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  • NDN LOL: The Insights of Comedian Ryan McMahon

    McMahon

    If there’s anything that helps people emerge from a shared struggle, it’s shared laughter.

    Despite the hardships many Aboriginal people across Turtle Island have endured, they’ve been able to maintain an infallible sense of humour: one that’s evolved from timeless trickster stories into standup comedy and television shows, among other methods and media.

    Ryan McMahon is one of those contemporary storytellers who’s made it his life’s mission to make our people laugh, and to teach those from other backgrounds about us (and make them laugh too). McMahon grew up in Fort Frances, ON, and broke into the contemporary comedy and theatre scene in Toronto in the late 1990s. His home base is now Winnipeg. He tours across the continent and is widely respected as one of the funniest contemporary comedians/writers/actors, and he’s deeply proud of his Ojibway/Metis background. Oh yeah, and then there’s that Clarence guy.

    We caught up with McMahon on a recent tour date in Minnesota.

    * * *

    Why is comedy so important to Aboriginal people?

    I think it’s inter-woven into our world view and cultural identities. A lot of our teachings, stories, legends have a trickster character “acting a fool” to show us what not to do, and we learn from them. Rather than approach teaching right from wrong with a fear-based notion — like most organized religions do (like, “You’re going to hell!”) — we take a lighter approach to say the things we need to say.

    Good comedy — and there’s tons of shit out there — should be a “mirror in the face of society” to show us all just how ridiculous we, or our lives, can be. Good comedy offers teachings, ideas, laughter, and fart jokes.

    What does it take to make people laugh?

    I like to think it takes a certain kind of person and a certain level of intelligence to be able to deconstruct ideas and parlay them into comedy. Most people think of comedians as miserable misanthropes who can’t get along in the world so they turn to biting words and harsh criticisms. I tend to reject that though. Some of the smartest/wisest people on the planet are/were comedians (George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Monty Python). Comedy should tell you something about our current state — and I think it takes something special to be able to do that in a meaningful way.

    Why are you so passionate about comedy?

    I think it’s going to be the most important way we can communicate who we are as Aboriginal Peoples living in the 21st century. I think the movies/television don’t even begin to scratch the surface when it comes to telling our stories.

    Too often, non-Native peoples are funding our projects and we’re told what we can/can’t say through this process. Onstage, or on the internet — in self-produced, self-created projects such as the ones I’ve been doing — no one can tell me what to do. We (Native Comedians) have the most unique opportunity in the world — we can stand up and fight for our people through laughter. It’s militant. It’s political. It’s personal. My kookum once said every time I get onstage I’m making a political statement. These words, I will never forget.

    You’ve taken your show on the road for years to different Native people across Turtle Island. Why do you think people from such diverse Aboriginal experiences laugh at what you have to say?

    I think people really enjoy what I’m doing right now because it is so brutally honest. I don’t do “Bingo and Bannock” jokes like most every other working Native comedian. I have a show/act and that’s what I perform. I’m getting to a place now where I don’t have to change my show around when someone hires me. Back a few years ago, I’d take out my racier stuff and insert a whole lot of fluff. My content isn’t for everyone.

    But it’s because of my content now that I’ve been selling out venues and packing little indie-clubs, and I’m finding more and more that people want to hear the truth — it’s what they connect with. With all of that said, my stuff is accessible to everyone. Often, there will be four or five tables of Elders sitting in the front row, and I’m always aware of who my audience is. I don’t do shock comedy, I do honest comedy.

    We’ve always been funny as a people. What can you tell the kids on the rez who aspire to be comedians?

    I always tell young people that want to do anything that they need to go to school first. Get your degree. There is no fast track out there for anything anymore.

    Further to that idea, no one owes us (our generation) a damn thing. The days of the handout are long gone. Let’s honour our ancestors’ struggle, pain and perserverance by walking with our heads held high in the most prestigious schools in the country. Let’s go out and get degrees and doctorates. Let’s live this life to the fullest. Our ancestors gave everything for us to be here — how dare we waste that.

    And… don’t become a comic — there’s only so much work to go around and I’m lazy. I don’t want to do anything else after being pushed out of the business by some “funny little rez kid” with cheek bones and braids. So, please, don’t aspire to comedy. I’m comfortable over here.

    * * *

    For more info on the long list of projects McMahon’s involved with, his upcoming tour-dates or to book him, visit his website. Oh yeah, there are some pretty hilarious videos there too.

  • Crunching the numbers on Aboriginal usage of Canada’s food banks

    Due to possible confusion stemming from my last post about new data on Aboriginal people’s use of food banks in Canada, I thought I would try and make partial amends with some number crunching that lays the stats out a bit more helpfully.

    I have pulled together three tables. The first two display the same data in different ways: where TABLE A ranks the Aboriginal use of food banks by provinces/territories on a ‘raw’ numerical basis only, TABLE B ranks provinces/territories according to their proportion of food bank clientele who are Aboriginal.

    As you can see in TABLE A, the jurisdictions with the greatest number of Aboriginal clientele for food banks are Alberta and Ontario at 30,249 and 28,948 respectively. The Atlantic provinces have the fewest.

    TABLE A.
    Aboriginal Visitors to Food Banks in Canada
    Ranked by Number

    Province/TerritoryTOTAL VISITORS
    (Aboriginal &
    non-Aboriginal)    		Aboriginal
    Visitors    		% of Total
    = Aboriginal
    CANADA867,948105,02212.10%
    Alberta59,31130,24951.00%
    Ontario402,05628,9487.20%
    Manitoba57,96622,25938.40%
    British Columbia94,35918,40019.50%
    Saskatchewan22,66211,83052.20%
    Quebec154,3642,1611.40%
    Territories (YK, NT & NU)2,2722,14794.50%
    New Brunswick18,5176853.70%
    Nova Scotia22,5736092.70%
    Newfoundland & Labrador30,800620.20%
    Prince Edward Island3,068581.90%

    Here in TABLE B, we see the combined northern territories shoot to the top of the list at over 94%, with the prairie provinces — Saskatchewan (52%), Alberta (51%) and Manitoba (38%) — rounding out the top four.

    TABLE B.
    Aboriginal Visitors to Food Banks in Canada
    Ranked by Percentage

    Province/TerritoryTOTAL VISITORS
    (Aboriginal &
    non-Aboriginal)    		Aboriginal
    Visitors    		% of Total
    = Aboriginal
    Territories (YK, NT & NU)2,2722,14794.50%
    Saskatchewan22,66211,83052.20%
    Alberta59,31130,24951.00%
    Manitoba57,96622,25938.40%
    British Columbia94,35918,40019.50%
    CANADA867,948105,02212.10%
    Ontario402,05628,9487.20%
    New Brunswick18,5176853.70%
    Nova Scotia22,5736092.70%
    Prince Edward Island3,068581.90%
    Quebec154,3642,1611.40%
    Newfoundland & Labrador30,800620.20%

    With two exceptions (Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador), TABLE C shows how Aboriginal people’s use of food banks is, more often than not, well out of proportion to their overall population numbers (as of 2006) in each jurisdiction.

    TABLE C.
    Aboriginal people as proportion of Food Bank Users, Provincial/Territorial population

    Province/ TerritoryAboriginal people as %
    of Prov’l/Territ’l pop’n    		Aboriginal people as %
    of all food bank users
    Territories (YK, NT & NU)52.83%94.50%
    Manitoba15.47%38.40%
    Saskatchewan14.88%52.20%
    Alberta5.78%51.00%
    British Columbia4.81%19.50%
    Newfoundland and Labrador4.69%0.20%
    CANADA3.75%12.10%
    Nova Scotia2.68%2.70%
    New Brunswick2.45%3.70%
    Ontario2.02%7.20%
    Quebec1.46%1.40%
    Prince Edward Island1.29%1.90%

  • Twelve per cent of Canada’s food bank users are Aboriginal: report

    Food Banks Canada (a national charitable organization whose membership serves apx 85% of those using emergency food programs) has just released its HungerCount 2010 survey and it contained a number of Aboriginal references:

    • “The need for food assistance increased almost across the spectrum this year [including] more Aboriginal people”
    • “The overall number of Aboriginal people accessing food assistance programs grew by 26% in 2009, and again by 13% in 2010”
    • Despite making up just under 4 per cent of Canada’s general population, Aboriginal individuals constitute just over 12 per cent of all food bank users
    • Saskatchewan was the province with the greatest proportion of Aboriginal clients at just over 52%
    • Ontario food banks were accessed by 28,144 Aboriginal people, or over 10% of the 242,495 people who self-identify as Aboriginal in that province
    • Aboriginal people made up nearly 95% of overall users in the three northern territories combined

    The data for the survey was collected in March of this year.

    UPDATE:

    Just to clarify the methodology used by the survey, data are based not on the number of food bank visitors, but on the total number of visits.

    That means each person is counted “as many times as they were assisted during the month.” Here’s an example of how it works:

    300 individuals assisted once = 300 total visits
    200 individuals assisted twice = 400 total visits

    UPDATE 2:

    A mea culpa is in order, on two fronts.

    Firstly, my original interpretation of the Ontario number was incorrect. The fifth bullet originally listed (and since amended) above referred to a table found on page 7 of the HungerCount 2010 survey entitled “TABLE 3: Self-identified First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people assisted by food banks: March 2010.”

    I initially took that to mean that all the figures in the table referred to just Aboriginal people. In fact, the table lists two kinds of numbers:

    i) the total number of all food bank visitors (‘Total Assisted’),
    i.e., Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal visitors combined

    ii) the percentage of that total that was Aboriginal only (‘Percent Aboriginal’)

    Which means that instead of there being “a whopping 402,056 [visits] by Aboriginal people” to Ontario food banks (as originally written), it was actually 28,144 Aboriginal people, or 7% of all food bank users.

    Secondly, the statistics presented in the HungerCount 2010 survey actually refer to the number of people using food banks not their number of visits.

    My sincere apologies for totally bungling these measures and methods, and I hope that these regrettable errors took nothing away from what are very serious issues for all concerned.

    Thanks to Food Banks Canada for catching and clarifying my errors.

  • An Aboriginal Who’s Who of Canadian Politics (Twitter version)

    With so many people getting news & info from social networks, we thought it prudent to see which Aboriginal politicians and groups are capitalizing on this trend and using Twitter to get their message out.

    Of the five Aboriginal elected Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, only three are on Twitter:

    Of the six Aboriginal people in the Senate, only one is on Twitter:

    • Patrick Brazeau (First Nations), CON – @TheBrazman

    And in the realm of national Aboriginal political groups, just three have active Twitter accounts:

    There you have it.

    We’ve made it easier to follow them all by putting them in a list here.  And while you’re in the following mood, be sure to follow us on Twitter too – @mediaINDIGENA.

    Happy tweeting.

  • Canada gets instant reminder of what signing United Nations Declaration supposed to mean

    UN General Assembly

    As reported in Wawatay News, Canada has endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) “in a manner, it says, is consistent with Canada’s Constitution and laws.” Although non-binding, the 46-article Declaration is nonetheless held up as a significant and meaningful standard by which to judge Canada’s treatment of, and conduct toward, Indigenous peoples within its borders.

    And just to make sure Canada has a good solid idea of what that means, Sharon McIvor is about to file suit against the country for the way it “discriminates against Aboriginal women when it comes to granting Indian status,” reports the Toronto Sun. After winning her case in BC’s highest court, the feds put forth Bill C-3 as its response, but MacIvor argues this “partial and inadequate” legislation doesn’t go nearly far enough in ensuring all First Nations women can pass on status to their children:

    Because neither Canadian courts nor Parliament have yet granted an adequate and effective remedy for the sex discrimination which has been a hallmark of the Indian Act for more than a hundred years, I will take my case to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.”

    Ya gotta love her timing, eh?