National Revival or National Burden: A Critical Examination of Discourses on Indigenous Birth, Population Growth and Demography

The dominant Canadian narrative of Indigenous fertility has been told largely from the perspective of non-Indigenous Canadians. Politicians, healthcare professionals, demographers, and economists consistently characterize Indigenous fertility as too high and required to conform to Eurocentric norms. This has resulted in a wide variety of colonial interventions into the reproductive lives of Indigenous peoples. This article will provide a brief overview of the ways in which mainstream Canadian society has characterized Indigenous fertility and explore the subjugated discourse practiced by Indigenous nations in Canada regarding their own fertility, highlighted by original research conducted with Anishinaabe people in Thunder Bay.

Where are you From? Reframing Facilitated Admissions Policies in the Faculty of Health Sciences

Understanding that Indigenous learners can face specific barriers or challenges when pursuing higher education, schools and programs within McMaster’s Faculty of Health Sciences have facilitated admissions streams for Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) applicants. The intent of reframing admissions policies is to provide equitable access while aligning with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action, specifically Number 23. This work explores the development of an Indigenous-determined Facilitated Indigenous Admissions Program (FIAP), a self-identification policy that moves away from the politics of mathematical blood quantum to nationhood, community, and seeing the applicant as whole being. Further, it critiques (for example) medical school admissions as biased, in that they often replicate an elite and narrow segment of society. It also addresses how interpretations of decisions like Daniels v Canada, which speaks to the rights of Métis and non-status Indigenous peoples, are communicated or miscommunicated within emerging population groups in terms of rights and their potential relationship to admissions.

Prisoning Indigenous Women: Strength and Resilience in the Face of Systemic Trauma

The overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in the Canadian criminal justice system is an enduring and systemic issue that must be addressed. Over the past 10 years, the proportion of women behind bars has increased by almost 30 percent; for Indigenous women, this number is 60 percent (Office of the Correctional Investigator 2017). Using a critical feminist criminological lens, this paper explores the ways in which colonial legacies, patriarchy, trauma, and systemic victimization inside and outside the criminal justice system contribute to the criminalization and (over)prisoning of Indigenous women and questions the practice of prisoning an already marginalized and oppressed group of people. Drawing on critical feminist criminological research and empirical studies, I theorize a victimization–criminalization–incarceration cycle concept to explain the ways in which societal- , institutional- , and individual-level factors intersect and impact Indigenous women’s journeys through the criminal justice system in tangled and complicated ways. Future research could provide additional insights into the potential value of this concept for policy and practice.