“Reconciliation Education”- Part 6

Parallelism Ideology

Image by Warrior Publications

For new Woke Watch Canada readers: Welcome! This series is easy to get through, each installment takes only a few minutes to read. Start at Part 1. (And here’s Part 2 & Part 3 & Part 4 & Part 5)

By Igor Stravinsky (Teacher, commentator)

Previously in this series, I have discussed some of the things students are learning, and not learning, about Indigenous people in the Peel District School Board:

• Indigenous people are the true owners of the land; the rest of us are just settlers 

• Indigenous people should be able to continue to practice their traditional ways while being provided all the amenities commensurate with living in a modern, first world country

• Indigenous people are victims, other Canadians are oppressors

• The disproportionately poor quality of life which characterizes the lives of many Indigenous people today is the result of past and current injustices by non-Indigenous people, chiefly the Indian Residential Schools

• Life was good for Indigenous people, who were wise and peaceful, before Europeans showed up

• The goal of the Europeans who arrived in Canada was the genocide of Indigenous people

• The settlers failed in their quest for genocide due to the courage and resilience of the Indigenous people 

As I have demonstrated, all of the above is simplistic, misleading, or false. 

Why teach students a false narrative?

The ahistorical Indigenous genocide narrative started out in academia where Grievance Studies (Indigenous Studies, Black Studies, Queer Studies, Fat Studies, etc.) have a massive presence. These post-modernist inspired programs, collectively referred to as “Critical Theory” have influenced all areas of academia and spread to Canadian institutions generally. Grievance studies programs can only exist so long as there are grievances, which necessitates re-writing history and putting people into oppositional groups of victims and oppressors. Academics had to either get on the bandwagon or keep their mouth shut if they disagreed with this new paradigm. Those who did not, such as Frances Widdowson, were attacked and paid a massive price for speaking freely about the lies on which grievance studies programs are based. 

Left-leaning politicians have been keen to get on board with Critical Theory. It wins them support from the academics and well-meaning (but poorly informed) members of the public who want to be “on the right side of history”. Even conservative politicians tend to look the other way, seeing taking on the well-organized, well-funded, academia-based activists as an overall vote loser. After all, they can count on the conservative vote. To whom else can such voters turn? Consequently, school boards and the authors of school curricula are captured by Critical Theory and teachers are expected to tow the line. Anyone who doesn’t is said to be “causing harm” and faces harsh discipline. 

Entrenchment of the Indigenous genocide narrative ensures ever increasing payments from Canadian taxpayers in the form of rent and compensation. The lion's share of these payments go to the Grievance Industry Tzars- Corrupt Indigenous leaders and their non-Indigenous allies, with little trickling down to the average Indigenous person. That is why, in spite of the fact that an ever-increasing part of our federal budget is dedicated to payments to Indigenous groups (to reach 7.7% - $74.6 billion annually by 2026-27), many Indigenous people live in squalor on reserves without basic amenities like clean water, while many others live on the street in urban areas. How can this be happening when taxpayers are handing over more than $40 thousand per year per each Indigenous person?

Is it reasonable for people who want to live in remote areas engaged in low value hunting, gathering, and horticulture activities, declining to integrate into the modern Canadian socio-economic system, to expect 21st century amenities and services paid for by other Canadians? If non-Indigenous people balk at funding this economically unviable mode of existence, does that make us guilty of racism or genocide? That is the impression kids in school are left with after the “education” they receive on the matter. 

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) of 1991 (final report presented in 1996) forms the basis for school discussions although it has been somewhat eclipsed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report. The focus on the RCAP is generally on the four principles on which it is based, all of which promote parallelism ideology- the idea that Indigenous people should live separately from the rest of us, on their own terms. The first principle is Mutual Recognition.

In the RCAP, Aboriginal Canadians are described as the original inhabitants and caretakers of this land who have distinctive inherent rights. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people must thus co-exist side by side and govern themselves according to separate laws and institutions.

This really does not make much sense. Firstly, are people who identify as Aboriginal (these days referred to as Indigenous) descended from the original inhabitants of what is now Canada? The answer is complex. For example, the Six Nations of the Grand River in Southern Ontario are originally from New York State, and were welcomed to Upper Canada after the American War of Independence as compensation for fighting alongside Loyalists. They were given the “Haldimand Tract"- a large area along both sides of the Grand River. They were thus inheriting “stolen land”. Do they do land acknowledgments? The fact is that waves of people settled what is now Canada over many millennia, displacing one another in the process, generally not peacefully. Who, exactly, the first people were is long lost to history and likely will never be known. Then there is the case of the Inuit who displaced the Dorset people as I previously discussed.         

As for being “caretakers”, what does that mean, exactly? It is true that, due to their small numbers, scattered population, and low level of technology, they had little environmental impact. But can that be considered “caretaking”? Indigenous people exploited resources to the best of their ability using the tools they had. Driving herds of buffalo over cliffs may have been a clever and effective way to obtain food, but could hardly be considered efficient or any kind of “caretaking”.  

And then, of course, it does not make sense that all of Canada's over 600 “First Nations”, some of which have fewer than 200 members, could possibly have their own laws and institutions. Living in remote areas, they will simply be stuck without the basic services that are considered part and parcel of modern life, with their poor standard of living held up as an example of the devastating impact of “colonialism” Parallelism ensures a hand-to-mouth existence that can only lead to a perpetual state of poverty and dependency, bolstering grievance studies and triggering ever more payouts from taxpayers.      

The second principle is mutual respect. Students are taught that Indigenous people respected “all members of the circle of life” including “animals, plants, waters, and unseen forces, as well as human beings”. This simplistic and romanticized notion of traditional Indigenous societies supports the “good Indigenous, evil European” binary when in fact Indigenous societies were complex and engaged in the full range of human behaviors- both benevolent and malevolent as discussed before. They were quick to adopt modern tools such as horses and firearms and there is no evidence they used them any more wisely or sustainably than Europeans. 

The third is sharing. But what students are told is not that people today should contribute equally so that we can all continue to prosper as a nation, but rather are provided with cases of past injustice and then told that Indigenous people today deserve special treatment in the form of rents and compensation payments as a result of this past injustice. There is no discussion of how long this is expected to go on, or how or when the Indigenous people will cease to be dependent on other Canadians for their livelihood and essential services. The question of how mutual respect can exist between two groups of people when one group is entirely dependent on the other never comes up. To mention it would be “racist” and would certainly “cause harm”.

The last basic principle is mutual responsibility. Students are told that since first contact the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people has been of guardian and ward, and that what is now needed is a true partnership. It is said that the Indigenous people need political and constitutional autonomy and a resource base sufficient to free them from their dependency. Space is not provided in discussions to consider whether it is practical or feasible to hand over the custody of significant lands and resources to the corrupt leaders of a population of 1.8 million mostly poorly educated people who are members of over 600 groups with their own languages, cultures, etc and are scattered across our vast country. Nor is it discussed that hundreds of thousands of immigrants arrive in Canada every year, many with little more than the clothes on their backs, and yet they are able to become productive citizens within a short span of time.

The bottom line is kids are not provided the opportunity to explore whether or not parallelism is the best way forward for Indigenous people or the country as a whole. Over the approximately 11 thousand years people have inhabited what is now Canada, various waves of people entered the country and groups formed and fragmented. Societies rose and fell, and groups battled one another for dominance. 

During the first century of Canada's existence, it was accepted by everyone, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, that Indigenous people needed to integrate into modern Canadian society and in so doing, integrate into the modern world. Then, about 50 years ago, Indigenous leaders realized they could connect with opportunistic non-Indigenous politicians, civil servants, lawyers, academics and others, to play the victim card to bilk the Canadian taxpayer out of billions. They knew it would not do much, if anything, to help the average Indigenous person, but that was the beauty of it! This was their ticket to keep demanding more and more money- forever. 

The path of parallelism is unsustainable and immoral. Today's students will have to deal with the disastrous consequences, and our schools are failing utterly to equip them with the knowledge they will need to address the issue. 

In my next, and penultimate installment of this series I will look at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report with an eye to how it is being presented in schools. This tome of over 3500 pages can obviously not be comprehensively analyzed in a school setting. What parts of it are being selected for study? At this point, I bet you can guess.

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Thanks for reading. For more on this topic read, Residential School Recrimination, Repentance, and Reconciliation by Anthropologist, Hymie Rubenstein.

BREAKING NEWS:

1. A new long-form essay by Dr. M - Fulcrum and Pivot: The New Left Remaking of Toronto School Policy

2. James Pew has contributed a chapter to the new book Grave Error: How The Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools). You can read about it here - The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers

Also, for more evidence of the ideological indoctrination in Canadian education, read Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! And also, Yes, The University is an Indoctrination Camp!

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