Reconciliation requires respect for each other
“We are all treaty people” isn’t just something First Nations people can say.
We all live in Treaty Territory — a fact that most everyone in Saskatchewan who went through Grade 6 in the past decade knows because it’s now part of the school curriculum. (For this Premier Brad Wall does not get enough credit.)
I write this column in what is Treaty 4 territory from my office in the attic of our provincial legislature — right behind John Leman’s 1933 mural entitled “Before the White Man Came.” Brad Wall’s Swift Current home is also in Treaty 4 territory.
Alas, what our 12-year-old kids now understand has escaped Halifax’s so-called “Proud Boys” who, on Canada Day, disrupted a First Nations ceremony honouring missing and murdered Indigenous women.
The members of the alt-right group — all members of the Canadian military — were chastised and now suspended by their superiors. But what’s disheartening are those — especially those in the media — who now legitimize their supposed right to express their view of British-white superiority as the foundation of the wonders of the western world.
We are now 17 years into the 21st century, yet we continue to struggle with a lingering 19thcentury view of Canadian society. This is a big problem.
And lest we think there is no correlation between right-wing talk shows or newspaper columnists giving credence to those who are supposedly only showing pride in their own heritage, consider for a moment how it invariably translates into modern-day views, discourse and even behaviour.
Remember the online comments a year ago after the killing of 23-year-old Red Pheasant First Nation resident Colten Boushie in the farmyard of Gerald Stanley? There is a clear correlation between those who would spew century-old nonsense and today’s attitudes.
This needs to change and that change begins with learning our unvarnished history.
However, this better understanding of First Nations issues has to flow both ways — in fact, in all directions — if true reconciliation is to be achieved. It will be an uncomfortable process for non-Indigenous and Indigenous people, alike.
That we now recognize Indigenous as the preferred term (as opposed to Aboriginal — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last month changed National Aboriginal Day to Indigenous Peoples Day) is a good start.
Similarly, Trudeau’s announcement renaming the Langevin Block — named after HectorLouis Langevin, who helped design Indian residential schools — is a positive move toward reconciliation.
In Regina, the founder of the Leader-Post, Nicholas Flood Davin, has been honoured with his name attached to Davin School. Davin was also a major architect of the residential school system. It’s time to remove Davin’s name.
But does that mean we need to purge every historical figure who held distasteful views?
What of first Prime Minister John A. Macdonald who oversaw residential schools as government policy?
What of Nellie McClung, who helped secure the vote for women, but was also a prominent supporter of the sterilization of people with disabilities? What of medicare founder and CCF/NDP leader Tommy Douglas, who initially held similar eugenics views of “forced sterilization and segregation for people of ‘sub-normal’ intelligence and morality?”
Maybe a better step to toward reconciliation is simply acknowledging these historical views were wrong.
Again, it’s an issue that cuts both ways. If it’s inappropriate to call First Nations people Aboriginals, is it any more appropriate to refer to modern-day non-Indigenous Canadians “settlers” or “colonizers?” Does that reflect today’s reality or the partnership nature of the treaties? Shouldn’t everyone be respectful?
And while on the subject, is the City of Saskatoon really advancing better understanding with its billboards demanding white men acknowledge “white privilege?” Is this a healthy place to start dialogue? Is there not a better way to educate?
Well, there is. A better way is to identify historical ignorances, abandon them and embrace a more productive understanding.