12 Jul Real series: Victoria Tenasco

In your opinion, do you believe the education system accurately conveys the history and experiences of indigenous women in Canada?

I feel like I can speak better to what is taught in Quebec. Also in many of my classes at the University of Ottawa we study the Ontario curriculum and look at textbooks. The troubling piece among both provinces is that they would like to believe that indigenous history started at a specific point in time. There’s also more of a push to provide culturally responsive curriculum. This leads to teachers inviting somebody into the classroom to teach fifth graders how to build dreamcatchers or something like that. So for them, that’s like a checkbox and they feel as though they’ve done their part and they’ve taught indigenous culture. What that tells young people is that culture remedies racism. 

So I feel like the anti-racism piece should come first; the accurate history should come first and the fact that colonization has never ended. The way that history is conveyed now has a starting and ending point and that’s it, there are no indigenous people after that and whenever there is it’s spread out in information about culture. Young people are missing out on important information like; “What is the Indian Act and how does that affect indigenous people now?”.  All these myths and stereotypes don’t get addressed either and so all these kids get are arts and crafts. Then they say “Oh I’m good with indigenous people because I made a dreamcatcher.”. I can’t speak on behalf of other provinces but I presume it’s similar across the board.

As a result, there are a lot of Canadians who don’t know a lot of indigenous history. That educational gap is still present and it tells me that there is a denial of racism and ongoing colonization. It’s particularly problematic that there are all these levels of control over education whether it be the provincial government or for indigenous communities, the federal government, and yet there is still a lack of acknowledgement and proper information.

What are some ways society can improve the treatment of indigenous women?

The first step has to do with the treatment of indigenous people in general and going beyond women. But I feel like part of that is letting indigenous people take the lead, especially on our own affairs. It means listening to indigenous people. It means collaboration, partnerships and inclusivity. Engagement that is meaningful and not just the duty to consult. It is also not leading in a way that is taking over existing structures for non-indigenous folks, but it means self-determination. We know what we need so let us do that. It seems easy. It seems like a simple thing and you might be wondering “Isn’t that already happening?”. But when it comes to things like funding for communities we might get funding for a project but the government tells us how to spend it, what we are allowed to do and to write them a report every four months. So to the general public, it seems like we are self-determined but when you look closely you see how the government controls indigenous lives. It’s not even a relationship; it’s still a controlling body over indigenous people. 

It’s really hard to say that out loud because I feel like if I said that on the street I would get attacked either verbally or physically. But that is the reality and I feel like people aren’t ready to hear that because so much of that learned behaviour still exists around disliking indigenous people.

For women, I feel like our prime minister really needs to accept the reality that research shows that there is a genocide against indigenous women and he needs to feel unsettled to say that and think about where that comes from and why it exists. I think that if Canada really wanted a relationship based on reconciliation and acknowledging truth, history and current impacts, then they really need to look at the call to action by the inquiry and the TRC(Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada) final report. I don’t think that’s happening. I think that the government of the day talks about how important those things are, but they don’t deliver. For example, Justin Trudeau promised he would fix the water situation in communities but he hasn’t yet. One of those communities is mine. It is an hour and a half north from Parliament and there has not been clean drinking water for over twenty-five years.