This ethnographic dissertation study contains a total of six chapters. Chapter One provides an introduction to the topic, Perspectives of Saskatchewan Dakota/Lakota Elders on the Treaty Process within Canada. It also discusses the following: the purpose of the study; the rationale & justification for an interdisciplinary approach; the research methodology; the definition of terms; the limitations of the study; assumptions; and the ethical protocols applicable to this study. Chapter Two provides a review of literature pertaining to the various theoretical and methodological considerations to be addressed within this study. These include the traditional Rankean approach to the study of history; that termed within Western academia as Oral History, combined with that termed as Oral Tradition; that termed as Dakota Oral Tradition; and that termed within Western academia as Outsider vs. Insider Research. Chapter Three provides a review of the history of the treaty negotiation processes that occurred both in the United States and Canada and concludes with an analysis of research findings to date. Chapter Four reviews previously written documentation pertaining to the Dakota/Lakota treaty negotiation process within Canada and concludes with an analysis of research findings to date. Chapter Five discusses in detail the data collection process employed for this study. In addition, the data generated from the interviews with the Saskatchewan Dakota/Lakota Elders regarding their perspectives on treaty are presented. Chapter Six provides a synthesis and analysis of research findings for the data collected from the Saskatchewan Dakota/Lakota Elders during the interview process. In addition, an epilogue is provided regarding the implications of the research for the treaty negotiation process of the Dakota/Lakota people within Canada. In this way the findings of the study are placed within the context of the Native-White treaty relationship currently evolving and being negotiated within the province of Saskatchewan. Recommendations are also presented to assist and enhance the contemporary political and legal position of the Dakota/Lakota First Nations within Saskatchewan in their efforts to either sign adhesion to the Numbered Treaties, or to adhere to an alternate treaty protocol agreement with the Canadian federal government, which would include provisions regarding land, as well as related treaty benefits and annuities.

Teachers play a pivotal role in the production of discourse on race relations in education, yet few studies have researched the impact of white teacher identity construction as a variable in the creation and maintenance of racial ideologies, particularly here in Canada. The majority of the current research done on racism in schools has produced data that points to the widespread denial of racism by the majority of white teachers and students, while parents, teachers and students of color acknowledge the pervasive role racism plays in their educational and social lives. While the focus on institutional and systemic racism is important, it sometimes denies the role individuals play in the reproduction of racism and in our ability to make change. For these reasons, it is critical to consider the identity constructions of white teachers, as these constructions will influence how we interpret and respond to existing racial inequalities in education. <p>This research will draw from poststructural theories of discourse analysis in order to analyze how white teacher identity constructions of innocence are reproduced in an education system where racial inequalities are pervasive and systemic. Discourse analysis and deconstruction are important in understanding the way our subjectivity as white teachers continues to be produced and maintained.<p>This study takes place in the Prairie region, where Aboriginal people have been produced as the racial Other historically. Using an open-ended questionnaire, in-service, and focus group method, this research study invites educators to narrate their own perceptions of racism in schools. The collection and analysis of this data begins to address the theoretical gap in academic knowledge on teacher perceptions of racism in education.

There is considerable controversy in the research literature concerning meeting the needs of children and youth with Emotional and Behavioural Disorders (EBD). Collaborative models of service delivery have shown promising results in effectively meeting the needs of students with disabilities. The objective of this study was to examine the association between service providers adherence to the fundamental elements of a collaborative process called Wraparound and measures of students maladaptive behaviours, behavioural strengths, and functional impairment. <p>The current research investigated 23 students who were experiencing impaired functioning in the school, family, and/or community as a result of behavioural difficulties. Twelve of the students were engaged in Wraparound services and 11 were receiving conventional services. Adherence to the elements of Wraparound was determined using the Wraparound Fidelity Index (WFI; Bruns et al., 2005), a structured interview with the students primary caregivers. Maladaptive behaviours, behavioural strengths, and functional impairment were assessed via the students teachers completing the Behaviour Assessment System for Children (BASC; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992), Behavioural and Emotional Rating Scale (BERS-2; Epstein, 2004), and the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS; Hodges, 2005), respectively. Results of this research indicated that, overall, the students who received Wraparound services showed higher fidelity to the elements of Wraparound and more favourable behavioural outcomes than did the students engaged in the conventional model of service delivery. The correlation analysis of the association between adherence to the elements of Wraparound and the student outcome measures showed mixed results. A strong association was observed with statistical significance for the element of Youth and Family Team on all three outcome measures. This indicates the importance of an effective team in producing positive outcomes for the students and their families.

<p>The co-operative as an economic and social institution has long been recognized for its contribution to economic development as well as its positive effect on local communities. However, over the last decade or so substantial structural changes in the agricultural sector have undermined some of the most prominent North American co-operatives. In some cases, co-ops asked for bankruptcy protection, others ceased operations while some were transformed to for-profit firms. The present study offers three essays that explore the challenges that co-operatives are facing in terms of their relationship with their members in local markets, the decision-making process of their leaders and the co-ops' role in the modern economy.</p> <p>These first two essays are linked by the fact that they both develop models that are about cognitions. Examining cognition offers some new insights to understanding the process behind the decline of agricultural co-ops. In the first essay the model examines consumers' cognitions, while the model in the second essay examines management's cognitions. The essays differ on the agent's ability to change the perceptions that result from those cognitions. Essay One assumes that consumers' perceptions are partially flexible and thus can change over time with some cost; on the other hand, essay Two assumes that beliefs are inflexible due to the high cost of changing them.</p> <p>Essay One examines the relationship between a co-operative and its membership in a local market using an economic psychological approach. More specifically, the essay presents a modified rational-choice model to investigate how cognitive dissonance can influence members' loyalty. The effect of cognitive dissonance is analyzed in a case where a local co-operative operates alongside with an investor-owned firm (IOF) in a market. The model illustrates how cognitive dissonance can give rise to switching costs for those consumers who wish to switch to the IOF. Analytical results demonstrate the effect of these switching costs on equilibrium market shares and discuss how a drop in the dissonance cost because of managerial decisions by the co-op can result in dramatic drops in its market share.</p> <p>Essay Two illustrates how management's mental frame can be incorporated into an economic model and develops a theoretical underpinning for the link between a strong mental frame and the financial difficulties that a firm might experience. The case of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool with its Project Horizon plan is proposed as an example of a situation where the established mental frame gave rise to a belief regarding future member support that had a significant influence on the decision-making process of the co-op's CEO. The analysis includes a game theoretic model of a duopoly between a co-operative and an IOF, where mental framing is explicitly incorporated into the primitives of the model. Analytical results illustrate how the CEO's belief regarding member commitment can influence decision-making and therefore affect the market share and profits of the firm.</p> <p>Essay Three uses non-parametric econometric techniques to examine the stock price effect of a co-op's acquisition by a publicly-traded IOF. The potential for this study emerged as a result of the takeover of Dairyworld, a dairy co-op, by Saputo, a publicly-traded private corporation. The study uses the prediction-error approach to estimate Saputo's returns after the acquisition as a deviation from its expected returns. A non-parametric bootstrap technique simulates Saputo's stock returns and examines its behavior around the acquisition date. The empirical results are consistent with a number of hypotheses, including the pro-competitive role that co-operatives are believed to have in the economy. The essay also includes a comprehensive discussion regarding the greater financial value that co-ops have for IOFs.</p>

This study compared the performance of four groups of children--two Indian groups and two non-Indian groups--on a test of commonly used idioms. The Indian subjects, all bilingual, were differentiated on the basis of school setting, uni-ethnic or multi-ethnic. The non-Indian subjects, all from multi-ethnic schools, were differentiated on the basis of linguistic background, bilingual or monolingual.<p>The sample consisted of 465 children in grades five, six, and seven from six schools in Northern and Central Saskatchewan. The Yandell Idioms Test was administered to all the children. Differences among mean scores of the groups were tested with an analysis of variance. In addition, to minimize the effects on the Idioms Test results of very high or very low reading ability, a second analysis was done involving a selected sample identified from within the total sample by excluding all subjects who scored below the 4.0 grade level or above the 7.9 grade level on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests.<p>Analysis of Idioms Test scores revealed that Indian children in multi-ethnic schools scored higher than Indian children in uni-ethnic schools, but that non-Indian children, whether bilingual or monolingual, achieved significantly better than Indian children. in either multi-ethnic or uni-ethnic settings. Monolingual non-Indian children scored higher than bilingual non-Indian children, although for the selected sample, the differences were not statistically significant.<p>In both analyses, there seemed to be few sex differences of importance. Between-group differences generally reflected the trend for the whole-group analyses, while within-group differences were not significant except for the bilingual. non-Indian group.<p>In general, the study showed that not only did Indian children have difficulty with the comprehension of English idioms but that many English idioms used in basal readers were not familiar even to monolingual English-speaking children.

It has been accepted in the historical discourse that a direct link existed between the participation of Aboriginal people in the Second World War and a new political consciousness of Aboriginal people in Canada generally, and Saskatchewan specifically, immediately after the war. This conclusion has been based on the fact that as soldiers, Aboriginal veterans had gained much experience. They had traveled to various parts of the world, had been treated as equals while fighting alongside non-Aboriginal soldiers and had been celebrated as liberators of Europe. On the return to Canada, they found that the situation of Aboriginal people had not changed. Unwilling to accept the substandard treatment for themselves and their people, it is argued, that the Aboriginal veterans became the focal point for Aboriginal rights' movement. There is in fact no evidence to support the notion that the Aboriginal veterans had a direct role in igniting Aboriginal peoples' political consciousness immediately after the war. In the first five years after the war, Aboriginal veterans were more concerned with readjusting to civilian life. They were young men who possessed few adult civilian life experiences and virtually no political experience. The emphasis on Aboriginal veterans as the political leaders after the war ignores the efforts of the existing leaders who had been involved in politics for many years. Although Aboriginal veterans did not directly influence the political climate, their existence as a group was crucial to the shifting attitude of the Canadian public toward Aboriginal people. The portrayal of Aboriginal veterans by the news media as "progressive Indians" due to their contributions to the war effort, impressed upon Canadians the need for change in the relationship between the Canadian government and Aboriginal people. By the 1950s, as the more socially, economically and to a certain extent, geographically mobile the veterans became the more socially and politically active they became. It is the contention of this research that the impact of their war experience is discernible in two ways. First, immediately after the war, the presence of Aboriginal veterans led to Canadian's re-evaluation of the relationship between Aboriginal people and Canadian government. Second, in the post-war era, Aboriginal veterans became active agents of social and political change. In sum, Aboriginal veterans became, first passive catalysts and, later, engines for social and political change.

This thesis examines the comprehensive Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) that was signed in 2006 by the governments of Alberta and British Columbia. The central objective is to examine why two successive Saskatchewan governments chose not to sign the TILMA. This thesis also examines the TILMAs influence on subsequent developments in internal trade policy reform in Canada. The three central research questions are: What is the TILMA, and how does it fit within the existing internal trade regulatory regime established under the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT)? Why did Saskatchewan not sign the TILMA? What effect, if any, has the TILMA had on establishing a new model or paradigm for internal trade policy in Canada? The key findings are that Saskatchewan did not sign the TILMA because Alberta and British Columbia would not accede to its demands to make exemptions for the procurement practices of municipalities and the subsidiaries of crown corporations. Another factor was the decision by the Saskatchewan government to launch a public consultation process before ratifying the agreement. The public consultation process provided the opponents of the agreement (i.e., municipal government, labour and non-governmental organizations) with an opportunity to organize and express their opposition to the agreement. Their strong opposition to the agreement during those consultations led both the NDP Government and subsequently a cautious Saskatchewan Party Government, which only had a slim majority in the legislature to walk away from what was being portrayed in the media as a very contentious policy decision. Their choice stands in contrast to that of the Liberal and Conservative Governments of British Columbia and Alberta respectively, that chose to sign the TILMA prior to undertaking consultations with the public and community stakeholders. In 2010 the Saskatchewan Party government would sign the New West Partnership Trade Agreement that included almost all of the provisions of the TILMA without public or stakeholder consultation. This thesis reveals that the TILMA has had modest but important effects on establishing a new model or paradigm for internal trade policy in Canada by enhancing the utility and scope of binding enforcement mechanisms and comprehensive interprovincial agreements. It was more comprehensive in scope than interprovincial agreements that had been signed previously to supplement the AIT. Contrary to what some had envisioned or proclaimed, the TILMA did not have substantial transformative effects either in addressing internal trade barriers in Canada or in supplanting the existing framework of internal trade policy established under the AIT.

This study is a comparative examination of the age, authorship and interpretation of aboriginal rock painting sites situated on the shores of the Churchill River of northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The twenty presently known sites were recorded in the years 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1969 by the author.<p>The study combines written descriptions of the sites and their settings with reproductions of the symbols found at each site. Techniques for recording and reproducing rock paintings, developed during the course of the field studies, are described.<p> Geographical and stylistic relationships of the paintings to other rock painting occurrences in the Canadian Shield are examined. Data derived both directly and indirectly from native Indian residents of the area is incorporated, along with historical observations on the occurrence and interpretation of the paintings.<p> Several sets of the Churchill River paintings are at least 150 to 200 years old, while others may be considerably more recent. Specific dates of origin cannot presently be assigned to most of the sites; the potential applicability of various dating techniques is discussed.<p> Evidence given supports an Algonkian (undoubtedly Cree) inspiration and authorship for these rock paintings, with religious observance being the basic motivation for their creation.

The purpose of this study was to describe the role of the C.E.O. (Education Coordinator) in Band Controlled Schools on selected Indian reserves in Saskatchewan. A number of key functions and leadership components were identified from the literature and were formulated into a structural framework. In this framework, the C.E.O. position was explored and studied under three major components: role, autonomy, and contextual conditions. The aspects of role which were examined were the identifying of the C.E.O., role expectations, role tasks, and obstacles. The functions related to autonomy were identified as performance, overlaps, perceptions, and organizations. Job satisfaction, personal qualities and attributes, and politics were related to contextual conditions.<p> The population was five administrative teams working on Indian reserves in Northern Saskatchewan. These teams consisted of a Chief Executive Officer, the Principal, and, where applicable, the Administrative Assistant. The schools were selected because two have been Band operated for five years or more, whereas the other three were Band operated for less than two years when this study began.<p> A case study approach was used. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the C.E.O.s, Principals, and Administrative Assistants. An interview guide containing 18 questions designed for the Education Coordinator, and 18 questions designed specifically for Principals was used.<p> It was concluded that broad, general similarities existed from Band to Band. However, the role was influenced by the needs, wants, and thrusts of the individual Bands. The personality, background, and interests of the individual C.E.O. had an impact upon how the role was enacted. It was difficult to isolate and compartmentalize the job of the C.E.O. on an Indian reserve.<p> Although this study was limited in scope, a number of conclusions were reached and some implications were discussed. The C.E.O. position is a relatively new one and is in many ways unique. It would be of benefit for administrators to learn more about this position since nearly every on-reserve school in Saskatchewan is controlled by the Band. The C.E.O. position will grow and develop and have a great impact upon the future of Indian Education.

Communities of different sizes in Saskatchewan seeking economic opportunities have shown interest in ethanol production because of the perceived benefits a region can capture from such a project. In spite of this interest and the perceived benefits, no information on the type and magnitude of economic impacts which would accrue to different sized communities existed. This study was undertaken to fill this information gap by establishing facts on the economic impacts various levels of communities could capture from ethanol-cattle production complexes. Since Saskatchewan communities operate in a hierarchical fashion and are classified into seven levels using central place theory, questions concerning economic development should be viewed in a regional hierarchical framework. A seven-region hierarchically-based interregional input-output model for the Saskatchewan economy was constructed using the Supply-Demand Pool (SDP) method in combination with the logical assumptions regarding trade patterns within the central place region. It was assumed that higher-level regions are surplus regions in goods produced by non-primary sectors, and hence ship excess supply to producers and final users in the dominated lower-level regions and outside of the province. On the other hand, it was assumed that the hinterland region dominates trade in goods in the primary sectors. The hinterland earned income by producing and supplying goods and services in the primary sectors to the higher-level regions and outside the province. The model consisted of 14 aggregated sectors seven household sectors, and allowed for net flows of labour income through commuting patterns of workers who resided in the seven regions. At the same time the consumption expenditures of residents in a particular region were adjusted for outshopping purchases. The estimated model was used to assess the economic impacts from both the construction and operation phase of an integrated ethanol-cattle production complex across six hierarchical regions. The major findings of this study were that, under both phases of the project, intraregional output and labor income impacts occurring in the high level regions were larger than those in the lower-level regions. Also, the higher-level regions experienced larger interregional impacts and had spillover coefficients of smaller magnitude compared to lower-level regions. The intraregional output and labor income impacts tended to decrease as one moves down the hierarchy from top to bottom regions. On the other hand, the spillovers or leakages were increasing as one moves down the hierarchy from higher-level regions to lower-level regions. The higher-level regions have more diversified economies and smaller leakages of income and spending than lower-level regions. On the other hand, lower-level regions experienced large income leakages through input purchases and consumer spending in neighbouring higher-level regions. The results indicate that lower-level regions will not benefit more than higher-level regions from the development of an integrated ethanol-cattle production complex. Thus, if the goal of public funding of ethanol projects is to maximize impacts in the project-region, then higher-level regions would be preferred to lower-level regions. This raises a concern that the opportunity of pursuing regional development through ethanol processing may not reach all those communities who need it the most, especially the smaller communities. On the other hand, if the objective of rural development is to solve the problems of rural communities, the policy-makers, could target lower-level regions specially those experiencing economic decline. It is important to mention that integrated ethanol-cattle production continues to enjoy subsidies from the governments. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)