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Children of the Broken Treaty: Canada's Lost Promise and One Girl's Dream
Children of the Broken Treaty exposes a system of apartheid in Canada that led to the largest youth-driven human rights movement in the country’s history. The movement was inspired by Shannen Koostachin, a young Cree woman whom George Stroumboulopoulos named as one of “five teenage girls who kicked ass in history.”
All Shannen wanted was a decent education. She found an ally in Charlie Angus, who had no idea she was going to change his life and inspire others to change the country.
Based on extensive documentation assembled from Freedom of Information requests, Angus establishes a dark, unbroken line that extends from the policies of John A. Macdonald to the government of today. He provides chilling insight into how Canada--through breaches of treaties, broken promises, and callous neglect--deliberately denied First Nations children their basic human rights.
All Shannen wanted was a decent education. She found an ally in Charlie Angus, who had no idea she was going to change his life and inspire others to change the country.
Based on extensive documentation assembled from Freedom of Information requests, Angus establishes a dark, unbroken line that extends from the policies of John A. Macdonald to the government of today. He provides chilling insight into how Canada--through breaches of treaties, broken promises, and callous neglect--deliberately denied First Nations children their basic human rights.
324 pages, Paperback
First published August 22, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
September 10, 2015
One of the most important books I have read on the realities of First Nations in Canada today -- this should be required reading for anyone entering the voting booths this year, and in future. Governments have systematically lied and broken promises for 150 years and it must stop. Teaching and the possibilities of Canadian youth have never seemed so vital to me before. At the same time, the great Bruce Cockburn's song "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" makes more and more sense. This is an enfuriating, heartbreaking, profoundly important book.
September 24, 2015
Heartbreaking and hopeful...the struggle continues.....
April 13, 2016
Let me just quote the author near the end of the book, a book that is well-worth reading: "What I have come to understand from the treaties is that First Nations and non-First Nations people are bound together in a relationship.... For many decades now it has been a dysfunctional and sometimes hostile relationship. None of us can change what happened before. But we all have the power to decide what kind of relationship will exist in the future."
Charlie Angus, a politician among other things, has written the story of a small native community in his Northern Ontario riding. He gives some historical background, but the focus is on the fight of 14 year old Shannon Koostachin who wanted a school in her home of Attawapiskat. Sadly she was killed in a car accident but her dream was taken on by other students in her community with support from students across Canada. The book ends with a celebration of a new school being built.
But the story really hasn't ended there. Days after finishing the book, I read about that same community in crisis over multiple suicide attempts, too many of them involving teenagers.
I really don't know the answer to any of this. But an answer needs to be found. Children should not be be fighting for something as basic as a school and children certainly should not be living a life that appears so hopeless that they want to end it.
Charlie Angus, a politician among other things, has written the story of a small native community in his Northern Ontario riding. He gives some historical background, but the focus is on the fight of 14 year old Shannon Koostachin who wanted a school in her home of Attawapiskat. Sadly she was killed in a car accident but her dream was taken on by other students in her community with support from students across Canada. The book ends with a celebration of a new school being built.
But the story really hasn't ended there. Days after finishing the book, I read about that same community in crisis over multiple suicide attempts, too many of them involving teenagers.
I really don't know the answer to any of this. But an answer needs to be found. Children should not be be fighting for something as basic as a school and children certainly should not be living a life that appears so hopeless that they want to end it.
June 14, 2017
Charlie Angus writes about the "radical" idea that all children deserve equal opportunities in regards to education and healthcare. This sounds like an obvious statement, but unfortunately it is not the reality for First Nations children in Canada. This book describes the ways that the federal government continues to fail First Nations children, but also explores an exciting grassroots civil rights movement led by some courageous young people from Attawapiskat. Shannen Koostachin is such an inspiration, so if you haven't heard of her GET READING!
June 9, 2015
Enraging. Tragic. Eye-opening.
August 29, 2015
Some parts of this book were really hard reading, but there was an element of optimism as well. If there is to be a solution to this problem, it will have to be inspired by the people of James Bay, and when I read about Shannen's Dream, I believe this is possible.
As for the actual writing, I believe the author is slightly less successful in the early chapters, which deal with history. There, he does not always manage to balance the language of emotion with the language of research-backed argument.
In the present day section, however, these problems disappear. Angus brings together the events of the James Bay crisis into a coherent message that is both thoroughly researched and emotionally powerful. I read these chapters in awe, and sometimes in tears.
As for the actual writing, I believe the author is slightly less successful in the early chapters, which deal with history. There, he does not always manage to balance the language of emotion with the language of research-backed argument.
In the present day section, however, these problems disappear. Angus brings together the events of the James Bay crisis into a coherent message that is both thoroughly researched and emotionally powerful. I read these chapters in awe, and sometimes in tears.
August 12, 2018
I was totally surprised by this book because it managed to convey a tragic and stark reality that I think too many Canadians do not know enough about (including myself), while also conveying hope and inspiration. I wish I had read a book like this, or heard about these young people when I was younger to encourage my activism and fight for justice. Even a child can make a difference in politics! Your enthusiasm and drive for change is not too idealistic. Your letter writing, marching, petition signatures etc. is also not all in vain!
May 4, 2016
The attention that Attawapiskat and Kashechewan have received since I borrowed this book from the library gives me hope that we may have reached a turning point from the nigh infinite series of ignominious betrayals that the government of Canada (i.e., every non-Native Canadian) has been committing against the James Bay First Nations.
February 16, 2020
Original peoples of Canada have different schools to learn in... on the lands of their peoples for customs and capabilities and in a classroom for comprehension. The author gives account of Crees historical experience to classroom learning and the harsh politics emboiled in it. I felt the read was very detailed from early 1900's to Indigenous realities current.
December 24, 2021
Took me a couple months but definitely worth a read to learn more about indigenous issues in Canada.
June 24, 2018
Charlie Angus, politician, author and journalist, is a longtime socialist, social justice activist, and Indigenous ally. His book, Children of the Broken Treaty: Canada’s Lost Promise and One Girl’s Dream, arises out of these multiple threads. Angus takes a hard, journalistic view of the way that Canadian society, government and institutions have failed Indigenous children, giving his account a strong centre by focusing on young Cree activist Shannen Koostachin, a member of the Attawapiskat First Nation, and her fight for equal access to education for the students of her community and for all Indigenous youth across Canada. Angus has a personal connection to this story - Attawapiskat is a part of the riding he represents in Parliament, and he knew and supported Shannen Koostachin in her campaign, but he treads carefully in writing this account, avoiding sentimentality and never injecting himself needlessly into the narrative - rare restraint from a politician.
Shannen’s story is short, inspiring and tragic. At 13, she challenged the federal government to build a new school in her community to replace the mould-filled portables sitting on toxic, contaminated land that had been the only educational facility available to the children in her remote community for years. Her drive, her charismatic presence, called out to other youth across the country to support her. Even after her death in a car accident, the fight she started continued until the government finally was forced to recognise the demands she and her supporters made. But as Angus says, Shannen’s story is emblematic of a problem that affects Indigenous communities across Canada.
“And this is where the story of Shannen Koostachin takes on larger political significance. The story of the inequities faced by students in Attawapiskat provides a window into a world that most Canadians never knew existed. It has opened a political and social conversation about how a country as rich and inclusive as Canada can deliberately marginalize children based on their race or, more accurately, marginalize them based on their treaty rights.
What Shannen’s story shows us is that, though the conditions in Attawapiskat might have been extreme, they were by no means an anomaly. All over Canada, First Nations youth have significantly fewer resources for education, health, and community services than those available to non-Indigenous youth. Certainly, there are many reserves with proper school facilities. But other communities make do with substandard schools or condemned schools or, in some cases, no school at all. It is the arbitrary nature of the delivery of education that speaks to its inequity. What all these communities have in common is systemic underfunding for education by the Department of Indian Affairs compared with communities with students in the provincial school systems.”
Angus begins his acount with the signing of Treaty 9 at Fort Hope in .Northern Ontario on July 19, 1905. He recounts the promises - all lies - made to persuade the Cree to sign, the guarantees that their way of life would not be threatened and the offer of education for their children. And he describes what followed - the concerted attempt to destroy Indigenous culture and assimilate Indigenous children through indoctrination, humiliation, violence and terror at the residential schools. He quotes Duncan Scott Campbell, architect of Treaty 9 and head of the Department of Indian Affairs: ““I want to get rid of the Indian problem. . . . That is my whole point. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department.”
Angus focuses his narrative on one of the Canadian government’s key strategies for elimination the ‘Indian question’ - the horrifying system of residential schools in which children were taken from their families and communities, forbidden to speak their language or practice any aspects of their traditional culture, and frequently subjected to psychological, sexual and physical abuse. As many as one-third of children in the so-called care of the residential school system did not survive their experience. Far too many of those who did, left the schools with no connection to their culture, traumatised in ways that would mark their communities for generations. And in examining the system of deliberate cultural genocide and attendant abuse that was the hallmark of the residential school system, Angus pays particular attention to St. Anne’s Residential School. This school, run by the Catholic Oblate order, was situated in the region that Angus represents, and was thus, for Shannen Koostachin and the Attawapiskat First Nation community, part of their lived experience. I’ve read other accounts mentioning the situation at St. Anne’s, notably the courageous memoir of Chief Edward Metatwabin, Up Ghost River, which is cited by Angus here. The picture that emerges from the testimony of survivors of St. Anne’s s one of an utter disregard for the health and dignity of the children entrusted to the institution’s care, combined with outright racism, abuse, and violations of the children’s rights as human beings, and the parents’ rights to even so much as be informed of what happened to their children. It is a picture of deliberate, racially motivated genocide.
Even with the closure of the residential schools, the deliberate attempt to forcibly assimilate Canada’s Indigenous people by destroying families and cutting children off from their communities and culture continued - and continues into the present day. Indigenous children were, and still are, placed in white foster homes on the flimsiest of pretexts, away from their parents, their homes, among people who knew nothing about their foster and adopted children’s languages or cultures, and had no interest in allowing the children placed in their care to learn about their Indigenous roots.
“The huge number of children taken from their parents under this agenda has been named the “Sixties Scoop.” Theresa Stevens, who works in Indigenous child welfare services in Kenora, Ontario, was recently interviewed by the National Post on the devastating impacts of the Sixties Scoop in her community of Wabaseemoong (Whitedog First Nation) in northwestern Ontario. She said that child welfare workers would arrive in the community with a bus that they filled with local children who had been apprehended. The children were then flown to another isolated community and given away to strangers. “When the planes landed at the dock, families there were told they could come down and pick out a kid,” she stated. So many children were taken from her community that teachers at the local school were laid off because there weren’t enough children left to be taught. Stevens said that the process continued until 1990 and was only stopped at her home reserve when the band members openly defied the child welfare authorities. “They stood at the reserve line on tractors with shotguns saying, ‘You aren’t coming into our community and taking any more of our children,’” she stated.”
In 1976, the Attawapiskat First Nation finally got their own school. But there were problems from the beginning. The construction of the facilities, including residences for teachers, failed to take into account the climate conditions in such a northern region. Within a few years, the freeze and thaw cycle cause shallowly buried fuel pipes to buckle and break, resulting in leaks that seriously contaminated the soil on which the school was built. Health problems developed among students and staff. Some attempts were made to remove contaminated soil, but the leaks continued, adding to the load of toxic diesel fuel in the ground and the health risks to the students. The school, which was under the jurisdiction of Indian Affairs, not the provincial educational system, continued to operate. Finally, in 2000, the band declared the school as a condemned building and demanded that a new school be built. One was promised, but no action followed on that promise. Instead, classes were taught in portables set up near the old school - still close to the source of contamination, cold in winter, lacking in facilities to support the basic educational program, and screaming “slapdash solution to a serious problem.”
Angus carefully details the campaign originated and driven by the students of Attawapiskat, and the shameful responses - obfuscations, denials, diversions and outright lies - of the government of the day and the various Indian Affairs ministers, who held the portfolio during the Harper regime.
He also paints a powerful and painful picture of what Indigenous children, particularly those living in remote and isolated communities, deal with. The poverty, lack of resources, lack of housing, schools, community infrastructure, social programs. He speaks about the epidemics of depression, apathy, suicide, that have swept through indigenous communities. The problems faced by Indigenous youth taken from their homes and placed in foster care or in institutions. The endless wasting of talent, potential, and lives that would never be tolerated if these children were white.
The basic truths that Angus speaks are these: that the federal government, regardless of what party currently forms it, has never paid attention to the real needs of Indigenous communities, has never listened to the people it abandoned, has never wanted to spend the money necessary to ensure the most important supports: safe, clean housing; medical care; essential infrastructure; education comparable to that provided by provincial authorities; social programs with a goal of keeping families together, children in their communities, and indigenous cultures strong; economic development to enable communities to be self-supporting. That white settlers stole their land, tried to erase their very existence and gave them nothing but empty promises. That the colonial project of genocide continues to this day. And that the resistance to this project is alive and growing.
Shannen’s story is short, inspiring and tragic. At 13, she challenged the federal government to build a new school in her community to replace the mould-filled portables sitting on toxic, contaminated land that had been the only educational facility available to the children in her remote community for years. Her drive, her charismatic presence, called out to other youth across the country to support her. Even after her death in a car accident, the fight she started continued until the government finally was forced to recognise the demands she and her supporters made. But as Angus says, Shannen’s story is emblematic of a problem that affects Indigenous communities across Canada.
“And this is where the story of Shannen Koostachin takes on larger political significance. The story of the inequities faced by students in Attawapiskat provides a window into a world that most Canadians never knew existed. It has opened a political and social conversation about how a country as rich and inclusive as Canada can deliberately marginalize children based on their race or, more accurately, marginalize them based on their treaty rights.
What Shannen’s story shows us is that, though the conditions in Attawapiskat might have been extreme, they were by no means an anomaly. All over Canada, First Nations youth have significantly fewer resources for education, health, and community services than those available to non-Indigenous youth. Certainly, there are many reserves with proper school facilities. But other communities make do with substandard schools or condemned schools or, in some cases, no school at all. It is the arbitrary nature of the delivery of education that speaks to its inequity. What all these communities have in common is systemic underfunding for education by the Department of Indian Affairs compared with communities with students in the provincial school systems.”
Angus begins his acount with the signing of Treaty 9 at Fort Hope in .Northern Ontario on July 19, 1905. He recounts the promises - all lies - made to persuade the Cree to sign, the guarantees that their way of life would not be threatened and the offer of education for their children. And he describes what followed - the concerted attempt to destroy Indigenous culture and assimilate Indigenous children through indoctrination, humiliation, violence and terror at the residential schools. He quotes Duncan Scott Campbell, architect of Treaty 9 and head of the Department of Indian Affairs: ““I want to get rid of the Indian problem. . . . That is my whole point. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department.”
Angus focuses his narrative on one of the Canadian government’s key strategies for elimination the ‘Indian question’ - the horrifying system of residential schools in which children were taken from their families and communities, forbidden to speak their language or practice any aspects of their traditional culture, and frequently subjected to psychological, sexual and physical abuse. As many as one-third of children in the so-called care of the residential school system did not survive their experience. Far too many of those who did, left the schools with no connection to their culture, traumatised in ways that would mark their communities for generations. And in examining the system of deliberate cultural genocide and attendant abuse that was the hallmark of the residential school system, Angus pays particular attention to St. Anne’s Residential School. This school, run by the Catholic Oblate order, was situated in the region that Angus represents, and was thus, for Shannen Koostachin and the Attawapiskat First Nation community, part of their lived experience. I’ve read other accounts mentioning the situation at St. Anne’s, notably the courageous memoir of Chief Edward Metatwabin, Up Ghost River, which is cited by Angus here. The picture that emerges from the testimony of survivors of St. Anne’s s one of an utter disregard for the health and dignity of the children entrusted to the institution’s care, combined with outright racism, abuse, and violations of the children’s rights as human beings, and the parents’ rights to even so much as be informed of what happened to their children. It is a picture of deliberate, racially motivated genocide.
Even with the closure of the residential schools, the deliberate attempt to forcibly assimilate Canada’s Indigenous people by destroying families and cutting children off from their communities and culture continued - and continues into the present day. Indigenous children were, and still are, placed in white foster homes on the flimsiest of pretexts, away from their parents, their homes, among people who knew nothing about their foster and adopted children’s languages or cultures, and had no interest in allowing the children placed in their care to learn about their Indigenous roots.
“The huge number of children taken from their parents under this agenda has been named the “Sixties Scoop.” Theresa Stevens, who works in Indigenous child welfare services in Kenora, Ontario, was recently interviewed by the National Post on the devastating impacts of the Sixties Scoop in her community of Wabaseemoong (Whitedog First Nation) in northwestern Ontario. She said that child welfare workers would arrive in the community with a bus that they filled with local children who had been apprehended. The children were then flown to another isolated community and given away to strangers. “When the planes landed at the dock, families there were told they could come down and pick out a kid,” she stated. So many children were taken from her community that teachers at the local school were laid off because there weren’t enough children left to be taught. Stevens said that the process continued until 1990 and was only stopped at her home reserve when the band members openly defied the child welfare authorities. “They stood at the reserve line on tractors with shotguns saying, ‘You aren’t coming into our community and taking any more of our children,’” she stated.”
In 1976, the Attawapiskat First Nation finally got their own school. But there were problems from the beginning. The construction of the facilities, including residences for teachers, failed to take into account the climate conditions in such a northern region. Within a few years, the freeze and thaw cycle cause shallowly buried fuel pipes to buckle and break, resulting in leaks that seriously contaminated the soil on which the school was built. Health problems developed among students and staff. Some attempts were made to remove contaminated soil, but the leaks continued, adding to the load of toxic diesel fuel in the ground and the health risks to the students. The school, which was under the jurisdiction of Indian Affairs, not the provincial educational system, continued to operate. Finally, in 2000, the band declared the school as a condemned building and demanded that a new school be built. One was promised, but no action followed on that promise. Instead, classes were taught in portables set up near the old school - still close to the source of contamination, cold in winter, lacking in facilities to support the basic educational program, and screaming “slapdash solution to a serious problem.”
Angus carefully details the campaign originated and driven by the students of Attawapiskat, and the shameful responses - obfuscations, denials, diversions and outright lies - of the government of the day and the various Indian Affairs ministers, who held the portfolio during the Harper regime.
He also paints a powerful and painful picture of what Indigenous children, particularly those living in remote and isolated communities, deal with. The poverty, lack of resources, lack of housing, schools, community infrastructure, social programs. He speaks about the epidemics of depression, apathy, suicide, that have swept through indigenous communities. The problems faced by Indigenous youth taken from their homes and placed in foster care or in institutions. The endless wasting of talent, potential, and lives that would never be tolerated if these children were white.
The basic truths that Angus speaks are these: that the federal government, regardless of what party currently forms it, has never paid attention to the real needs of Indigenous communities, has never listened to the people it abandoned, has never wanted to spend the money necessary to ensure the most important supports: safe, clean housing; medical care; essential infrastructure; education comparable to that provided by provincial authorities; social programs with a goal of keeping families together, children in their communities, and indigenous cultures strong; economic development to enable communities to be self-supporting. That white settlers stole their land, tried to erase their very existence and gave them nothing but empty promises. That the colonial project of genocide continues to this day. And that the resistance to this project is alive and growing.
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December 17, 2015http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/1...
Review by Christine Smith (McFarlane)
Imagine going to a school that is broken. A school that sits on a toxic field of noxious fumes that makes you and your classmates sick.
Then, the government continually breaks its promise to build a new school and you and your classmates are left to sit in makeshift portables in 40 below weather, where the doors and windows don't shut properly.
This was the reality for students of J.R. Nakogee Primary School in the village of Attawapiskat in Ontario, which is expertly detailed in Children of the Broken Treaty: Canada's Lost Promise and One Girl's Dream by Charlie Angus.
Angus addresses the legacy of Shannen Koostachin and the trail of broken promises left by the government beginning with the assimilationist policies of John A MacDonald up to the neglectful policies of today.
Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/1...
Review by Christine Smith (McFarlane)
Imagine going to a school that is broken. A school that sits on a toxic field of noxious fumes that makes you and your classmates sick.
Then, the government continually breaks its promise to build a new school and you and your classmates are left to sit in makeshift portables in 40 below weather, where the doors and windows don't shut properly.
This was the reality for students of J.R. Nakogee Primary School in the village of Attawapiskat in Ontario, which is expertly detailed in Children of the Broken Treaty: Canada's Lost Promise and One Girl's Dream by Charlie Angus.
Angus addresses the legacy of Shannen Koostachin and the trail of broken promises left by the government beginning with the assimilationist policies of John A MacDonald up to the neglectful policies of today.
Read more here: http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2015/1...
December 24, 2016
This was an uncomfortable book to read as a Canadian. But that's what makes it so important. Angus does an excellent job at highlighting the biggest issues that have faced Indigenous populations in the James Bay area in modern history, and the institutional failures that led up to them. It will open your eyes to a version of Canada that so few of us ever see or are even aware of. Eye opening and highly motivating all at the same time.
November 9, 2017
Having school age kids means that I heard a lot about the Shannen's Dream campaign, and Shannen Koostachin's story. It didn't just grab my kids, it resonated with me too, as a parent, as a white settler, as someone who lives in an urban setting and gets to choose which school I think would be best for my kids. The story of the environmental contamination, and the environmental injustices happening to that community also impacted me. Some of the work I used to do involved advocating for nail salon workers who were also exposed to toxic chemicals regularly. And it becomes so obvious who we value in our society- by looking at what we feel is an acceptable level of risk...
I thought the value in this book was looking at the bigger picture around the fight for a school, both the history but also what was happening in neighbouring communities. I also found it interesting how Charlie Angus remains so humble throughout this story- he played a big role, but he makes sure that he shows that as part of a bigger picture. Most people when they write books do so to play up their role.. but he doesn't seem to need to do that. And I was also surprised at how involved he was at a personal level- that Shannen and her sister lived at his house when they were going to high school. I think I could have done with more personal details- it feels a bit like a research project but every so often you are treated to a moment of experience or observation and I would have liked more of them. By the end you cannot help being disgusted by the Canadian government- and in turn feel ashamed that kids in First Nations reserves across the country are still needing to fight for their right to an education.
I thought the value in this book was looking at the bigger picture around the fight for a school, both the history but also what was happening in neighbouring communities. I also found it interesting how Charlie Angus remains so humble throughout this story- he played a big role, but he makes sure that he shows that as part of a bigger picture. Most people when they write books do so to play up their role.. but he doesn't seem to need to do that. And I was also surprised at how involved he was at a personal level- that Shannen and her sister lived at his house when they were going to high school. I think I could have done with more personal details- it feels a bit like a research project but every so often you are treated to a moment of experience or observation and I would have liked more of them. By the end you cannot help being disgusted by the Canadian government- and in turn feel ashamed that kids in First Nations reserves across the country are still needing to fight for their right to an education.
November 8, 2021
Everyone should read this! Charles Angus, as of 2021, is the incumbent MP for the riding Timmins - James Bay in Ontario, and he is a member of the NDP. In this book, he provides some background around Treaty 9 and its promise of education in return for the ability to take advantage of the natural resources of the area. That education was initially delivered in the form of residential schools; St. Anne's was one of the most horrific ones, with plenty mental, sexual and physical abuse, including a custom designed electric chair to torture children. You can't make this kind of stuff up.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longf...
Then, Charles Angus goes on to describe the end of residential schools, and an extremely frustrating saga to get a real school into a remote community in Northern Ontario, Attawapiskat, a story filled with health hazards, harrowing living conditions, a suicide crisis, and broken promises and bullying from the federal government. It is shameful and infuriating. There is a ray of hope, with the nation wide children movement led by Shannen Koostachin to stand for education rights for ALL children in Canada, that finally got that school built. That is not that much to ask, right?
However, there is still much to do. While one school was built, funding for education remains unequal, and one need only read the news this week to see that reconciliation still needs much work.
Highly recommend this book. Just don't read at night - I was so angry it was hard to fall asleep.
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longf...
Then, Charles Angus goes on to describe the end of residential schools, and an extremely frustrating saga to get a real school into a remote community in Northern Ontario, Attawapiskat, a story filled with health hazards, harrowing living conditions, a suicide crisis, and broken promises and bullying from the federal government. It is shameful and infuriating. There is a ray of hope, with the nation wide children movement led by Shannen Koostachin to stand for education rights for ALL children in Canada, that finally got that school built. That is not that much to ask, right?
However, there is still much to do. While one school was built, funding for education remains unequal, and one need only read the news this week to see that reconciliation still needs much work.
Highly recommend this book. Just don't read at night - I was so angry it was hard to fall asleep.
October 3, 2020
A disturbing but absolutely vital book for beginning to understand the depth and the pervasiveness of the discriminatory and racist actions and non-actions of our Canadian governments. It details the appalling gaps in resourcing of First Nations education and the basic necessities of life (housing and clean water in particular)that our governments, and by extension us, have instituted and maintained. To continue to ignore this issue would be to become complicit in an ongoing violation of human rights and an affront to common decency.
February 13, 2022
Sad chronicle of how often the Canadian government has reneged on their promise to provide schools and teachers in exchange for vast tracts of land. To add insult to injury, huge amounts of money meant for schools was diverted to lawyers, consultants and spin doctors. Mr. Harper, Mr. Chretien and Mr. Trudeau senior all had chances to do the right thing and did not. No wonder FN don't trust the government although these days a lot of us don't either.
March 24, 2020
This book was excellent - and despite the difficulty and absolute upset and tragedy that Indigenous people in Canada (and beyond) are still facing, in particular, the childrn of Attiwapiskat, the author tells of hope and plans for a better future. This book should be added to school curriculums across Canada for young adults - beyond learning more about the history of Indigenous people in Canada, young Canadians will see how they have the power to have a profound impact on how the future plays out.
September 2, 2022
This took me a long time to read, to process. I was in university in the early '00s when most of the events detailed in the book took place. But I didn't know even half of the story. Angus brings together government documents, his experiences as MP, and the stories of the people involved in this fight for basic human rights for Indigenous children, which are all too often denied and swept away.
September 26, 2024
This book was recommended to me by Anne Warner. A really good read, for a good cause. Gives information about the appalling conditions for education of First Nations children in the James Bay region of Ontario. Highlights the efforts of a student, Shannen, to get a better school at Apiwaskesat. Written by NDP MP Charlie Angus.
September 10, 2018
Very difficult to read. It was very disturbing to learn about all the injustice and horrible things that the government has done thru the years. I needed to read this and it should be thought in schools.
April 17, 2019
Heartbreaking. The ongoing discrimination that is leaving children uneducated, unhoused, hungry, and hopeless is just so sad and infuriating because government just can’t or won’t provide the remedies desperately needed. Even through the current federal administration.
November 20, 2019
A must read for all Canadians. Shannen Koostachin's story is an important piece of history to be shared. Book includes an excellent history of the communities along the James Bay coast and the continued discrimination by the federal government.
September 6, 2020
so informative & heart-breaking. 14 years for something so simple to be done. my heart grows fonder for all my moose cree friends that had to endure & still endure so much from the canadian government.
October 6, 2025
A well written account of the Indigenous life in Canada and how the politics of the country failed them. Still an on going fight for education and health but spelled out in an easy way to understand how it came about and why there are still issues.
November 23, 2017
Every settler should read this.
July 27, 2018
One of the most important books I've read this year.
February 27, 2019
The last half is overtly political, but still an excellent summary of the issues, and far more clear-headed than many accounts.
July 13, 2019
A must-read for all Canadians.
August 3, 2019
Details Canada's shame transparently.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews