Order of Canada Appointments Update

2018/01/08 Leave a comment

For those that are interested, with the December 2017 Order announcements, I was able to update a number of  the key charts from my earlier The Order of Canada and diversity.

The first charts looks at the overall diversity of 953 appointments, broken down by year, for the last five years. The most notable change is the large jump in the number of Indigenous peoples appointed to the order in 2017 (particularly the December appointments).

Source: Order of Canada announcements

The second chart shows the provincial breakdown compared to the population shares, showing the historic pattern of over-representation of Ontario.

The third chart breaks down appointments by rank and group, showing slight relative over-representation at the officer level for visible minorities and Indigenous peoples compared to the ‘feeder’ group member level.

Source: Order of Canada announcements

While as noted in the article, there are a number of factors that make Order of Canada appointments an imperfect indicator for diversity and inclusion (i.e., nomination driven process, regional balance considerations etc) it nevertheless provides a sense of how the contributions of three employment equity groups are publicly recognized.

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ICYMI: How the federal government is slowly becoming as diverse as Canada

2018/01/08 Leave a comment

Good overview article by Aaron Wherry of CBC on diversity in government, both public service and political appointments. Some of my analysis quoted and used:

Campaigning in 2015, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals promised to “build a government as diverse as Canada.”

That job might’ve seemed nearly done on Day One. Of the 31 ministers sworn in on Nov. 4, 2015, 15 were, famously, women. Five ministers were visible minorities and two others were Indigenous.

A cabinet ratio of 48.3 per cent women, 16.1 per cent visible minorities and 6.5 per cent Indigenous comes close to matching a Canadian population that was 50.9 per cent women, 22.3 per cent visible minorities and 4.9 per cent Indigenous.

But a prime minister and his government are responsible for far more than a few dozen cabinet positions. The cabinet oversees more than 1,500 appointments, including chairs and members of boards, tribunals and Crown corporations, deputy ministers, heads of foreign missions, judges and senators.

On that much larger scale, progress has been made, but the ideal of a government that looks like Canada is still a ways off.

A new appointment process

When the government was sworn in, just 34 per cent of federal appointees were women, 4.5 per cent were visible minorities and 3.9 per cent were Indigenous.

Two years later, according to data from the Privy Council Office, 42.8 per cent of appointees are women, 5.6 per cent are visible minorities and 5.8 per cent are Indigenous.

In February 2016, the Liberal government announced a new appointment process for boards, agencies, tribunals, officers of Parliament and Crown corporations. It specified diversity as a goal and opened applications to the public.

According to the Privy Council Office, 429 appointments were made via that process through Dec. 5, 2017. Of those, 56.6 per cent were women, 11.2 per cent were visible minorities and 9.6 per cent were Indigenous.

A total of 579 appointments — including deputy ministers, heads of mission and appointments for which requirements are specified in law — were made through existing processes. Of those, 43.7 per cent were women, 3.8 per cent were visible minorities and 5.2 per cent were Indigenous.

“Mr. Trudeau has been more intentional on these issues than his predecessors and has made great progress in opening up the process. He has also clearly made great strides on gender,” says Wendy Cukier, director of Ryerson University’s Diversity Institute.

But, says Cukier, the government’s efforts toward transparency and equal opportunity need to be accompanied by “proactive outreach and recruitment as well as retention strategies” in order to “address some of the barriers historically disadvantaged groups have faced.”

Eleanore Catenaro, press secretary for the prime minister, says, “Our aim is to identify high-quality candidates who will help to achieve gender parity and truly reflect Canada’s diversity.”

She says, “We know there is more work to do to achieve these goals, and we continue to do outreach to potential qualified and diverse candidates to encourage them to apply.”

Rigorous reporting of demographic data across federal appointments could presumably drive change — or at least give the  government something to answer for — but most of these numbers have not been made public.

“It is crucial that the government tracks, measures and reports on diversity in all areas,” says Sen. Ratna Omidvar, the founding director of Ryerson’s Global Diversity Exchange. “By doing so, we are able to see where we are making progress and where we need to improve.”

Beneath those top-line numbers, there are a few other points of reference.

According to Global Affairs Canada, the government made 87 heads-of-mission appointments — ambassadors, consul generals and official representatives — in 2016 and 2017. Forty-eight per cent were women and 13.8 per cent were visible minorities. There were no Indigenous appointees.

Senate and court appointments

Andrew Griffith, a former official at the department of citizenship and immigration who has been tracking diversity in federal appointments, has counted 18 women, six visible minorities and three Indigenous Canadians among Trudeau’s 31 Senate appointments.

As a result of an initiative to track judicial appointees, the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs has published a tally of court appointments from Oct. 21, 2016 through Oct. 27, 2017. Between those dates, 74 judicial appointments were made, of whom 50 per cent were women, 12.1 per cent were visible minorities and four per cent were Indigenous.

But that data also suggested the pool of candidates was limited: of the 997 applications received, just 97 applicants identified as a visible minority and 36 were Indigenous.​

At some point, it might be charged that diversity is being inappropriately prioritized ahead of merit or competency — as Kevin O’Leary once alleged of Trudeau’s cabinet. But such suggestions assume that achieving diversity must come at the expense of merit.

Ideally, diversity would also amount to more than a numerical value.

3 benefits of diversity

Griffith, for instance, suggests three potential benefits of diversity in appointments: that it allows Canadians to see themselves represented in government institutions, that it brings a range of experience and perspectives to government policies and operations and that it reduces the risk of inappropriate policies (for example, an RCMP interview guide that asked asylum-seekers about their religious practices).

“It has been proven over and over that more diversity in the workplace leads to better outcomes,” says Omidvar, who is also pushing to tighten the standards included in a proposed government bill that would require corporate boards to report on diversity.

But the most profound impact could conceivably relate to Griffith’s first potential benefit. A nation that values diversity and pluralism might want its institutions to reflect those principles — and institutions that reflect those principles might advance the building of a multicultural society.

“It normalizes diversity,” Omidvar said of public appointments. “At this point, diversity is still sort of not the norm, which is why we focus on it.”

via How the federal government is slowly becoming as diverse as Canada – Politics – CBC News

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Petition calling for more representation of Indigenous people in citizenship guide headed to House of Commons

2017/12/22 Leave a comment

Pretty clear that there will be from public comments at both the political and official levels (see Pathways to Prosperity 2017: Building Bridges between Indigenous and Immigrant Communities):

….Indigenous people from B.C. say changes critical

For Wet’suwet’en and African-American youth Taleetha Tait, changes to the guide are critical.

“It allows our experiences to be acknowledged and not to be judged,” Tait said.

“I feel better about new people coming to Canada and learning the truth and not hiding the wrongs, so there is less ignorance,” she added.

Information about Indigenous people in the citizenship guide is placed in the “Canada’s History” and the “Who We Are” sections.

The first describes the hunting and gathering practices and traditional diets of Indigenous people. For example, it says “West Coast natives preserved fish by drying and smoking.” It also adds “warfare was common among Aboriginal groups as they competed for land, resources and prestige.”

The Indigenous section under “Who We Are”  starts with “the ancestors of Aboriginal peoples are believed to have migrated from Asia many thousands of years ago.” It uses the word “Indian” and “Aboriginal” to describe Indigenous people and says residential school ended in the 1980s.

Ry Moran, the director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, says the guide is not giving newcomers the tools needed to participate in important conversations Canadians are currently having.

“It’s a very good example of a document that presents very poor information on Indigenous people and absolutely needs to be rewritten,” Moran said.

“It repeats the general narrative that there were Indigenous Peoples, there was a brief period of relationship and then goes into the predominant settler narrative. It doesn’t talk about the difficult relationship or serve newcomers well,” he added.

Changes a long time coming says new Canadian

There are two Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action pushing the federal government to revise the information kit for newcomers, the citizenship test and the oath to reflect an accurate portrayal of Indigenous people.

They call on the Government of Canada to change the Oath of Citizenship to observe treaties with Indigenous Peoples.

The guide currently says Aboriginal and treaty rights are in the Canadian Constitution, but there is nothing about treaties in the oath.

Kue K’nyawmupoe came to Canada as a Burmese refugee and is now a Canadian citizen. She says she is relieved the new citizenship guide and exam will be updated and wished she had learned more about Indigenous people when she first arrived.

“That is a very good change that has needed to happen for a very long time, and it would be very useful for Canadians  to recognize the first people of Canada, to be more inclusive,” K’nyawmupoe said.

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Census 2016: Where is the discussion about Indigenous education? John Richards

2017/12/15 Leave a comment

Valid points:

Recently, Statistics Canada released the final batch of results from the 2016 census. It included education statistics for Canadians – including Indigenous Canadians.

Perhaps Indigenous education outcomes are the most important findings in this final batch, and among Indigenous education outcomes, perhaps the most important are high school completion results among young adults. They provide a snapshot of how Canada’s K-12 school systems are performing. For the record, among non-Indigenous young adults (20-24) in 2016, 92 per cent have at least a high school certificate. (Canada is above the overall OECD average.) Among Métis, 84 per cent have completed high school. Among First Nations young adults living off reserve, 75 per cent. But among those living on reserve, only 48 per cent have done so – less than half.

Regardless of race, children who do not complete at least high school are unlikely to gain regular employment and are probably doomed to poverty as adults. Arguably the best way to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and “settler” populations is to close unacceptably large education gaps, starting with high school.

Admittedly, both on and off reserve, First Nations results are five to six percentage points better than in the 2011 census. However, if any other sizable group of young Canadians realized such large high school completion gaps relative to the Canadian average, there would be a hue and cry.

Earlier in the decade, there was. Shawn Atleo, at the time national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), spoke eloquently about the importance of education. Despite some serious disagreements between them, Atleo and then-prime minister Stephen Harper succeeded in negotiating legislation for the organization of reserve schools, plus a large increase in federal funding. Rather than look at the Atleo-Harper agreement as a glass half-full – which could be topped up – most chiefs and Liberal MPs denounced their efforts. Atleo resigned, and Harper let the legislation die when the election writ was issued in 2015.

While I think the legislation was a decent compromise, perhaps I am wrong and the legislation deserved to die. In 2016, the new, Liberal government quietly increased funding for reserve schools in line with the Atleo-Harper agreement, but there is little evidence of urgency on this file from either Ottawa or most Indigenous leaders. Among the 94 “calls to action” of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), only seven concerned K-12 education and only one referred explicitly to the provinces, the order of government responsible for almost all Indigenous students in high school.

It is important to realize that only half the Indigenous population are “registered Indians” entitled to live on reserve, and fewer than half of those “registered” actually live on reserve. Since there are few on-reserve high schools, most children living on reserve attend provincial high schools.

The AFN, the TRC and everyone else involved in K-12 education should be raising a hue and cry with provincial governments and their education ministries. The census shows which provinces deserve the most aggressive prodding. Among the six with large Indigenous student cohorts (Quebec to British Columbia), B.C. stands out as by far the best, Manitoba as the worst. In 2016, 70 per cent of on-reserve First Nations young adults in B.C. had completed high school; in Manitoba, only 36 per cent. In B.C., among First Nations young adults living off reserve, 81 per cent had a high school certificate; in Manitoba, 61 per cent. Some interprovincial differences are due to variations in social conditions – but only some.

As a generalization, both on-reserve and provincial schools are doing things better in B.C. than in the other provinces. Not perfect, but better. While B.C. has no “silver bullet” to close the gaps, it can point to many incremental initiatives over the past quarter-century that, cumulatively, have succeeded.

If the on-reserve high school completion rate rises six points every five years, then in 35 years it will match the rate for non-Indigenous young adults. That’s a long time to wait.

via Census 2016: Where is the discussion about Indigenous education? – The Globe and Mail

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House of Commons gearing up for Indigenous languages in chamber

2017/12/12 Leave a comment

Interesting:

Ottawa is boosting its roster of Indigenous language interpreters in the House of Commons, even as MPs grapple with whether to move beyond the chamber’s two official languages, English and French.

An extra interpretation booth has already been added to the new Commons chamber in the West Block, slated to open next fall as the existing chamber gets a 10-year makeover. From there, specialists will be able to interpret Indigenous languages like Cree and Ojibway, as well as other languages, in real time.

“Given that there are approximately 60 different Indigenous dialects in Canada, grouped in 10 families, the capacity of qualified freelance interpreters in Indigenous languages is extremely limited,” warns an internal briefing note from Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act.

An artist’s rendering of the temporary House of Commons chamber, in the West Block, to open next fall. The new chamber has been fitted with a extra booth that can be used for simultaneous interpretation of Indigenous languages used by MPs. (Government of Canada)

“The [Translation] Bureau is working to develop this capacity and has assigned a senior interpreter to work on assessing and building capacity. Other factors to be considered are related to security clearance, travel (distances and costs are significant), and the ability to assess language skills in Indigenous languages, which is limited, as well.”

The July 2017 document indicates the government is gearing up for a potential linguistic watershed: the first simultaneous interpretation of an Indigenous language ever provided in the Commons chamber.

The issue has been forced by Robert-Falcon Ouellette, Liberal MP for Winnipeg Centre, who gave a speech in Nehiyo, or Cree, in the chamber on May 4. One of every five people in his riding is Indigenous.

Ouellette provided 48 hours’ notice of his speech, but there was no simultaneous interpretation into English and French — prompting him to ask the Speaker of the House to rule on a question of privilege.

Ruled against

Geoff Regan ruled against Ouellette, while acknowledging some MPs might find the situation “woefully inadequate.”

Regan then wrote to the Commons committee on procedure and house affairs, on Sept. 25, suggesting MPs study the issue. The committee has agreed, and is expected to hold hearings early in the new year.

“I want the grandmother who’s sitting in a reserve in her community to be able to turn on a channel and to listen to the Cree language, and listen to the great debates going on in our Parliament,” Ouellette said in an interview.

The Commons chamber has echoed with many languages over the years, including Japanese, Cantonese, Punjabi and Italian, and even a 1983 exchange between two members in Latin and Greek.

Indigenous languages heard in debate have included Dene-North Slavey, Inuktitut, Ojibway, Salishan and Cree, including comments from New Democrat MP Romeo Saganash after the 2011 federal election.

But simultaneous interpretation in languages other than English-French has been restricted to those rare occasions when a foreign dignitary has visited, requiring an extra booth be set up in the crowded chamber.

The Translation Bureau did provide simultaneous interpretations for two Indigenous senators in the Upper Chamber for a 2009 pilot project. And two Commons committees received simultaneous interpretation of Indigenous languages for a total of 14 days in 2016, including during visits to Kuujjuaq and Iqaluit, says the briefing note.

via House of Commons gearing up for Indigenous languages in chamber – Politics – CBC News

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2016 Census Environics Presentation: Release 6 – Education, Labour, Journey to work, Language of work, Mobility, migration

2017/12/11 2 Comments

Really good detailed series of slides on the latest Census release. Not just for policy and data nerds:

via 2016 Census: Release 6 Education, Labour, Journey to work, Language of work, Mobility, migration

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Australia’s citizenship saga resurfaces ‘legacy of pain’ for Indigenous MPs | The Guardian

2017/12/06 Leave a comment

Interesting wrinkle to Australia’s s 44 dual citizenship prohibition for parliamentarians (some Indigenous Canadians have likely also had citizenship issues given lack of documentation):

Requiring Indigenous politicians to prove their Australian citizenship has been an upsetting and anger-inducing process that resurfaced a colonial “legacy of hurt and pain”, two federal parliamentarians have said.

Some were unable to say when or where their family members were born because the Australian government never registered the births or recognised them as citizens.

Linda Burney, a Wiradjuri woman, was not considered an Australian citizen until she was 10 years old, and in her maiden speech described her experiences of “racism and exclusion”.

Being forced to justify her place in Australia again, as the federal parliament sought clarity on everyone’s citizenship status, was “gut-wrenching”, Burney told Guardian Australia.

In an attempt to end the continuing parliamentary chaos over breaches of section 44 of the constitution, all parliamentarians have been required to lodge declarations and evidence of their citizenship. The forms request the date and place of birth for parliamentarians, their parents and their grandparents, as well as any evidence required to show any citizenships to other nations were renounced.

“I have been made to feel quite angry about what I had to go through to find out about my father and his parents,” said Burney. “The only way that we could find out anything was to go to what was left of the old Aboriginal Protection Board records, and there was a document written by my grandfather to the mission manager on Brungle reserve, requesting permission to build a home.

“To go and have to do that, to go to the old Protection Board records, to realise the best they could do was a letter requesting permission to build a roof over their heads, it really stirred up a lot of deep emotions. Some of that was just disgust and an understanding of the way our people were treated.”

Burney said she understood there had to be a “circuit breaker” in the citizenship crisis and she hoped this process would achieve it. “Somehow or other this issue needs to be dealt with, intelligently and sensitivity, because I suspect there are people – not just Aboriginal people – who are going to find out some very difficult family histories.”

The NT Labor senator Malarndirri McCarthy told Guardian Australia there were “moments of outrage” as she sat in her office trying to complete the questionnaire. “Because just a simple act of filling out this document reminded me of how far our country still has to go in recognising First Nations people in our country, and the legacy of previous policies and the impact they still have today,” she said.

“It brings up a lot of hurt, the legacy of hurt and pain, because we reflect on very real circumstances on the past that impact on the present.”

McCarthy was raised on Yanyuwa country, near Borroloola in the Gulf of Carpentaria, to an Indigenous mother and a father of Irish descent. She is a traditional owner of Yanyuwa land and uniquely has declared as much on the parliamentary registry.

“The difficulty for my maternal side of the family is that we don’t know the dates of when my grandparents were born on Yanyuwa country and Garawa country, or even the dates of my mother’s birth, although we’ve always guessed it was around 1950,” she said. “My maternal grandmother we guessed around 1930.

“I don’t know [details for] my maternal grandfather and that’s largely because statistics and birth certificates were just not part of the way of Australia and the policies of the time didn’t include us.”

McCarthy said she had no concerns about an unknown second citizenship in her background, but added the Labor party’s vetting was strict.

Other parties appeared to be more lax. Among those to have been found ineligible is Jacqui Lambie. The former Tasmanian senator is Indigenous, but her father’s Scottish heritage bestowed upon her dual citizenship, overriding her place as a First Nations Australian.

Western Australian senator and Yawuru man Pat Dodson declined to be interviewed but in a speech to farewell Lambie he decried the system which “put to one side” her Indigenous heritage. “It’s an absolute tragedy that our constitution was written by all these white folks that never bothered to consider and incorporate the First Peoples in it,” he told the Senate.

McCarthy said: “This is what the non-Indigenous men of the day, when they wrote this constitution, this is what they determined for this country.

“The question is do we want to change that?”

To change it would require a referendum. Referendums are difficult to win – something Malcolm Turnbull recently cited to justify his total rejection of an Indigenous voice to parliament.

McCarthy said constitutional recognition of First Nations people must come before any changes to section 44. “If there is a genuine approach to [the concerns of First Nations people], and if First Nations people can see and will believe that, then any steps towards changing the constitution would probably follow suit,” she said.

via Australia’s citizenship saga resurfaces ‘legacy of pain’ for Indigenous MPs | Australia news | The Guardian

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Pathways to Prosperity 2017: Building Bridges between Indigenous and Immigrant Communities

2017/11/29 Leave a comment

Not able to attend this conference and session but some interesting presentations available at the links below.

My faves: IRCC presentation on the process of engaging Indigenous peoples in the new citizenship guide (explaining in part why it is taking so long) and the Vancouver and Winnipeg examples of what communities are doing on the ground:

Historically there has been little effort to bring together immigrant and indigenous communities, and to promote harmonious relations between these groups. Rather than gaining knowledge of indigenous history and culture, immigrants have often either been uninformed or presented with misinformation and stereotypes. This session focuses on strategies that can be implemented to remedy this situation and create mutual understanding, including several notable promising practices that are being used in various locations across the country to build bridges between indigenous and immigrant communities.

  • Authentic Sustainable Relationships: A Vancouver Model (Download Presentation) (Video – Coming Soon)Kory Wilson, Executive Director, Indigenous Initiatives and Partnerships, British Columbia Institute of Technology

  • Colonial Persuasions: Sovereignty as the Limit of Reconciliation Education for New Canadians (Download Presentation) (Video – Coming Soon)Kevin FitzMaurice, Associate Professor, Department of Indigenous Studies, University of Sudbury

  • Building Bridges: Promoting a Harmonious Relationship between Indigenous People and Newcomers in Winnipeg (Download Presentation) (Video – Coming Soon)Abdikheir Ahmed, Director, Immigration Partnership Winnipeg, and Maria Morrison, Coordinator, Citizen Equity Committee of the City of Winnipeg

  • Citizenship and the Truth & Reconciliation Commission (Download Presentation) (Video – Coming Soon)Alec Attfield, Director General, Citizenship Branch, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)

via Pathways to Prosperity 2017 National Conference – Canada’s Place in the World: Innovation in Immigration Research, Policy, and Practice – Pathways to Prosperity: Canada

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A guide: Think before you appropriate

2017/11/29 Leave a comment

Interesting guide developed by the Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) project led by George Nicholas of Simon Fraser :

To mark this latest appropriation [Victoria Secret] , I felt it was time to recirculate a guide that was developed by the Intellectual Property Issues in Cultural Heritage (IPinCH) project, a project I led that explores and facilitates fair and equitable exchanges of knowledge relating to heritage.

In response to the frequent instances of appropriation in the news relating to the fashion industry, members of the IPinCH team produced “Think Before You Appropriate: A Guide for Creators and Designers.”

Taking a practical and pragmatic approach by posing a series of questions to consider, this guide unpacks important questions about cultural appropriation. It provides advice to designers and marketers on why and how to avoid misappropriation and underlines the mutual benefits of responsible collaborations with Indigenous artists and communities.

The lead developer on the guide was Dr. Solen Roth, with illustrations by Eric Simons. Roth has done extensive research on Indigenous cultural heritage and commercial products, especially in Canada’s Northwest Coast.

The guide has much broader applications than just fashion. To note just two instances, it’s been used by one book author to help him decide whether to contact First Nations groups to discuss using their mythology in a children’s book, and by a potter who manufactured Japanese-inspired ceramics.

As my colleagues and I have found, many First Nations and Native Americans are willing to share their culture, and are open to conversations with product developers. Reaching out and consulting can lead to fruitful collaborations and mutually beneficial results.

Here are some excerpts from the guide:

The costs and risks of misappropriation:

For you and your company:

  • Discrepancies between your practices, on the one hand, and the values you want to be associated with, on the other
  • Negative campaigns and calls to boycott your business
  • Costs of removing or modifying a line of products, both online and in stores
  • Lawsuits and other legal challenges

For Indigenous artists and communities:

  • Reinforcement of stereotypes that are the source of discrimination
  • Misrepresentation of Indigenous peoples and their cultural expressions, undermining efforts to educate the public about their histories and culture
  • Heightened competition for artists and artisans who have been developing these cultural expressions, generation after generation

The benefits of a responsible collaboration:

To you and your company:

  • Less risk of your products causing offence or harm to Indigenous artists and communities, and less risk to your personal or company credibility
  • Cultural richness and relevance from higher-quality renditions and more culturally informed interpretations of that cultural heritage
  • Opening your business to the market of the artists’ networks and communities
  • Brand association with progressive efforts to counter stereotypes about Indigenous peoples

To Indigenous artists and communities:

  • Opportunities to counter stereotypes to a broad audience and consumer base
  • Opportunities for public education about history and culture at a wider scale
  • Heightened public recognition of community heritage
  • Artist exposure to a wider audience
  • Increased economic resources to support individual livelihoods, as well as community efforts to ensure cultural perpetuation

Before designing your product or garment ask:

  1. Does my project truly require the use of Indigenous cultural heritage?
  2. Am I basing my work on accurate knowledge and representations of Indigenous peoples and their cultural heritage?
  3. Am I sure that my work in no way reproduces stereotypes about Indigenous peoples?
  4. Am I sure that my work does not show disrespect for the beliefs and world views of the Indigenous peoples whose cultural heritage inspires me?
  5. Does my work reflect a deep and original reinterpretation of elements from various sources of inspiration, or does it rely on the copying or imitation of existing Indigenous works or styles?
  6. If I embark on a project that is inspired by Indigenous cultural heritage, what steps will I take to ensure that it leads me to a respectful and responsible collaboration?

via A guide: Think before you appropriate

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Kaleidoscope: How a Ukrainian dance ignited a debate on cultural appropriation

2017/11/28 Leave a comment

Latest cultural appropriation debate but one leading to conversations:

Six young men dance arm-in-arm, stomping as they move in a tight, precise circle.

The men kneel and clap as a dozen female dancers float and swirl and kick across the stage at a recent rehearsal in their Saskatoon studio.

This Ukrainian folk dance is called the Holubka. It’s familiar territory for the dancers and their bouncing, gesticulating choreographer, Serhij Koroliuk.Some have said it’s never OK for Ukrainians to dance powwow. Pewapsconias, founder and CEO of Neeched Up Games, doesn’t go that far — her point is that this particular performance was disrespectful to Indigenous people.

That August night at Folkfest, Pewapsconias and her sister had enjoyed the dances and food at other pavilions, and hoped to do the same at the Ukrainian.

When Kaleidoscope began, Pewapsconias, an active member of the Indigenous Poet’s Society, said everything changed.

Pewapsconias noticed when a blanket containing flags of many immigrant nations was unfolded on stage, neither flag for Treaty Six nor the Métis Nation — the Indigenous jurisdictions on which the City of Saskatoon sits — was represented. The Indigenous dance costumes were partly plastic.

​Pewapsconias noted that for decades, First Nations people were banned from dancing powwow and performing their spiritual ceremonies.

It was part of a massive effort to eradicate Indigenous culture that included residential schools, the pass system and the Sixties Scoop.

She and her family are finally reclaiming their culture, so she was shocked to see non-Indigenous people taking liberties with their traditions.

“It just immediately went from having a fun, OK night to feeling powerless, feeling angry,” she said.

“I feel this way. The people I’m with feel this way. I need to share this on social media and call this out. So that’s what I did.”

Some on social media accused the dance group of using Indigenous culture as entertainment. But others defended the dancers saying critics were too sensitive.

A love letter to Canada

 Koroliuk hasn’t spoken publicly about this controversy until now.

He created Kaleidoscope as a love letter to Canada on his 10th anniversary of becoming a citizen. His dancers have performed this same routine several times in Saskatoon and around the world to standing ovations. He said people of all cultures including Indigenous have thanked the group for reaching out to their culture.

Koroliuk calls himself “a made in Ukraine Canadian.”

He was born just one generation after a genocide called the Holodomor in which millions of Ukrainians were intentionally starved to death by Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

So he was particularly hurt to see the online comments calling him a colonizer and accusing him of cultural appropriation.

“Shocked. The simple answer is I was shocked. So were my dancers,” he said.

“I thought I was contributing in this way and expressing my gratitude but I felt like I was outcasted and saying ‘This is not your place.'”

‘Coming from a place of goodness’

Caught in the middle of the controversy was Don Speidel of Buffalo Boy Productions.Speidel, who has spent his life trying to bridge the gap between Indigenous cultures and the rest of society, offered advice to Koroliuk when the dance was first created more than a decade ago.

Many criticized Speidel for “approving” the dance, but others say Koroliuk took liberties and should have consulted more. Still others saw the dance as imperfect but applauded the effort to honour Indigenous cultures.

Speidel, who has travelled the world conducting ceremonies, including a recent honouring of late-singer Gord Downie in Ottawa, said he doesn’t want to point fingers at anyone — he’d rather figure out ways to bring people together.

He said he understands the frustration of young Indigenous people who are often finding their voice through social media. He also sees the efforts being made by non-Indigenous people, even if the execution doesn’t match the intent.

He said the key is for everyone to respect each other.

“When you want authentic engagement, you might be prepared to take that relationship to a whole other level.”

“It’s really about that idea of coming from a place of goodness.”

Reconciliation begins with conversation

That relationship-building has already begun.

Koroliuk and Pewapsconias met earlier this fall and agreed to take the stage together in Saskatoon on Wednesday.

Koroliuk has put Kaleidoscope on hold. He said he didn’t intend to cause pain but knows that the dance did.

He wants to work with Indigenous experts and hopes they can find a way to honour First Nations people.

“I’m puzzled and definitely I will have to address it differently,” he said. “Many hurt was done to First Nations people. I recognize that. We all live side by side. Let’s be good friends and neighbours. Let’s build this great country together.”

Pewapsconias also wants to learn more. She said she never meant to hurt anyone, but knows the Facebook posts did.

She said reconciliation begins with conversation — sometimes those are awkward, sometimes painful.

“I hope good things come from this and we’re able to leave the table being able to shake each other’s hand and give each other the respect they deserve,” she said. “because we’re all human.”

via Kaleidoscope: How a Ukrainian dance ignited a debate on cultural appropriation | CBC News

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