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Aboriginal
Women and the Economy
Women's work as producers and caregivers of life
is not often recognized in our money-based economy. But certain
groups of women have an especially difficult time fitting
into a market model of economics in which the exchange of
money is the only recognized economic activity. Aboriginal
women face economic discrimination on the basis of gender
as well as race and culture.
In Canada, 42.7% of Aboriginal women live in poverty,1
double the percentage of non-Aboriginal women and significantly
more than the number of Aboriginal men. The average
annual income of an Aboriginal woman is $13,300, compared
to $19,350 for a non-Aboriginal woman and $18,200
for an Aboriginal man.2
As well as being overrepresented among the poor, the economic
contributions Aboriginal women do make are often minimized
and ignored.
But Aboriginal peoples' current economic status in Canada
is a far cry from what it once was. The Original peoples of
the land we call the Americas had fully functioning and healthy
economies before the arrival of the European settlers - a
fact ignored by many.3
Theirs was an economy intimately connected with the land.
The land provided all their needs and they in turn cared for
the land ensuring that it would continue to provide for future
generations. As Dorothy explains in Dorothy's
Story, "We were never hungry." Though life was
not without hardship, they lived economies of balance and
sustenance. Aboriginal peoples' marginalization within today's
economy is tied to their displacement from their land.
When Europeans arrived in the Americas they immediately
recognized the richness of the land around them, quickly imagining
ways to use this land to their advantage. Aboriginal peoples
responded to the settlers in a spirit of sharing. As one chief
explained, "We believed it was reasonable to share what
we had in the hopes that someday the whites might become self-sufficient."4
But the spirit of sharing was never reciprocated. By imposing
European notions of land ownership on the original caretakers
of the land, white colonizers took over the land that was
not theirs to own, displacing Aboriginal peoples in the process.
This displacement destroyed a traditional way of life and
undermined Aboriginal peoples' ability to provide for themselves,
a right which is guaranteed in international laws such as
the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
While Aboriginal peoples understood treaties as sacred arrangements
for equitably sharing the land, treaties were actually used
to get Aboriginal peoples out of the way of settlement and
resource extraction. Today, Canada's economy remains dependent
on the richness of the earth; hydroelectricity, forestry,
agriculture, and mining are major parts of Manitoba's economy.
Much of this economic development continues to have devastating
consequences on Aboriginal peoples, cutting them off from
the wealth that surrounds them. Over the course of her lifetime,
Emma Jane (see Emma Jane's Story)
who lives in northern Manitoba, has seen local currencies
of fish and furs replaced with money. Emma Jane recalls an
elder in her community saying, "We didn't know what poverty
was until welfare arrived." Today unemployment rates
in her community are as high as 85% while community members
are still waiting for full implementation of the promises
made to compensate them for the damages brought on as a result
of hydroelectric dams built in the 1970s.
Economic
globalization which emphasizes corporate economic interests
represents a renewed threat to Aboriginal peoples' lands.
The people of the Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) community
of Northern Ontario have survived various assaults on their
land including mercury contamination of their waters, flooding,
and community relocation. Today the community is mobilizing
against Asian-owned corporations intent on clear-cutting the
remaining forests. On the other side of the world indigenous
communities in the Philippines are also mobilizing as pollution
from a Canadian-built mine continues to threaten the health
of their environment and community. All over the world the
rights of Aboriginal peoples to their own land continue to
be sidestepped in the interests of making money.
Despite both their tragic history and the stereotypes that
surround Aboriginal peoples' experience of the economy, Aboriginal
people have and continue to make tremendous economic contributions.
Aboriginal women in particular are integral contributors to
both the paid and unpaid economy.
The European fur trade in Western Canada (which in many
ways provided the basis for Canada's monetary economy) depended
on the cooperation and assistance of Aboriginal women who
acted as interpreters and guides for the fur traders. Aboriginal
women also participated in trading post operations such as
grinding corn, making moccasins and snowshoes, washing, and
chopping firewood.5
Aboriginal peoples today are involved in developing alternatives
to exploitative economics, for example, Community
Economic Development. In Manitoba, the principles of community
economic development were first articulated within the Aboriginal
community and led to the creation of Neechi Foods Community
Store as well as the Payuk Inter-Tribal Co-op (a housing cooperative)
and the Nee Gawn Ah Kai Day Care. Each of these businesses
is located in Winnipeg's inner-city and provides badly needed
employment opportunities for Aboriginal people who live in
the inner-city.
Aboriginal peoples also make strong contributions to the informal
economy. In his research in inner-city Winnipeg, economist
John Loxley found that 17% of Aboriginal people in the inner-city
earned income by making arts or crafts or engaging in auto
or electrical repair and 35% sold services such as child care,
cleaning, or carpentry. Loxley also found that 72% of Aboriginal
people wanted full-time work and 53% would take part-time
work. This evidence leads him to conclude that:
A balanced view of the Aboriginal community must recognize…not
just the prevalence of poverty, but also a desire to secure
paid employment…an active participation by many in
informal sector activities, an unusually heavy workload
in terms of household labour, contingent upon family size,
and a diversified community in which many Aboriginal people
are employed in reasonably well-paying jobs and in business...6
In
Winnipeg in 1996, Aboriginal women were slightly more likely
to be employed (48.8%) than women in the general population
(47.4%).7 This is noteworthy
considering the multiple obstacles that exist between them and
paid employment. Not only do Aboriginal women often find themselves
in a triple bind working against factors of race, class, and
gender,8
but Aboriginal women bear the brunt of the social dysfunction
placed on Aboriginal peoples. Their work of caring for families,
communities, and the earth is done without any monetized recognition
or support and often on an extremely limited budget, yet it
is an essential part of economic life. Higher than average family
size increases Aboriginal women's caregiving and household demands.
Aboriginal peoples' involvement in the economy comes despite
formidable odds. Many Aboriginal peoples must leave their
homes and communities in order to find work, something no
other segment of the Canadian population is asked to do. Alice
(see Alice's Story) of Ebb and Flow
First Nation was forced to leave her young children behind
in order to pursue training to become a Community Health Representative
in her community. Alice was forced to make the excruciating
choice between caring for her children and being able to feed
them.
Ardyth Wilson of Manitoba's Mother of Red Nations points to
another barrier Aboriginal peoples face in the typical economy,
namely fitting in with white ways of doing things. That includes
work. "You have to subordinate your own value system
in order to be a player," Wilson explains. If Aboriginal
peoples want to be economically viable, they are often forced
to let go of at least part of their culture.
Education levels of Aboriginal peoples tend to be much lower
than those of the general population. In Winnipeg, three quarters
of the Aboriginal population has less than a grade eleven
education and the education system is not doing a good job
of providing for the needs of Aboriginal students.9
Lower education levels restrict Aboriginal peoples to low-wage
jobs with few opportunities for advancement. Many Aboriginal
people coming from First Nations also lack previous work experience,
creating an additional barrier to securing employment. Traditionally,
government training programs have failed to reach the Aboriginal
population and information about jobs is often
unavailable to members of the Aboriginal community.
Racism is another key factor working against aboriginal employment.
One report describes the "subtle yet powerful attitudes
of bias and racism toward Aboriginal people…at all levels
of the [educational] system…"10
But racism is not limited to education systems. Audrey (see
Audrey's Story) who is of mixed
race, recalls being told, "You're just a touch too brown."
Ursula who lives in Dauphin sometimes sees people leave the
restaurant where she works because they don't want to be "served
by an Indian." Many employers are prejudiced against
hiring Aboriginal people, reflecting the racism that pervades
much of our shared life in this country, both personal and
systemic.11
The
higher rates of single parenthood (especially single mothers)
within the Aboriginal community means that the lack of adequate
child care in this country affects Aboriginal women more than
their non-Aboriginal counterparts. Coupled with their over-representation
in low-skilled jobs, child care costs are an often insurmountable
barrier to participating in the wage economy.12
Most of the non-Aboriginal population of Canada is ill-informed
of the barriers faced by Aboriginal peoples in their attempts
to gain economic security. Instead, a common perception of
Aboriginal peoples is that they are a drain on the system.
"As Aboriginal people, we're always seen as problematic,"
explains community activist Mary Richard. However, there are
significant ways in which Canadian society is structured to
benefit economically from the poverty and injustice experienced
by Aboriginal peoples.
Poverty is particularly big business providing jobs for social
workers, police officers, health care workers, policy makers,
community workers, social assistance workers, foster parents,
adult educators, drug and alcohol counselors, consultants,
researchers, prison staff, and lawyers. Millions of dollars
are spent on 'industries' addressing poverty, the vast majority
of which does not reach those who are living in poverty but
rather provides incomes for middle-class service providers
and government policy-makers and researchers. As Leslie Spillett
of Mother of Red Nations sums up, "They're making millions
off our suffering."
A significant percentage of the billions spent by Canada's
Department of Indian Affairs simply pays for a largely non-Aboriginal
bureaucracy, never reaching actual Aboriginal peoples. Community-based
solutions to poverty, which show the best hope for real solutions
to poverty, remain underfunded.13
Lawyers and consultants (many of whom are non-Aboriginal)
also make many millions of dollars off of aboriginal land
claims and law suits arising from residential school abuses.
In contrast, Aboriginal peoples who work for their own communities
often receive no monetary reimbursement.14
Rita who lives in northern Manitoba, spent a decade advocating
for her community before she began to be paid for her work.
Despite the economic gains of some, Canada's 1996 Royal Commission
on Aboriginal Peoples estimated the costs associated with
the economic marginalization of Aboriginal peoples to be $7.5
billion in 1996 - $5.8 billion for foregone production because
Aboriginal people are not able to fully participate in the
economy and $1.7 billion to cope with social problems. Economic
marginalization of Aboriginal peoples is a tremendous loss
to all Canadian society.
Aboriginal peoples are blamed for taxing the system yet the
de facto taxes they have paid and continue to pay through
the appropriation of their lands and extraction of resources
to which they have treaty rights continue to be ignored. Canadians
need to recognize that treaties signed between the Canadian
government and Aboriginal peoples were in fact between two
parties and that only one of these parties has had its treaty
rights recognized: the Canadian government. Recognizing First
Nations as the nations they are and negotiating with them
as the Canadian government negotiates with nations outside
of Canada, would be a first step to moving towards a more
equitable sharing of land and resources in this country.
Canadians must also recognize that our education system does
not accurately reflect the experience of Aboriginal peoples.
Because the history we learn in school is distorted at best,
it becomes our own responsibility to re-educate ourselves
with a more accurate portrayal of history. We can do this
through the formal education system as well as through non-formal
storytelling between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal neighbours.
The marginalization of Aboriginal people is perpetuated through
racist employment and consumptive practices which need to
be changed. Approximately 12% of the Manitoba population is
Aboriginal. In a fair world this would mean that 12% of employees,
employers, and community leaders in workplaces and community
organizations across the province should also be Aboriginal.
We need to do what we can to make sure that this is a reality.
We also need to find ways to support Aboriginal economic development
by making a point of supporting Aboriginal businesses. Neechi
Foods in Winnipeg's North End is an aboriginal grocery store
committed to community economic development in their neighbourhood.
Wa Wa Taik Building Supplies at the Brokenhead Ojibway First
Nation is a supply store jointly owned by nine First Nations
in southeastern Manitoba. These are just two of many Aboriginal-owned
businesses in Manitoba. The Manitoba Government is making
efforts towards supporting Aboriginal businesses through the
Aboriginal Procurement Initiative adopted by Cabinet on May
22, 2002.
Given Aboriginal peoples' past and present experiences within
the typical market and wage-based economy, it's clear that
a so-called healthy economy won't necessarily benefit Aboriginal
peoples. But perhaps the experience of Aboriginal peoples
within the economy can be used as a platform from which to
move towards more comprehensive models of economy, models
that benefit all peoples and the earth, models based on sustainability
rather than exploitation. It's up to all of us to make this
happen.
Many thanks to those whose ideas and stories became part of
this article including Audrey Logan, Alice Mancheese, Dorothy
Settee, Leslie Spillett and Ardyth Wilson of Mother of Red
Nations (MORN), Mary Richard of Thunder Bird House, Cross
Lake Women's Council, Rita Monias, Eileen Woodhouse of the
Burntwood Regional Health Authority, Sharon McLeod of Treaty
and Aboriginal Rights Research Centre of Manitoba (TARR),
Emma Jane Crate of the Cross Lake Education Authority (CLEA),
and Asubpeeschoseewagong community members of all ages. Acknowledgments
also to John Loxley of the University of Manitoba Department
of Economics for his work on "Aboriginal Economic Development
in Winnipeg," published in Solutions that Work: Fighting
Poverty in Winnipeg.
Photos by Jennifer deGroot and Will Braun. Special thanks
to Pimicikamak (Cross Lake) Cree Nation and Asubpeeschoseewagong
(Grassy Narrows) First Nation.
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