Big 150 bash deserves to be disrupted

Teepee protest more coherent than Hill party

On Wednesday evening, indigenous protesters marched onto Parliament Hill and, after some back and forth with the local constabulary, erected a large white teepee. The group’s leaders told reporters they intended to “reoccupy” “unceded Algonquin territory,” and remind Canadians that “reconciliation” with the people who were here before them lies far down a bumpy road.

If nothing else, it was a welcome moment of coherence: big white teepee, Parliament Hill, three days before Canada Day — no one is going to wonder what that’s about.

By contrast, I’m not sure what “Canada 150,” the officially branded and hashtagged celebration of this country’s existence, is supposed to be. It certainly isn’t a focused reflection on Canada’s history, much less on Confederation. Passport2017.ca, the Canada 150 online portal, reads like an in-flight magazine’s Canada Day edition.

You can check in with the “Canada 150 Ambassadors.” Singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright appreciates Canada’s “civility, reasoning and compassion.” Sprinter Bruny Surin appreciates moving from Haiti to a country where, his mother told him, anyone can accomplish anything. Nobel laureate astrophysicist Art McDonald provides the obligatory shout-out to Lester Pearson’s role in the Suez Crisis.

TV chef Ricardo Larrivée has a video series celebrating “Canada’s culinary chops.” It’s called “We Are the Best,” which reflects Canadians’ renowned modesty.

On a scattershot list of “150 essentials” you’ll find Canada 150-branded merchandise; a list of “The Trailer Park Boys’ favourite things”; chances to win concert tickets; a story about how Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama “rekindle(d) their bromance”; “18 Canadian craft gins to sip this summer”; a biography of Sebastian Bach.

Approved Canada 150 events include Countryfest in Dauphin, Man.; the Festival de la Chanson in Tadoussac, Que.; and a “Calgary Stampeders home game.” Basically, Canadian officialdom is celebrating its sesquicentennial by putting two coats of nationalist polish on a typical Canadian summer.

This unfocused, unabashed hurray-for-us-ism practically begs for complaints, and they have come not least from indigenous activists. “The only way that (Canada) could exist is from our genocide and the theft of lands and resources and the ongoing discriminatory laws, policies, exclusion from our territories,” Ryerson University professor Pam Palmater told Canadian Press.

Some have suggested the very idea of marking “150 years of Canada” is an insult to the people who were here before. “If you’re celebrating the beginning of this country’s 150 years, if that’s what’s in your heart, if that’s what you understand, you’re celebrating colonization,” University of Saskatchewan processor Real Carriere told CBC.

This backlash has provoked a backlash. I see it on Twitter, in my email and in the tabloids. “Hateful declarations about a group of people based on the past actions of some is bigotry. Declaring Canada a nation not worth celebrating due to a part of that nation’s history is the same,” Jerry Agar wrote in the Toronto Sun. “It is also a way to avoid moving forward.”

It is a common refrain: for heaven’s sake, move on. A few moments’ thought ought to reveal how simplistic it is. You can’t steal a generation of children from their parents and expect the effects to wear off in half a century. But what the hell: in keeping with Canada 150’s allergy to history, let’s focus on the present.

The 2011 National Household Survey found 12 per cent of “non-aboriginal” Canadians aged 25-64 had no high school diploma. The number among respondents claiming “aboriginal identity” was 29 per cent; among those identifying as Inuit, 48 per cent. The latter figure is comparable to Nigeria.

According to infuriatingly out-of-date statistics, the suicide rate among indigenous Canadians might be twice that of non-indigenous Canadians: in 2000, government data suggest it was 24 per 100,000. That’s comparable to Japan and Finland, both of which have significant suicide problems. From 1999 to 2003, the suicide rate in “Inuit regions” of Canada was 135 per 100,000. Over the years, researchers have found rates among specific indigenous populations as high as 337. That’s jaw-dropping. The highest national suicide in the world in 2015, Sri Lanka’s, was 59.

Indigenous Canadians are seven times more likely to be murdered than non-indigenous Canadians. Male Inuit live 15 years less, on average, than the overall Canadian population; female Inuit, 10 years. People living on First Nations are 10 times as likely to die in a house fire, thanks largely to shoddy building standards. Far too many First Nations have no clean drinking water, habitable schools or reasonable prospects for employment. Nearly all of these indicators are improving, incidentally: notably, younger indigenous Canadians are far better educated than older. Still, the task is monumental.

Trudeau’s Liberals talked an awfully big game about getting to work on it. Its bite has already proven weaker than its bark. Trudeau promised to eliminate boil-water advisories on First Nations reserves within five years. That won’t even come close to happening. He promised to lift the two per cent inflation cap on funding for First Nations. He didn’t. He promised to “immediately” implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. “Unworkable,” Justice Minister Jody WilsonRaybould announced. He promised $2.6 billion for K-12 education; when the 2016 budget landed, $800 million had somehow migrated into the Liberals’ second mandate. The government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars fighting a human rights tribunal order to fund First Nations child services equitably. Trudeau did keep his promise to launch an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women — but it already seems to be spiralling into a famous boondoggle.

Had Canada 150 been a thoughtful reflection of Canada’s history, it might have been worth defending against rhetorical excesses and disruptions. Instead we got a Molson commercial gone to seed — a facile, hackneyed celebration of our national superiority. Amidst all that, if Canadians and their big-talking government are forced to confront some of this country’s most notable failings, I would deem that a Canada 150 Essential.

SOME HAVE SUGGESTED (CANADA 150) IS AN INSULT TO THE PEOPLE WHO WERE HERE BEFORE.