Circles of Disadvantage: Aboriginal Poverty and Underdevelopment in Canada [American Review of Canadian Studies ARCS]

"Again last year, the United Nations related Canada the best country in the world to live in. This assessment is based upon a country's Human Development Index. Even so, not everyone in Canada enjoys the advantages of living in a highly developed country. In November 1996 the Canadian government published the four-thousand-page, $58 million Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP 1996), a report that reviewed and made recommendations about a wide range of social and economic issues related to Canada's Aboriginal peoples. The Globe and Mail's John Gray, summarizing some of the highlights of the report relating to the condition of natives in Canada, referred to what the report calls "an endless circle of disadvantage - family violence, educational failure, poverty, ill health, violence" (Gray 1997). This paper will briefly describe some of the social and economic conditions of Canada's Aboriginal peoples, review the major factors contributing to such conditions, and explore some initiatives being undertaken to interrupt this endless circle of disadvantage," one experienced by so many Aboriginal people in Canada."