Candace Maracle: Hi, everyone. My name is Candace Maracle and
I'm a former graduate of Ryerson University School of Journalism.
I got my masters about five years ago. And since then I've
had the opportunity to produce for CBC Radio and As It Happens
and The Current, and I've also reported for APTN's national
news. But some of the work that I do that I find the most
rewarding is my work in documentary filmmaking. I've had
two feature documentaries, and they've both done really, really
well for themselves in the film festival circuit. And I get
invited to universities to do screenings and director's talks
all the time in front of students like you. My first
documentary was called the Creator's Game, and it was
actually my master's thesis. It centered around a headline
making issue in 2010, about a men's lacrosse team called the
Iroquois Nationals. And they were a team that traveled on
their nation zone, issued passports, their Haudenosaunee
passports. And actually at the time, they were denied travel,
so they were forced to forfeit the world lacrosse
championships. Now at the time, I found that mainstream media
had done such an inadequate job of covering it, that it
infuriated me. Here's why. The Iroquois people as they're known
by the French, or the Haudenosaunee as we refer to
ourselves, and there's also my nation have never relinquished
our sovereignty, which basically means that we don't consider
ourselves Canadian or American, but Haudenosaunee. And we also
reserve the right to travel on our nation's own documentation.
Here's my Haudenosaunee passport that actually used to travel to
Switzerland and to Prague with the team. Our right to mobility
is enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples. That sounds like a mouthful, and
we'll get more into that a little bit later on. We're also
the creators of Canada's national sport, lacross.
Tadodaho Sid Hill: I think there were some court decisions where
some of the east coast,east coast natives there went to
court and trying to go within the land rights, action, some of
the land, and the judge says, Well, you speak your language?
Can you sing your songs? Do you do your ceremonies? I says,
well, no, no, no. He says well, then you are just you're just a
descendant of these people. And you're no longer a people.
Candace Maracle: Therefore, it's both an issue of nationhood and
the pride to represent ourselves on the global scale, but it's
also our right to do so. Mainstream media at the time had
reduced these issues, our issue of nationhood and sovereignty,
to tobacco, casinos, and taxation. Now, this does less to
inform the Canadian public, but rather triggers hostility and
rage. You know, those little comments that are left at the
end of articles, posted anonymously, those racial
tirades that are rife with stereotypes. Well, they kind of
hurt. Lack of context in mainstream media is probably the
biggest issue that I have when they cover our stories. When
there's no backstory, it really hinders the Canadian public's
ability to understand the issue in any comprehensive manner. And
to paraphrase a quote that I read earlier, the
decontextualized Indian then becomes a problem Indian, the
Indian who misappropriate, the funding the homeless, Indian,
the drunk Indian, I mean, the list goes on and on. All of this
makes it easier for the Canadian public to jump to quick
assumptions and to reach generalizations about us. But
here's our opportunity to do better. Journalism is an act of
character. It can be both exploitive, or it can be
insightful, and that onus rests on our shoulders. We need to
challenge these assumptions and these prejudices. Call to Action
86 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission said
journalism schools and media schools do better to educate
their students on Aboriginal history, the legacy of
residential schools, Aboriginal treaty rights, the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,
but also the frayed relations between Aboriginal peoples with
the crown because of a history of broken promises. That's why
this course is so important to me, not just professionally, but
also personally. You see, all four of my grandparents attended
the residential schools, and that's directly impacted my life
today, this many years later. It's the reason why my mom was
too ashamed to teach my sister on Iron native tongue, even
though she's spoken, and it's why that I'm forced to learn an
endangered language, of which there are only 4000 speakers,
now as an adult, and it's also why my mom will never be here to
hear me speak it. I know it's not an easy task and that
Indigenous issues are really complex. But I'm hoping that I
can help in some way by sharing with you what I know about
reporting in Indigenous communities.