Where the Pavement Ends: Canada's Aboriginal Recovery Movement and the Urgent Need for Reconciliation.

Christine Hughes is a policy analyst at the Ontario Native Affairs
Secretariat.

Reading the title of this book, one might expect to find a depressing account of the litany of social conditions in many Aboriginal communities that are often reported in the Canadian media. Instead, the 21 short, highly readable essays that comprise this book offer stories of hope and resilience from Aboriginal communities across the country. Despite rampant poverty, overcrowded and substandard housing conditions, substance abuse, and high rates of youth suicide and fetal alcohol syndrome, Wadden shares examples of successful local healing initiatives and creative recovery programs that have been emerging across the country over the last decade. Notwithstanding the success of these initiatives, Wadden notes that they often struggle for sustainable funding and adequate staffing.

In 2006, with the support of her Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, Wadden travelled across Canada, meeting with residents and activists in Inuit, Metis, and First Nations communities and uncovered amazing stories about the work Aboriginal people are doing in the areas of addiction and abuse prevention. Wadden credits a number of events that helped to shape her interest in this topic—visits to the community of two Innu teenagers from Labrador who stayed with her in the early 1980s while they attended high school in St. John’s; reports of Innu activism in 1987 against restrictive provincial wildlife regulations and protests against a proposed NATO jet bomber training centre in Goose Bay; and a 2005 Globe and Mail op-ed piece describing the problems facing the Innu people in Davis Inlet, Labrador.

While Wadden conveys a sense of optimism for the future of Aboriginal communities, she also presents a compelling argument that current government policies have contributed to the social problems present in many families and communities. Throwing money at the problems has not solved the issues, and she concludes her book with a number of concrete recommendations and a practical 12-point action plan to make healing in Aboriginal communities an immediate national priority.

Wadden is the network producer for CBC Radio in Newfoundland and Labrador. This book was a finalist for the Winterset Award and the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing; it would appeal to readers interested in contemporary Aboriginal issues and should be required reading for government policymakers.