Canadian History: The Impact of Indigenous Peoples and Red Power

This essay delves into the historical significance of the Red Power movement within the context of Canadian history, specifically focusing on the impact on Indigenous peoples. It begins by introducing the movement, highlighting its roots in the 1960s and its connection to broader social and political changes, including the Quiet Revolution and global rights movements. The essay explores the historical background, including the oppressive conditions faced by Indigenous communities and the government's policies. The paper examines the role of the 'White Paper' and Trudeau's policies. The essay also addresses potential criticisms and considers the audience for this topic. The essay concludes by emphasizing the Red Power movement's lasting influence on Canadian society and the ongoing struggle for Indigenous rights, underscoring its importance in shaping the country's history and future. The essay is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib, a platform which provides all the necessary AI based study tools for students.

Running head: CANADIAN HISTORY
Canadian History
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CANADIAN HISTORY
Table of Contents
Indigenous people and Red Power...................................................................................2
Introduction........................................................................................................................2
Connection with the course...............................................................................................2
New Minutes Heritage.......................................................................................................3
Historical background........................................................................................................4
Expected criticism..............................................................................................................5
Audience Specific..............................................................................................................5
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................7
References.........................................................................................................................8

2CANADIAN HISTORY
Indigenous people and Red Power
Introduction
The overall purpose of the following paper is to focus upon an event that has a
very significant history in the Canadian history. The details of this event and other facts
are very relevant in the Canadian museum also. Therefore, various issues and the
historical facts will be discussed in this paper regarding the overall impact of this event
on the history of Canada (Parrott, 2019). The historical facts of this event will be
detailed in the paper along with the reason for choosing this event. The event that has
been chosen in this paper is the indigenous people and the red power. Various
historical factors regarding this issue will be focused in this paper. Most probable
reasons for choosing this subject is its impact on the future politics of Canada and how
it changed the entire landscape of Canada in the coming years. The situations of the
country and affected persons will also be studied in the paper (Nickel & Snyder, 2019)
Connection with the course
This event is definitely one of the most alarming ones in the context of the
Canadian history. The revolutions that took place in the 1960s had shaken the base of
the society. The question of the black people and their acceptability in the society of
Canada has been questioned several times as a historical fact of Canada (Parrott,
2019). In this situation the red power movement in Canada will be studied and how it
created an influence on the common people of the country like the labors and workers
of different factories. This revolutionary movement had taken place in Canada just at the

3CANADIAN HISTORY
same time when the Quiet Revolution was taking place at Quebec. The attitudes of the
European settlers towards the indigenous people and their capitalist approach in
treating them needed the ultimate protest and the socialists came up in their aid
(Parrott, 2019).
The indigenous people in Canada during the 1960s had been oppressed. During
this time the baby boomer generation asked the people about this scenario to the
society and the government. They had questioned in favor of the rights of the common
people, mostly those poor workers and leaders. This incident is marked as one of the
most remarkable events since the social order had been challenged by the young
students during this time (Parrott, 2019). They stood in front of the line and asked the
regulators of the society as to why the common indigenous people were deprived of all
their civil rights. The Civil Rights Movement in America began to take place with the
similar demands. The student protestors wanted this answer badly and rulers of the
country never had the perfect answer for this question.
New Minutes Heritage
The New Minutes heritage video is very important to understand the impact of
the movements in the Canadian history and how it highlighted the negative aspects of
colonialism (Nickel & Snyder, 2019). This particular question or the event has been
chosen because of several reasons. Most critics believe that 1960s and 1970s were the
ages of revolution in many countries in Europe and America. The Heritage Minute to
this chosen topic is highly needed since it had changed the fortune of the country for
that time and transformed the psychology of the human beings completely (Parrott,

4CANADIAN HISTORY
2019). Amidst these situations, it was very highly needed that the institutionalized
marginalization in Canada was increasing at a rapid speed during that time. This topic
will attract a wide range of the audiences. It is because the audiences will look to think
upon this matter from the positive sides and they will work on it to find the gaps in the
society that actually existed. The social gaps were very clear during that time because
the non-indigenous settlers from Europe took away the lands of the indigenous
Canadians and did not provide them anything to the in return (Parrott, 2019).
Historical background
The progressive concepts of this issue should be found out and then only more
research could be done on the overall influence and impact of this event. This was no
doubt a progressive movement as the critics have identified. This time of protest and
progressive movement was highly needed for this event (Parrott, 2019). The colonialist
approach of the British and French and they way they had exploited the local
indigenous people were completely unethical by every means.
The youth of the indigenous sections of Canada found out that they had been
deprived of all the essential facilities like education and health and all the facilities were
entitled for the privileged non indigenous settlers only (Nickel & Snyder, 2019). The
youth people of Canada saw the fact that they were trying their best to overcome the
discrimination and racism that were imposed against them (Parrott, 2019). This is why
they launched the protests against the colonizers of the country.
The incidents of the decolonization in the regions like Africa and Asia had led the
young people of Canada to apply the fore upon the colonizers to get their civil rights.

5CANADIAN HISTORY
Otherwise, this would have proved to be a fatal decision and lives of huge number of
people would have been utter jeopardy.
Expected criticism
The historical accounts of this suggest that the term ‘Indian’ had been applied to
the indigenous people of Canada (Parrott, 2019). Therefore, it has also been recorded
in the Canadain historical articles that these indigenous Canadians had been oppressed
to the maximum limits and their lands had been captured. The abundance of fur trade
had been utilized by the capitalist settlers in Canada and their conditions had been
completely exploited. The indigenous people of Canada had to live in some situations
that were mostly unacceptable as the modern Canadians would have felt. The
historians had made surveys on some situations and they found all the negative
outcomes in this scenario (Parrott, 2019). The indigenous Canadians had very limited
access to the employment, opportunities to get education and health facilities within
their own countries. The mortality rate was very low and most indigenous Canadians
had to commit suicide of these reasons. The welfare system for the people of Canada
had been revamped lately but this system was of no use for them. The indigenous
people of the country were on the lowest level of economic assistance (Nickel & Snyder,
2019).
Audience Specific
After the ending of the Second World War, Canada had taken up the system or
procedure of ‘growth at all costs’. Undoubtedly this was one of the capitalist ideas that
had completely shaken up the indigenous communities. The Canadian non indigenous

6CANADIAN HISTORY
began to cut down the trees and focused on deforestation (Parrott, 2019). This was a
hammer blow for most of the indigenous Canadians in terms of their fur trades. The
extraction of the resources had been permitted by the court of Canada that also wanted
to increase the supply for the overall growth of the southern industry (Parrott, 2019).
Thus it is very clear upon analyzing the fact that these non indigenous Canadians had
completely destroyed the natural resources. The lands were flooded and rivers were
polluted as a consequence.
Amidst all these complications within the society, the concept of the ‘Just Society’
came to the governing style of Canada by the Prime Minister Trudeau. He wanted to
establish the proper democracy and wanted everyone to have a say in this system. This
system had encouraged most of the indigenous Canadians to speak up for their rights
and massive protests began to go on. Trudeau also focused on the debates so he could
deal with all the issues within the society (Parrott, 2019). This process would definitely
help in the development of the entire scenario.
Unlike the previous Prime Ministers, Trudeau always wanted to go through the
conflicts so he could come to a proper conclusion regarding this. As the protests were
going on, the “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969” had
been enacted and this focused on the overall well being of all the indigenous Canadians
(Parrott, 2019). This was definitely a turning point in the Canadian history that
acknowledged the rights of the Canadian indigenous people. The White Paper on
Indian Policy gave them the rights to protest against the things they were deprived of.

7CANADIAN HISTORY
The bold attempt of Trudeau proved to be completely successful at this juncture.
The advent of Marxism and socialism was somewhere down the corner in this context of
event because the student protestors gathered the courage of protesting to gain their
rights in the society. This helped all Canadians to get their collective rights in their
country (Nickel, S., & Snyder, 2019).
Conclusion
The conclusion of the paper can be drawn by saying that this is one of the major
events in the Canadian history that took place during the 1960s. The indigenous people
of Canada did not get any facilities and the Red power had influenced all these poor
workers and labors of the country from the indigenous section to revolt against that
system. After many efforts the government led by Trudeau listened to their voices and
they had managed for the appropriate measures that had to be taken as a necessity.
The White Paper on Indian Policy had been passed so all the Canadian people could be
treated in the similar manner irrespective of their ethnic background. Therefore, this
event should be placed in the Heritage Minute.

8CANADIAN HISTORY
References
Emily, R. (2018). Heritage Minutes. In N. Thomas (Ed.), The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Retrieved March 26, 2020, from
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/heritage-minutes
Nickel, S., & Snyder, E. (2019). Indigenous Feminisms in Canada | The Canadian
Encyclopedia. Retrieved 28 March 2020, from
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/indigenous-feminisms-in-canada
Parrott, Z., (2019). Indigenous Peoples In Canada | The Canadian Encyclopedia.
[online] Thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Available at:
<https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people> [Accessed 28 March
2020].