There are huge first nations communities all over Ontario and Quebec (more so outside the urban areas). I spent my childhood in Ontario around them, learning about their history, their art, their cultures, and the Euro-Canadian cultural genocide against them. My parents made sure of it, as my mother was involved in the arts in that community when I was young.
You are right that they are much more visible and probably treated worse here in the west still. The reservations often moonlight as slums. Poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, and crime are ridiculously prevalent. And the prevailing notion amongst the caucasian redneck morons who make up a large part of the population out here, is that "they need to get over the past, and the government shouldn't give them handouts." Makes me fucking furious to hear such things.
Our country (alongside the Brits) created a cultural genocide, and spent 200+ years effectively annihilating their cultures, their languages, their beliefs, their customs, their value systems, their self-worth, etc. The residential school system is probably the most shameful thing in Canadian history. It's all a fucking tragedy, one of nightmarish proportions. And seeing the lasting effects today, here on Vancouver Island (which is covered in reservations), it makes one want to weep.
Here's a paper you should read about the schools.
http://www.pimatisiwin.com/uploads/291994116.pdf
This bit:
No words for that. None at all suffice.
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