The Ambassadors Magazine - July 2010

Canadian Aboriginal Women (Part X)

By Essam Farag

During my convocation ceremony at the University of Guelph in February 2004, a special person was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws. This woman was Dr. Roberta Jamieson, an Aboriginal lawyer and distinguished Canadian celebrity. Her powerful and moving lecture stuck in my memory and challenged me to write about the great achievements of Aboriginal woman in all aspects of Canadian society - a sector of the Canadian fabric that is seldom recognized. This article is a continuation of the articles presented in the last seven issues, which was dedicated to Dr. Jamieson and all women belonging to minority groups in appreciation for their contributions.

On the historic day of June 11, 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper publicly apologized to native Canadians in the House of Commons for a government policy of taking natives from their families and forcing them to attend state-funded Christian schools up until the 1970s.

This series about Canadian Aboriginal Women, seeks to make the world more knowledgeable about the Aboriginal population and challenge youth around the world to strive to achieve success regardless of the hurdles they might face, with the dream of creating a better society for future generations. Interestingly, the 2001 Canadian Census figure indicate that about 500 aboriginal people (Indians, Metis and Inuits) have doctoral degrees, about 1,500 have Masters' degrees and about 14,000 have undergraduate degrees.

These articles present the profiles of exemplar aboriginal women who are carving the way for the future of their communities. In part X, I present the interesting profiles of: Jaimie Lickers, Lisa Charleyboy, Annie Ford, and Lavinia Clayton.

Jaimie Lickers: A Lawyer with Blakes Law Firm

Photo: Brigitte Bouvier for The Globe and Mail According to statistics, aboriginal women with a bachelors degree earns $2471/year more than a non-aboriginal woman with the same level of education. That gap grows to $4521/year for those with a masters degree. Jaimie Lickers, 28, a third year lawyer with national firm, Blakes, is one of a growing number of young aboriginal women to reap the benefits of higher education. She grew up on the Sixth Nations Reserve, south of Hamilton, and is the first person in her family to go to university, and last week bought her first house. She said, "When I was growing up, I just knew that I wanted a different sort of life for myself. I knew that I was not going to be happy in a small, rural community working a 9-5 job that did not exercise my intellectual abilities." Her education was fully funded. Ms. Lickers credits generous scholarships and support programs from her band and the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, with helping her navigate her way through university successfully. Jaimie obtained her LL.B. at Queen's University, where she also obtained her honours degree in development studies and philosophy. Prior to joining Blakes, she worked on the Ipperwash Inquiry as a researcher and liaison for the Chiefs of Ontario, as a student case-worker at Queen's Legal Aid, and as an executive assistant and senior researcher for the Aboriginal Institute's Consortium. About 14% of aboriginal women in Canada have a university degree, compared to 28% of non-aboriginal women.

The unemployment rate among aboriginal people aged 15 and over rose to 13.9% in 2009 from 10.4% the previous year. At the same time, the unemployment rate of non-aboriginals rose to just over 8% in 2009, from 6% in 2008. A study showed that the major portion of Native job loss occurred in the manufacturing sector (30% decline for Natives compared to just 8% among non-Native workers). A similar decline was noted in construction (16% drop for Natives, compared to 5% for non-Natives). Myron Sparklingeyes, acting executive director of the Oteenow Employment and Training Society which helps connect Native people in Edmonton with jobs said, "It was noted that aboriginal people are the last hired and first fired. It is an unfortunate reality." Lisa Charleyboy tried to become an exception to that trend, originally from Tsilhqot’in (Dene) Raven Clan at William Lake , British Columbia, grew up in the suburbs of Vancouver, has just graduated from York University in Toronto with a degree in professional writing, and moved to Toronto to pursue her career.

Annie Ford lives in Grise Fiord, Nunavut with thousands of other Inuit persons who are interested to watch hockey games with a play-by-play call in their own language, Inuktitut. Last January, she made history with Charlie Panigoniak, with her commentary of an NHL game in Inuit language, for the first time. There are an estimated fifty thousand Inuit living in Canada. Over the past four years, the CBC had broadcast NHL games in Italian, Mandarin, and Cantonese - and succeeded widely with Punjabi, which is also known used for some Toronto Rapters basketball games. Inuktitut is the first aboriginal language CBC has tried, in a one-time experiment in the broadcaster's Hockey Day in Canada this year. The managing director of CBC's northern operations, John Agnew, said, "This is a recognition of the Inuit presence in the Canadian fabric of things, that has been missing."

Regarding the conflicts over aboriginal rights , especially in British Columbia, and who owns the property, the Nisga government, is now developing a land registry to allow people to register their homes. In Gingolx, one of four Nisga'a communities, Lavinia Clayton holds a drawing of relatives made more than 100 years ago, located on the northwest coast of British Columbia, on Portland Inlet, about 170-km northwest of Terrace.

In 1887, a Native delegation that travelled to Victoria from Gingolx to demand that the B.C. government settle the question of who owns the land where the Nisga’a reside, but they the Nisga’a people persisted, in a historic decision, the B.C. and federal governments agreed to grant ownership of 2,000 square kilometres of the Nass Valley in 2000, a spectacular landscape of snow-capped mountains and lava fields. One of the local business women, Lavinia Clayton, said she moved back to Kincolith from Port Edward to open the village’s first bed and breakfast establishment. “Since the treaty, people are looking to start up businesses,” she said. Clayton’s white-sided home, with a tidy, fenced garden of budding lilacs, would blend into a typical suburban setting. But it sits in a tiny village with gravel roads, overlooking the mouth of the Nass River in northwest B.C. On her walls, family photos chart the generations that were denied the right to own, sell, and borrow against the equity in their homes. With the recent 10-year-old agreement allowing private ownership of residential parcels within its villages, the Nisga’a government is now developing a land registry so that Ms. Clayton and others will be allowed to do with their homes as they wish – including selling to non-Nisga’a buyers – unlocking a new generation of home-based entrepreneurs. In a photo published by the Globe and Mail last May, Randy Tait and his grandson Kraig, both members of Nisga, participate in the 10th anniversary celebration of self governance.

Essam Farag, BA Honours (Dalhousie), MA (Guelph) is the Production Editor of the Ambassadors Magazine. Email: essamfarag@ambassadors.net