Our shared history was not an elective
SIOUX LOOKOUT— It was a slap in the face to all survivors of Indian Residential Schools — and to their children and grandchildren — when the Ontario government revealed this week that learning about Indigenous history would merely be an option for high school students this fall. The announcement by Education Minister Lisa Thompson showed that the government has ignored a key call to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which recommended mandatory instruction about treaties, residential schools and the contributions of contemporary Indigenous people for students from kindergarten to Grade 12.
Our shared history was not an elective.
We did not ask for 150,000 children to be taken away from their families, their language and their culture in order to be placed in government-funded, church-run schools that were intended to beat the Indian out of them.
We did not ask for our sisters and brothers, our aunties or our uncles, to be scooped up by child welfare authorities and adopted out to white families.
We did not ask to live in mouldy housing, in communities without basic medical care, high schools or clean running water.
We did not ask to be both shut out of the justice system and locked behind bars at a far greater rate than anyone else.
We did not ask for this treatment in our own land.
All of these things happened as a result of Canada’s longstanding policies to tame, diminish and control the Indigenous population, to move First Nations, Métis and Inuit out of the way so others could come here, settle and reap the rewards of this land.
“We are committed to ensuring that Indigenous perspectives are present in Ontario’s curriculum,” Thompson said. Indigenous perspectives? It’s called the truth. Her government’s position that our history doesn’t matter is a frightening turn toward the past.
Is this a sign that the rightwing ideology we’ve seen throughout the United States is seeping into our political system?
Or was this just ignorance — or something worse — on the part of the Ford government? Thompson announced the curriculum changes on Tuesday in Thunder Bay — yes, in Thunder Bay of all places, the city on the shores of Gitchigami, or Lake Superior, that continues to fight the ravages of colonialism. She talked about how the new optional courses were created after engaging with Indigenous leaders, many of whom were sitting in the crowd as she made the announcement.
One leader who sat there listening to Thompson, completely stunned, was Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. A leader of nearly 50,000 people living in 49 northern First Nations in Treaty 9 and parts of Treaty 5, Fiddler was never OK with making any of this optional.
Thompson and Fiddler would cross paths again on Wednesday, when they came to Sioux Lookout for the opening of the Sioux North High School.
Speaking in their brand new gymnasium, Fiddler told the students how he left his family in Muskrat Dam as a young teen to go to high school in Sioux Lookout because there was no high school in his community.
Looking at Thompson, Fiddler noted that he was never taught in school about treaties, about residential schools or the proud history of Indigenous people on Turtle Island, about their democratic systems, societies and knowledge.
He warned the students that if we don’t make that kind of education mandatory, another generation of lawmakers, teachers, CEOs, engineers and health care workers of all backgrounds will become the decision makers of tomorrow without the knowledge of our true history.
“As long as we allow our schools to teach the colonizers’ version of history, we will never begin a journey of reconciliation together,” Fiddler said.
I spoke after Fiddler, conveying the same message. When I’d finished, Thompson leaned over to me and said, “Message received.”
So I asked her why she didn’t make those high school courses mandatory.
“We are working on it,” she said. A sliver of hope?
Or perhaps just another broken promise.