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Introduction and Context

This snapshot reviews the literature related to aboriginal people with disabilities using a human rights lens and it suggests further avenues for research, community development and for developing partnerships among aboriginal people and people with disabilities. It was carried out in an effort to assess the existing systemic and social infrastructure available to aboriginal people with disabilities, to highlight the current gaps and major issues within the system, and to foster responsive and inclusive practices that may support the meaningful realization of rights by Aboriginal people with disabilities.

There are, in fact, many similarities and parallels between the experiences of Aboriginal Canadians and Canadians with disabilities (and of course there is overlap between the groups), and there is therefore a lot of common ground. Both groups have experienced institutionalization (and the high levels of violence and abuse that often occur within institutions), eugenics, limited access to appropriate education and support services, barriers to accessing health care services, high degrees of poverty, and the resulting lack of an adequate standard of living. Both groups have also been type-cast and subject to stereotypes (both in daily life, and in film and mass media), and both have been actively working to challenge these stereotypes and to resist the feeling of shame that have been imposed on them by society at large. Though two distinct and yet overlapping groups, Aboriginal Canadians and Canadians with disabilities also both resist and challenge the notion that they need to be “fixed”, and both groups have put forward sustained efforts to fight for their rights, to obtain the resources they require and are entitled to, and to truly exercise the right to self-determination. In short, both groups want to “live well” and both groups are fighting for justice and equality. In fact, the oft heard motto of the disability movement, “Nothing about us, without us” has been adopted by many aboriginal groups and leaders due to its obvious relevance and importance for this group.

Hope’s Story – one example and one story among many

In the report “A First Nations Woman with a Disability ‘Listen to what I am saying!” (Durst, Morin, Wall, and Bluechart, 2007), we hear Hope’s story and, through her, we are provided with an understanding of the challenges that aboriginal people with disabilities face. Hope’s resilience and courage are evident throughout her story and they are demonstrated through her efforts to bring awareness to the issues faced by aboriginal persons with disabilities.

Hope grew up in northern Saskatchewan. At the age of 13 she had a serious accident that left her with quadriplegia. She was playing with some children in her home community and a child shot her, resulting in spinal cord damage. Hope had to travel 400 kilometers to the nearest hospital and, during her long recovery, her family and friends never came to visit her. As a result, Hope still feels the pain of abandonment. She was eventually moved back to her community, but shortly after she was asked to move to an urban community for medical reasons and for support.

Hope was placed in several foster homes as a child and teenager. While “in care”, she suffered verbal abuse from the other children, as well as sexual abuse. She later went to university where she again became a victim of sexual abuse. She obtained her Bachelor of Education Degree, but when the time came to find employment, she was unable to get hired because of her disability. Hope therefore lived on financial assistance for her entire adult life and she aptly describes the poverty that she has experienced due to her disability. Hope also recounts that, for the first 10 years following her accident, she contemplated suicide and she slept with a knife in her bed. She says that people with disabilities experience chronic loneliness and she bravely shares the emotional distress that she experienced as a result of being ignored when people would approach her and her friends and would only speak to her friends, asking questions about Hope as though she weren’t there.

Later, Hope gave birth to a daughter. She describes how the hospital workers tried to take her baby away from her, telling her that she couldn’t care for her own child. The hospital workers also parked her wheelchair outside of her hospital room making it difficult for her to respond to her baby when she cried. Yet, through all of Hope’s challenges, pain and grief, she has demonstrated amazing resiliency and awareness. She talks about human contact and the great importance it has on one’s wellbeing. She has reached out to other people with disabilities and she has included her daughter in her relation-building efforts. She and her daughter bring groceries for other people with disabilities who can’t get out, for example, and they spend time with them watching TV, having coffee, helping with dishes and cleaning. Hope also explicitly advocates for First Nations people with disabilities. She challenges the First Nations governments and Band Councils, and she speaks out against the frustrating jurisdictional battles that occur between the federal and provincial governments when taking responsibility for First Nations people with a disability.

Hope’s story demonstrates the concrete impact of policies, prejudices, and programs (or the lack thereof) on the lives of aboriginal people with disabilities in Canada.

“Travels of a Metis through Spirit Memory around Turtle Island, and Beyond”

Story of Tecumseh by David T. McNab (Walpole Island Heritage Plaque, October, 2013)

From an early age, Tecumseh, long celebrated as a great Chief and a powerful warrior, was an Indigenous human being who had a disability. His right leg was shorter than the other. Tecumseh built a wooden box (with a hole and a rope which he tied to the box) which he used regularly to be able to mount his horse when both travelling and riding into battle, or otherwise. As a human being, Tecumseh was able to accommodate his disability and become an outstanding Indigenous person whose vision and memory would live on after his travels in the natural world were over (I am very grateful to Eric Isaac for giving me permission to tell this story given my own disability since after my stroke my right leg is shorter than my left).

The words on Tecumseh’s plaque:

Tecumseh was the Great Leader of the Confederacy of Nations, a war chief, a statesman and an orator, who struggled to protect the Confederacy’s sovereignty over its lands and waters. Tecumseh fought valiantly in the War of 1812 and in the Battle of the Thames. It is believed that Chief Oshawanoe retrieved Tecumseh’s remains hidden near the battlefield and placed them on St. Anne Island. Chief Joseph White, his stepson Silas Shobway, and the Walpole Island Soldiers Club cared for Tecumseh’s bones through the generations. Overlooking the lands and the waters of Bkejwanong Territory, Tecumseh’s remains were placed in this cairn on August 25th, 1941. This final resting place was rededicated on October 2, 2013 in honour of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. Tecumseh’s spirit, his memory, and his legacy live on today. (Tecumseh Plaque, unveiled on October 2nd, 2013, Walpole Island First Nation)

Tecumseh, a disabled human being, had become Indigenous in both body and in spirit and in our memory. His spirit, his memory, and his legacy lives on today.

Context: The Numbers and the Issues

While a substantial body of literature exists that analyzes statistical data concerning aboriginal Canadians more generally, there is relatively little work addressing the situation of aboriginal Canadians with disabilities.

From the broader literature, we know that approximately1.4 million people within Canada (approximately 4% of the total population) identify themselves as aboriginal (Statistics Canada, 2013),This number includes individuals from more than 600 First Nations/Indian bands, many of whom speak one or more of the reported 60 aboriginal languages. The data also shows that the aboriginal population is younger than the non-aboriginal population and is growing. It increased by 20.1% between 2006 and 2011, compared to a 5.2% increase for the non-Aboriginal population during the same time period (Statistics Canada, 2013).

Important data also exists regarding the significant disparities in living conditions and well-being that exist between Canada’s aboriginal population and the non-aboriginal population. For example, several studies (see, for example, Beavon & Cooke, 2010; or Borrows, 2003) have applied First Nations data to the Human Development Index created by the United Nations (which evaluates living conditions based on measures such as life expectancy, per-capita income, educational attainment, and health indicator), and all have found that, while Canada consistently ranks in the top 10 in the world in “human development”, First Nations communities would rank in the 70s on the scale, suggesting living conditions and quality of life similar to “developing countries” such as Peru.Such living conditions are characterized by poor quality housing and overcrowding (Bryant, 2004; First Nations Centre, 2005; Office of the Auditor General, 2003), lack of access to clean water (Neegan Burnside, 2011), and an unemployment rate 2 to 3 times higher than the national average (HRSDC, 2013). The chronic poverty experienced by a disproportionate number of indigenous Canadians has been described as “pervasive” (National Council on Welfare, 2007) and “extreme” (Palmater, 2011), and indeed half of First Nations children in Canada currently live below the poverty line (Wilson & Macdonald, 2013). Indeed, even INAC’s own Community-Wellbeing Index (CWI) analysis indicates that there has been no real improvement in community development and well-being since 2001 (INAC, 2010). What’s more, the percentage of young Aboriginal Canadians who do not complete high school is still twice that of the general population (Wilson & Macdonald, 2010), and the percentage of aboriginal people who do complete a university degree is about four times lower than of the national average (Loppie Reading & Wien, 2009), two factors which further compound and reinforce the existing cycle of poverty and unemployment.

Under these conditions it is perhaps not surprising that health indictors for aboriginal Canadians are equally bleak. First Nations people live 5-7 years less than the Canadian average, and they experience a high rate of diabetes (3 times the national average), tuberculosis (8 to 10 times higher than the Canadian norm), increasing rates of HIV/AIDS infection, and difficulty accessing health care (Health Canada, 2013). Mental health concerns are also a very serious issue for our aboriginal population, as studies indicate that depression is twice as common among the indigenous population (First Nations Centre, 2005) and the suicide rate is also extremely high (reaching five to seven times the national average for young people living on reserve) (Canadian Institute of Child Health, 2000).

This data clearly demonstrates the significant barriers and challenges faced by Canada’s aboriginal population – a situation that has been called “dire” and “a crisis” (Amaya, 2011, 2013). Despite these barriers and their already significantly disadvantaged position, the limited data available clearly indicate that aboriginal Canadians with disabilities face even greater challenges and compounding barriers, as a result of their intersecting experience as indigenous persons and persons with disabilities. And, though statistics relating to this specific population are much scarcer (both nationally and internationally1), the limited data that is available certainly sheds light on the compounding impact of disability and aboriginal status. Furthermore, many aboriginal people with disabilities experience further disadvantages and barriers due to gender imbalances and/or as a result from living in remote communities, (Demas, 1993).

Note #1
The World Report on Disability, produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank in 2011, includes very little information on indigenous persons with disabilities, while the State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples Report (ref) notes only that indigenous persons are more likely than non-indigenous persons to have a disability, for example.
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Global trends indicate that indigenous peoples around the world are more likely to experience disability than are non-indigenous populations. For example, in Latin America, available statistics for seven countries (Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Uruguay) indicate that there is a higher rate of disability among indigenous persons than the rest of the population (World Health Organization, 2011), while in Australia about half of indigenous adults reported a disability in 2008 (AIHW, 2011). This trend is also reflected in the Canadian context.

A Human Resources and Skills Development of Canada Report (HRSDC, 2007) suggests that 30 percent of aboriginal adults in Canada report a disability – almost twice the national rate. For aboriginal children and young adults (aged 15-34) the disability rate is, in fact, three times the national average (Hanvey, 2002). And, while the reasons for these increases have not been well-researched, some likely causes include some of the very issues already discussed, such as; higher levels of poverty; poor living conditions; increased exposure to environmental degradation (including the impact of large projects such as dams or mining activities); the higher risk of being victims of violence; and difficulty accessing appropriate healthcare and social services. The 2009 edition of the State of the World’s Indigenous People’s Report, on the other hand, highlights mental health issues and the prevalence of diabetes among indigenous persons as leading causes of disability (United Nations, 2009).

Due to the intersectional impact of aboriginal status and disability status, this disproportionately large population of aboriginal Canadians with disabilities faces massive barriers and challenges in accessing appropriate educational opportunities, accessible transportation, housing, support services, employment, recreation, and cultural opportunities (Demas, 1993). As a result, only 3.9 percent of aboriginal people with disabilities complete university, as compared to 5.8 percent of aboriginal Canadians without disabilities (Statistics Canada, 2006). Levels of employment are similarly lower among aboriginal adults with disabilities (41 percent of such adults are employed versus 61 percent of aboriginal adults without disabilities). Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the average household income among aboriginal adults with disabilities was only 85 percent of that of aboriginal adults without disabilities ($16,755 compared to $19,800), and the level of poverty that they experienced was thus greater. In comparison, while 14.4% of all Canadians who have a disability lived in poverty in 2006, that number rises to 33% for the population of aboriginal peoples living with a disability (Statistics Canada, 2006).

Indigenous people with disabilities in Canada also experience disproportionately high rates of homelessness (Durst, Bluechardt, Morin, & Rezansoff, 2001) and face many barriers when attempting to access local and/or culturally appropriate support services. In remote communities, mobility and accessibility are often issues, and resources and services are often not available for someone with a disability (Demas, 1993). As a result, many aboriginal people with disabilities have to move away from their family, community and culture in order to access services and supports What’s more, even when individuals do relocate in an effort to access these, and/or if they live in an urban centre, many are still marginalized and excluded from such services due to jurisdictional issues, discrimination and/or due to the lack of culturally relevant services available to them.

One consequence of the lack of adequate support for children “in need” within First Nations’ communities is that there is now a disturbingly high percentage of aboriginal children in state care, and this includes a high percentage of aboriginal children with disabilities. Indeed, more than 40% of all children “in care” are of aboriginal decent (Blackstock & Tocme, 2005), despite the fact that Aboriginal Canadians make up less than 5% of the total population. Across Canada, there are now three times as many aboriginal children “in care” (most of whom are not placed within their home communities) than there were children in the residential schools at the height of their use (Blackstock & Tocme, 2005).

Qualitative studies looking at the experiences of families of aboriginal children with disabilities have shown that many such families live in fear of having their child taken away from them. For example, in Urban Aboriginal Families of Children with Disabilities: Social Inclusion or Exclusion? (Durst, 2006), one grandmother clearly states, “Every time they ask for things the kid’s gone – he’s put into permanent care and you never see him again, or put into foster care” (p. 33).

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