In the early 1970s when I moved to Tsartlip Indian Reserve. The first thing I noticed was fleece hanging everywhere. I soon learned that everyone knit the famous Indian sweaters, which came to be known as Cowichan sweaters. I was a creative teenager and I was excited. I loved wool, yarn and handwork.

But soon I became overwhelmed by the poverty. And especially the most obvious expression of destitution—the houses. When I visited friends I could see through the walls, electrical wires were strung on nails, the lights dimmed when the refrigerator came on, the wood stoves were often thin metal barrels with stove pipes wrapped in blankets sticking out a window. I knew enough to be scared. I found out later that 10 times as many First Nations people died in house fires as the rest of Canadians.

Housing in First Nations communities across this country is a national disgrace. The societal devastation rivals if not surpasses that of residential schools. Yet most Canadians do not understand what they are seeing when they drive through a reserve and see houses unlike anything they see elsewhere in this country. This is the history I tell in my Phd and web book Deliberate Indifference.