Facing the truth makes for a worthy celebration
What does a woman with thousands of years of Yellowknife Dene Nation identity have in common with an aging white guy whose decades-old journey to truly understand Indigenous issues still comes up short?
We both find the fervour over the 150th celebrations of Canada’s founding lacking in sensitivity to what took place before and after confederation. Make no mistake, there is much to celebrate regarding Canada’s birth and first century and half of progress. But context is critical.
The use of Canada’s birthday to brand government and private goods and services is ubiquitous. The Canadian project is a noble and promising one, but one seriously stalled by deeply grave lapses in moral purpose. Post-Confederation setbacks are numerous and include the Chinese head tax and railroad building exploitation. The internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War was another blow to Canada’s efforts to become a more authentic beacon of fairness for the world to behold.
But the biggest obstacle to Canada’s progress as a nation remains the treatment of Indigenous peoples, who were here well before July 1, 1867. The recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report provides 94 calls to action that strongly encourage Canadians to honestly come to grips with a past defined by the devastating consequences of taking Indigenous children from their families to assimilate them into the Canadian “way.”
The TRC noted that dealing directly and genuinely with Canada’s “cultural genocide” is necessary if we are to move forward together in respectful harmony, finally rid of this historical blight on Canada’s journey to date. It seems to us that too many are moving to versions of reconciliation before dealing with the truths of the past.
Sure, the TRC’s engaging process has moved public opinion a bit forward; increasingly, educational institutions are Indigenizing their curriculum to enhance deeper respect for Indigenous knowledges.
Many Canadian students and the population at large are now learning for the first time about what Canada brought upon Indigenous peoples beginning with permission to do horrific things as a result of Canada’s Indian Act of 1876, just nine years after the date Canadians are about to celebrate. More are aware that this piece of legislation eliminated what was left of First Nations’ self-government that made them wards of the newly minted Canada. This in turn begat the beginning of residential schools in the 1870s.
But there is much more to do to ensure the TRC doesn’t fade away into a checklist of false starts.
Why is it that Canada Day and Fête Nationale in Quebec are statutory holidays and National Aboriginal Day isn’t? The recent name change doesn’t cut it. Shamefully, not only have the Feds failed to respond to the Human Rights Tribunal decision requiring equitable child welfare funding for First Nations children, they just filed a court application to quash the tribunal’s decision. Justice delayed, justice denied.
And why are teenagers from Northern Ontario reserves seeking a high school education in Thunder Bay winding up literally dead in the water?
And what about the absence of potable water on far too many reserves?
Simply put, the underbelly of racism remains too widely prevalent. TRC cochair, now Senator Murray Sinclair, has often stated that each public or private organization or individual should take on one of the 94 calls to action; move something along that takes us all to a better place.
Our hope is that more and more Canadians, especially those in positions of power, connect the big birthday bash with the TRC’s vision for a better Canada. What better way to celebrate a more promising Canadian future than to brand sesquicentennial events with the TRC’s calls to action?
We would have more to celebrate if we all honoured both the best Canada has been while ensuring its worst moments are truthfully understood so genuine reconciliation catapults Canada to a place that a troubled world needs more than ever.