Canada’s Welcomers Building Relationships Between Newcomer Settlement Organizations and Indigenous Organizations and Peoples

Multiculturalism, part of Canada’s national identity, continues to integrate newcomers into mainstream society, which excludes Indigenous people. If Indigenous people became the welcomers of Canada by replacing multiculturalism with Treaties, they would be placed at the forefront of Canada’s national identity and acknowledged for being the First People of Canada rather than ignored. The purpose of my paper is to argue that settlement services should have to build relationships with Indigenous organizations and people in order to build relationships between Indigenous people and newcomers, that would allow newcomers to be better informed about Canada’s history and Canada’s Indigenous people. Within my research I will be critically analyzing six settlement organizations that have begun the process of building these relationships and present the benefits and challenges to building these relationships as well as what their next steps are for moving forward with this relationship. My findings will help to present recommendations for the government of Canada to assist in building these relationships. Keywords: Indigenous, newcomer, settlement services, decolonization, Indigenous resurgence, multiculturalism, colonialism, settler colonialism