Canada is not a better country now than it was before. Women and First Nations have not been treated as equal human beings in the past and certainly not now. Millennials and Generation X are at an unfair disadvantage moving forward. The treatment of women and First Nations and the growing debt for future generations shows that no, Canada is not a better country than before. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first reason I am convinced that Canada is not a better country is its treatment of women. There are many things wrong in the world of women. Violence, sexual harassment, emphasis on being perfect in the eyes of the world, imbalanced wage gap are just some of them. First of all, the unfair wage gap. Data from Statistics Canada, from 2011, shows that the gender wage gap in Ontario is 26% for full-time workers. This means that for every dollar a man earns, a female worker earns 74 cents. “Many girls and women don't go into these fields because no one has ever told them they have the potential to do well in non-traditional fields.” This is a quote from Janet Ruth Heller, Ph.D. Because of the wage gap, women continually face discrimination and harassment in the workplace, ranging from being kept away from leadership roles to not being adequately accommodated or supported during pregnancy. Men are rewarded for being a good and strong leader, while women are seen as bossy. And then there's the sad reality of how women are treated, even as they enter typically male-dominated fields and roles. Sexual harassment is a major issue that can prevent women from entering fields and spaces traditionally held by men. And the statistics are worse for women who find themselves at the intersection of multiple forms of discrimination, such as women of color, transgender women, and women with disabilities. Sexual violence and harassment are at an all-time high, 1 in 4 North American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Over 80% of victims of sexual crimes are women. 83% of disabled women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime. 57% of Aboriginal women in North America have experienced sexual abuse. And 60% of victims of sexual abuse and/or assault are under the age of seventeen. Seventeen percent of girls under the age of sixteen have experienced some form of incest. 80% of sexual violence incidents occur within the home. According to the Justice Institute of British Columbia, one in 17 women are raped, 62% of rape victims have been physically injured, 11% of women have suffered physical injury as a result of sexual assault. Only 6% of sexual assaults were reported to the police, which shows that out of 100 incidents of sexual violence, only 6 would have been reported. Research has found that more than 1 in 3 women have experienced sexual violence. Only 1-2% of “rape”-related sexual assaults are reported to the police. Women have been conditioned to believe that it is their fault because they are worth less than men. Women are still subject to disproportionate and high rates of gender-based violence and harassment, including sexual assault and intimate partner violence. These are the reasons why women are not treated better, now and in the foreseeable future, than in the past. Peoples have been enslaved to the will of those who are racially preferred. My first proof that Aboriginal people don't cometreated as equals is the fact that Canada had residential schools. The first residential school opened in 1840 and the last residential school, in Canada, closed in 1996. During the 19th century, the Canadian government believed it was responsible for the education and care of Aboriginal people in Canada. The Canadian government is responsible for the religious influence of the Christian Churches and missionaries. The government thought the best chance for success was for the Aboriginal people to learn English and adopt Christianity and Canadian customs. Canadian residential schools predicted the loss of a culture. There was less participation in ceremonies or the traditional family life created due to the loss of culture. There is a study that shows that over 6,000 children have died while attending residential schools. Over the years, students lived in substandard conditions and suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse. The unfortunate students who had to attend residential schools rarely had the opportunity to see examples of normal family life. Most children went to school for 10 months of the year, away from their parents, without ever seeing them; some stayed all year. This created an inability to learn how to function in society, so when parents didn't know how to parent because they weren't socialized into everyday life. All of the children's correspondence was written in English, which many Aboriginal parents could not read. Brothers and sisters attended the same school and rarely saw each other, as all activities were segregated by gender. The second reason Aboriginal people are still not treated equally is that the government is unable to recognize the massive loss that results. Aboriginal people have faced generations and generations of suffering. In 1969, Jean Chretien, a Canadian politician who was also the 20th Prime Minister of Canada, created the White Paper. This was an act to dissolve the Department of Indian Affairs and transfer responsibility for Aboriginal people to the province. Aboriginal people would lose their Indian status and be treated like any other minority. They would lose their land claims and reserves. Not only had the government initially taken their lands away, but the Aboriginal people were then threatened with further land losses. The government did not want to address the “problems” that were arising due to Aboriginal peoples' struggle for equality, so they chose not to. The third reason I believe First Nations are not treated equally with the respect they deserve as human beings, the James Bay Project. In 1971, Hydro-Québec and the Quebec government initiated the James Bay Project. The James Bay Project is a hydroelectric power development on the eastern shore of James Bay. Over the course of two phases, Hydro-Québec and the Quebec government built eight power plants. This would have allowed the pollution-free production of a significant portion of Quebec's electricity. That said, however, the project has also greatly disrupted the environment and the indigenous communities living in the area. These effects are still felt today. Phase 1 of the James Bay Project had cost $13.7 billion and required massive diversions of water from the Eastmain, Opinaca, and Caniapiscau rivers into dammed reservoirs on La Grande Rivière. This increased the average flow rate of La Grande Rivière from 1,700 to 3,300 m3/s. It was in February and May 1984 that the third and fourth power plants were completed. This concluded Phase 1 of the project. The problems created by these power plants and their construction were very serious. The project flooded 11,500 km2 of wild land that had been home to the Cree and Inuitby James Bay. When the area was flooded it created mercury contamination in the fish. This was due to mercury being released from decaying vegetation in the tanks. Mercury poisoning had contributed to the deaths of approximately 10,000 caribou. Vast wilderness areas were flooded and forests incinerated in an attempt to clear away the debris. When Quebec Prime Minister Robert Bourassa announced the James Bay project, it was opposed by the Cree, who had not previously been notified. The dispute culminated in 1975, with the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. The Northern Quebec Agreement was the first treaty signed with Aboriginal people in over fifty years. In the agreement the Cree, Inuit and Naskapi agreed to give up their land claims for a return of $225 million. They could also maintain special hunting and fishing rights, exclusive use of their territory, and responsibility and control over education, health care, and social services. But all this is nothing compared to what they have truly lost. The fact that Canada has had residential schools for over one hundred and fifty years, the creation of the White Paper, and the initiation and completion of the James Bay Project clearly show that the Canadian government does not wish to treat Aboriginal people as equals just because they have different beliefs . My final reason why I believe Canada is not a better country than it was in the past is because of the unfair advantage that Millennials and Generation X face right now and in the future. My first reason for the poor future of our generations is debt. A third of Canadians say they are unable to cover their monthly bills while continuing to repay debt, this measurement is up eight points on the index since the latest statistics in September. Families still making ends meet have about $630 left at the end of the month, down nearly 30% from more than $890 in July. And overall, nearly half of Canadians (48%) say they are less than $200 away from being unable to meet their financial obligations, up six points from September. Over 40% are worried they will find themselves in financial difficulty if interest rates continue to rise, and one in three fear they could face bankruptcy. Millennials and Generation they will go up much more. This is nearly 10 percentage points higher than the percentage of those who said they did so across all age groups. The survey found that 25% of Canadians do not have sufficient funds for a getaway vacation; 20% have credit card balances greater than their savings account; 21% believe they spend too much during the holidays. Six percent of respondents also said they had already broken their financial resolutions for the new year, while an equal percentage said they were receiving calls from bill collectors. The survey also shows that younger adults are much more likely to say they suffer from one of the financial problems mentioned above than Canadians aged 45 and older (68% vs. 41%). will face a difficult future due to the threat of Baby Boomers. Canada's job market is constantly improving, but there's one demographic group that's increasingly filling new jobs: older workers. More than 24,000 new jobs were created in April for workers age 55 and older. This is it.