong there, then that community accepts us: we are just members of a community. To have someone from someplace else, out there in the east or somewhere, say “you belong” and “you don't” is bizarre. When it's put in just that way, it underscores how strange the Indian Act is.
This sense of aboriginal women's organizations being able to unravel this Gordian knot Is interesting, too. I've seen a great deal of the work from NWAC. It is incredibly complex, and I know they've truly put their minds to sorting this out and trying to do the overhaul you spoke of. But now they don't have the funding. They're laying off staff. It gets to be a very frustrating kind of situation.
I want to also ask about the impact of all of this on kids and youth. I taught at a high school, and we had aboriginal and non-aboriginal students. The aboriginal students came from outside the city, from a small community. When they arrived, they were doomed to failure, because it wasn't a good cultural fit. When hunting season came along or when community festivals came along, they didn't coincide with what was going on in the school, and so very often these kids were missing class, and no leeway was given for them; they were just marginalized.
I always worried about that, and it fits in with what you were talking about in terms of the justice system. I'm very concerned that the kind of punitive system we have in place is not going to suit the community, or it's not going to benefit these kids. They are being removed from their homes; they're being regarded as little criminals in the making. We're not doing what we need to do in regard to letting there be a system.
This is bizarre, our saying “letting there be a system” that suits this cultural reality for kids. I know that the suicide rate is horrendous, and I know that kids are being taken out of their cultural reality and transferred into care.
I wonder whether you could talk a little bit about the justice system, or the lack thereof, and youth criminal justice.