500+ And Counting

Over the past while, I have come to question a lot that I have believed in about my country. Canada is known for being a beautiful country filled with beautiful, kind people. We say "Sorry" a lot. We welcome everyone. We have beavers and poutine and Mounties, who always "get their man". We are a just nation.

A "just" nation. What does that mean? In 1968 at a Liberal leadership convention, Pierre Elliott Trudeau spoke of his vision for Canada:

The Just Society will be one in which the rights of minorities will be safe from the whims of intolerant majorities. The Just Society will be one in which those regions and groups which have not fully shared in the country's affluence will be given a better opportunity. The Just Society will be one where such urban problems as housing and pollution will be attacked through the application of new knowledge and new techniques. The Just Society will be one in which our Indian and Inuit populations will be encouraged to assume the full rights of citizenship through policies which will give them both greater responsibility for their own future and more meaningful equality of opportunity. The Just Society will be a united Canada, united because all of its citizens will be actively involved in the development of a country where equality of opportunity is ensured and individuals are permitted to fulfill themselves in the fashion they judge best.

I, along with many of my generation and beyond, were taught that our ancestors came here to tame the land. We "discovered" the "New World". The people already inhabiting this land didn't really count because they were Godless savages. We brought them civilization. We brought them Jesus. And their thanks came in the form of war and scalpings and all-around bad behaviour.

Later I learned that "Indians" were lazy, unmotivated, bad parents, drunkards, etc.

I really am not sure when I started to question things - when I began to realize that perhaps what I had been taught might not be the entire truth...or hold any truths at all. History, as Churchill has been quoted as saying, is written by the victors.

Initially, I began to realize that, as a country, we were, in fact, rather racist. I began to learn about systemic racism. I began to learn about white privilege. I began to realize that the system, our system is generally stacked against all those who are not white. I began to realize that the opportunities I had throughout my life were not necessarily offered to those who were not like me. I began to realize that, as I grew older, people listened to me over those who looked different than I.

This was a hard realization for me. I had been smugly showing up the blatant racism in the US for years and now came to realize it really was not much better in Canada.

So where does a white, privileged woman go to seek the truth?

A good place to start was listening to Indigenous voices, I reckoned. I read books by Indigenous authors. I read fiction and non-fiction. I went online to Indigenous pages on Facebook and online blogs and news outlets. I read about the other history of Canada - that of the experiences of the Indigenous peoples of this country.

It was uncomfortable. At times, it was painful. I read how the North-West Mounted Police was formed to "maintain order" out west. Maintaining order was essentially keeping "Indians" in line. I realized that the role of the now-named RCMP bore many of the same hallmarks of their predecessors still today. "My" Mounties were not the symbol of all that was good in Canada; they were part of what was bad here.

The story of Colten Boushie, a young, Cree man who was shot in 2016 for "trespassing" by a farmer in Saskatchewan is likely largely forgotten...by all but the Indigenous people of Canada. I watched a documentary by Tasha Hubbard about Boushie; "nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up". It illustrated the injustice faced by Indigenous people in Canada every single day. It showed how our "justice" system is stacked against Indigenous people.

I read the final report on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. More importantly, I read the 231 "Calls to Justice". I read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 "Calls to Action". In the 7 years since the "Calls to Justice" have been delivered, 10 have been implemented. Fewer "Calls to Action" have been implemented.

Indigenous women and girls go missing, are found murdered, on a much-too-regular basis. Children are being found on and around the grounds of "Indian Residential Schools". To this date, 500+ have been found with the dreaded knowledge that those young souls may be just the beginning of discovering proof of a widespread, horrific massacre.

We white settlers have committed systemic genocide against the Indigenous peoples of Canada that continues to this day. In our silence, we are complicit.

I have, and continue to face uncomfortable truths - about myself...about my country. Trudeau the elder had a beautiful vision of this land. Sadly, it remains little more than a vision. Colten Boushie said we'd all get along better if we just took a book and sat under a tree. He wasn't wrong. I will continue to listen...and to read...and to learn...and to act against a system that is not just.

~Until we are all free, we are none of us free. - Emma Lazarus~