by colonialism experience drug and alcohol problems.” He has observed that it takes many generations to resolve these problems.6 What Thatcher says is supported by psychologist B.F. Skinner, who asserts that we are all products of our environment, and that we learn our values, behaviours, attitudes, and beliefs from the worlds in which we grow up. When we look at Indigenous populations through Skinner’s lens, we can see that there has been a breakdown to the social fabric of communities as a result of Indian residential schools and Canadian Indian policies of assimilation.
