Canada Day should perhaps be a time for reflection
By Lethbridge Herald on June 30, 2022.
Alica Mistaken Chief and Jason Laurendeau
As July 1 approaches, it is worth reflecting on the state of affairs on these lands we occupy. Perhaps Canada Day should be not a celebration, not a moment to honour Canada’s past, but a moment for deep reflection. Perhaps it can be a moment to ask ourselves what kind of future we want to build, and what we can do in the present to do so. Specifically, with National Indigenous Peoples Day having recently passed, it can be a moment to reflect on “truth and reconciliation.”
As stated in the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015: “Without truth, justice, and healing, there can be no genuine reconciliation.” There is no possibility of reconciliation, in other words, without truth.
Canadians need to listen to the truths of unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools; of the impacts of the child welfare system in Indigenous lives, Nations, and kinship systems; of the disproportionate numbers of Indigenous peoples imprisoned, living on the streets, and dying from the opioid crisis, COVID-19, state violence, and numerous other health and social crises; to the truths of Indigenous peoples whose lives have been structured by state violence since birth, who bear the weight of not only their own trauma but the trauma inflicted upon their ancestors, nations, and lands.
Canadians need to listen, too, to the truths of Indigenous resistance, refusal, and resurgence. To the truths of the Sage Clan Patrol in Lethbridge, working tirelessly to support those most marginalized in Sik Ooh Kotoki (Lethbridge), those facing barriers to housing on their own homelands. To the truths of organizers in and around Lethbridge ensuring that we remember the little ones who never made it home from residential schools as well as the survivors of these genocidal institutions and their descendants. To the truths of land defenders putting their bodies and lives on the line to protect the lands we so often “acknowledge” at public events. To the truths of language revitalization, cultural preservation, and sacred ceremonies around which Blackfoot life, spirituality, and nationhood are built.
What’s more, listening to these truths comes with responsibilities. It is not enough for Canadians to simply hear these truths; we must ask ourselves what we can do to help build more just futures. Sure, we can attend feel-good events on National Indigenous Peoples Day or listen to Indigenous friends, colleagues, and community members. But if we only listen to their joy and not their anger (to which they are entitled!), if we only do the comfortable work, the work that feels easy or good, then we are not taking on much of a responsibility.
Those of us occupying Indigenous lands as uninvited guests need to do work that makes us uncomfortable and uncertain, even about that very occupation. We need to learn about broken treaties, about the Pass system, about intergenerational trauma.
We need to learn, too, about the Cardston blockade, about the Kanehsatà:ke resistance, about the Innii initiative focused on reintroducing Buffalo to these lands, and about innumerable other examples of Indigenous strength and complexity.
We also need to do something with that learning, to figure out how to support Indigenous sovereignty. Perhaps that means attending Every Child Matters events and finding ways to support organizers. Perhaps that means making muffins or sandwiches that the Sage Clan Patrol provides to those in need in the community. Perhaps that means challenging anti-Indigenous racism in our social worlds. Whatever it means, it certainly means recognizing the humanity of Indigenous peoples, their inherent right to live in a world that sees a shared humanity. Recognizing that the world we’re building must be a safe space for all of our children and grandchildren.
This won’t be easy work, nor will it always feel comfortable or certain. But it will be important. And that is worth considering on July 1.
Alica Mistaken Chief is an Every Child Matters activist and organizer and a member of the Kainai Nation.
Jason Laurendeau is a settler living and working on Blackfoot lands.
13-12
Absolutley wrong. This day is to celebrate Canada as a nation, not one divided by those who think it’s their traditional land (who did they steal it from?), who blame the white man for their own failures, and who only take money from the government but refuse to work.
Happy Canada Day, Canadians!
“McIvor’s message is consistent and powerful: if Canadians are brave enough to confront the reality of the country’s colonialist past and present and insist that politicians replace empty promises with concrete, meaningful change, there is a realistic path forward based on respect, recognition and the implementation of Indigenous rights.”
https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/editorial-board/bruce-mcivor/359726
https://www.amazon.ca/Standoff-Reconciliation-Fails-Indigenous-People/dp/0889714207
“Dr. Sheldon Krasowski was born in Treaty Six territory in Saskatoon and attended the University of Saskatchewan where he received a BA with a major in Indigenous Studies in 1995. In 1998 he received an MA in Indigenous Studies from Trent University and completed the thesis “A Numiany” The Prayer People and the Pagans of Walpole Island First Nation.” In 2011, he received a PhD in history from the University of Regina for the dissertation, “Mediating the Numbered Treaties: Eyewitness Accounts of the Numbered Treaties Between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples, 1871-1876.” This research became the basis for No Surrender: The Land Remains Indigenous which was published by the University of Regina Press in 2019 and includes a foreword by Dr. Winona Wheeler.
Dr. Krasowski has taught in both history and Indigenous Studies departments at First Nations University of Canada; Vancouver Island University; the University of Saskatchewan; Blue Quills First Nations College; the University of Calgary; and Athabasca University. He has completed research for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Metis Nation of Ontario, and is currently a co-investigator on a research project with the Montreal Lake Cree Nation on the Treaty 6 Adhesion of 1889. Sheldon is currently the research coordinator at the Office of the Treaty Commissioner in Saskatoon.” – University of Saskatchewan
https://www.amazon.ca/No-Surrender-Land-Remains-Indigenous/dp/0889775966
https://www.thoughtco.com/colonialism-definition-and-examples-5112779
co·lo·ni·al·ism
You choose to respond to a measured call for reflection on systemic racism on these lands with your own racism? Simply put, then, you’re not our audience.
What a shocking and disturbing thing to read (Citi Zen’s comment). What’s especially disturbing is, I may have said something similar 10 years ago.
I was listening to Buffy St. Marie on CBC yesterday. She said; “as a teacher, I don’t meet ignorance with anger, I see it as a teaching opportunity.” While Citi Zen may or may not be teachable , we should not give up trying.
You’re absolutely right; I shouldn’t be so dismissive, especially since the settler state actively teaches the kind of ignorance Citi Zen cites in their comment.
Citi Zein’s Attitude and lack of knowledge, empathy and ignorance is what divides us all. Do a little bit of research!
So I assume you are all in favor of ditching Canada Day then, in favor of “Indigenous resistance, refusal” Day?? Absolute insanity!
Not sure where to start! Canada Day is for Canadians to unite and stand as Canadians to celebrate the country that is still rated as one of the best in the world to live in and be proud.
I am tired of attacks against my people, non-indigenous Canadians continually and being called racist! I find the biggest racist in Lethbridge are the indigenous and your comments are racist as well by blaming us ‘colonialists’ for your plight. I am a Canadian, but you call me a colonialist! I have faced racism from the Sage Clan on the streets of Lethbridge. There are also indigenous who are on our streets who incite others to purposely create issues and some even say they represent the local band leadership, but I think they have their own agenda.
The indigenous were treated wrong, I agree and there were terrible and horrific acts against them. Was it the ‘colonialists’ or the Catholics who operated the residential schools that committed many of these acts?
I am tired of being under attack for something I, nor my ancestors did not do! My great-great grandparents were friends with the indigenous and often the indigenous would cross the river to come for tea/coffee or even dinner in their homes, where they were welcome. Some worked for them and before you accuse them as being use as slave labour, they were paid the same as the others! If our family was aware of what was going on in those early schools they would have stood for change, then and there!
You cannot shove Truth and Reconciliation down our throats and expect us to bow down to it!
And we do not occupy this land, we own it by Treaties that your ancestors signed, in faith as we did, right or wrong, the land agreement was signed.
I could also bring up horrific acts that were committed against early settlers in this area, even after 1870, where men, women and children were raped, tortured, murdered, etc., that some have tried to remove from history, including removing them from archives and libraries, but I still have some of the books. Have you ever thought that after all the horrific acts committed against the settlers, that may have partly contributed to the treatment of your people? A reaction from fear?
Many of those memorials, statues and paintings of early indigenous leaders do not have calls from us to tear them down or remove them, even though many of them had the blood of the early settlers on their hands!
You want truth, that is truth!
Many of the missing and murdered indigenous children and women were because of indigenous on indigenous acts, not ‘colonialists’. Your lifestyle has created many of the issues with many of your young ending up on the streets to die because of events in your own communities. When police try to investigate they face a wall of silence! Yet you turn the blame on us!
We all want peace and unity, but you seem to think that attacking and blaming us for all of your plight will help bring it. All you are doing is angering the very people you demand respect and peace with.
Through treaties Canadians have pumped hundreds of billions into Indigenous/Inuit/Metis’ peoples over the years and currently pump annually over $17 billion to support all of you, which is more than many provincial budgets in this country per capita. You have about 1.3 million people, with less than half of that taking supports/full treaty monies, so where does all that money go? You also have all the resource revenues and what has become regular major payouts by this government, $40 billion here and $30 billion there! This is not reconciliation!
I and many are tired of being attacked for something we didn’t do and accused of things we never did and called racists by racists!
Canada Day is about Unity, but you want to make it about you and attacking the very hands that have supported you. Your plight, your destiny is from your actions, your decisions. Every celebration in the last year had been overshadowed by the constant barrage of how we abused the indigenous, without any respect for all of the good many Canadians did or the high costs the taxpayers paid to support you. How is it that refugees arrive in this country from war-torn countries where they lived in terror of being killed or tortured, with only the clothes on their back and a debt to repay the government for their transportation costs here, and within a few years that debt is paid back and they have jobs, supporting their families with a home and even a vehicle which were not supplied by the government, but they worked for! How can they succeed, along with a language barrier?
I am tired, as many and if you thing you can force reconciliation on us, you are wrong! People are already tired of even hearing the word!
The process of reconciliation is to agree there were issues, find a way to reconcile those differences, and FORGIVE one another! Once you forgive your forget it and never bring it up again!
The residential schools and graves have been brought up every ten years or so, in the last 30 years and I agree, some promises from the church were never completed but there has to be an end in sight, or you will see people turn away that supported you.
At some point you need to take some responsiblity for your own destiny and quit blaming everyone else!
it is a frustrating thing, if not altogether nonsense, to use present “sensibilities” so as to inflict judgement and condemnation upon actions from eras past. are we ever truly absolute and perfect in our knowledge, societal and worldviews? presentism: “the application of present-day ideas to interpretations of the past. https://simplicable.com/new/presentism this link provides a short and a useful read.
this is not to say we should not acknowledge our mistakes; but rather, are we not better to acknowledge our growth, and reflect upon the past in terms of what, why, and most important, how, we came and come to believe and value anything. (we had best do a much better job of investigating and acknowledging how we have come to believe and value that which we do now as well as how we came to accept what we believed and valued then). it was not long ago at all that gay men were made criminal, as were cannabis users, as were alcohol users. as were females exercising their right to choice. still not entirely equal, it was not along ago at all that females did not get equal pay for equal work, nor did they even have near the opportunity for education, careers and jobs as did males. moreover, it was not long ago that women could be “legally” raped by their husband.
on another level, we also were, and still are, quite entirely stupid with regard to our “understanding” – utter ignorance, really – of the natural world (at least are the very many) whereby we see/saw non-human creatures as stupid, thoughtless, and as basically mostly inanimate and instinct driven. hence, today, the routine and far flung abuse an annihilation of creatures is hardly seen to be much of an issue, let alone a crime. bad enough we rape and pillage and poison habitats and ecosystems, but perhaps sicker, we legitimise and underwrite with our very actions with money the routine torture of animals in the name of “science” and “medicine”.
my point? are we ever at our best at any point in time and space and history? are we not, more in fact, ever in a state of flux, ideally growing and becoming more enlightened…but, perhaps, not always the latter? thus, it is one thing – and a very important thing – to seek out and stop injustices and become kinder and grow our empathy and change our ways, ideally, for the better for, as much as is possible; however, it is quite another to condemn people today for the actions of ancestors who lived by another set of understandings, values, and mores.
most of us living here in what we call canada today did not take part in what we have by and large come to see as the sick, destructive outcomes of colonial practices. (and yet, today, we do as much as we buy into or otherwise entirely ignore the practice of colonialism now called “globalisation”, the primacy of the corporate world and the subjugation it brongs over the natural world and varying cultures and world views, and the ongoing imposition of our beliefs upon peoples and places that are without our borders (ie afghanisitan, iraq, syria, pick a land in africa or pretty much anywhere that we may see as too “different” from us).
in fact, not only are there few to none among us that directly committed injustices toward natives, the nation itself is further inhabited by peoples that arrived here well after that fact.
let us also examine the use of the term “first peoples” or “aboriginal peoples”. do we really know who was really first anywhere? i mean, has there not long, forever, been battles for space and resources, migrations, more battles, and so forth? are we trying to imply or unequivocally state that white folk – now reduced to wicked, shameful people seemingly of non-colour (as everyone else is grouped into a people of colour category…we sure love to foment our separations and divisions, eh?) – for god’s sake, came from nowhere and took over from people that were always “there”? and, similarly ignorant, are we not shaming and condemning people today, that had nothing to do with colonial practices, because of their ancestral links to those of that past that were colonialists?
let us grow, and share, and care, and heal together. but shaming the innocent, and then elevating others to some superior and even exalted status, is hardly fair and reasonable. what we call canada today came to be because of a lot of ignorance, bloodshed, greed, and ego driven immaturity. however, that is not at all unlike how the space we now refer to as canada was for the generations prior to the colonials: it was then just a different set of peoples fighting for space and resources and imposing their sets of values, beliefs and mores wherever and whenever it was deemed to be necessary. and, that, is the what is and has been the state of the planet. there really are no first peoples: they all have come to pass many thousands of years ago. what we have now, everywhere, are the survivors.