On Canada 150
"As a society, we must acknowledge past mistakes" "no relationship is more important to Canada than the one with Indigenous peoples" These are some of the statements made by Justin Trudeau as Canada celebrates the 150th anniversary of its confederate with massive celebrations. The Canadian government allocated half a billion dollars for the celebrations held on July 1st. But under the joy of these celebrations lies a Sartrean level of absurdity. While half a billion dollars have been spent on the Canada 150 event, the Trudeau government (and preceding governments) has let social services for the indigenous people, intended to uplift them from their existing socio-economic crisis, go chronically underfunded. Do his words still align with his actions?
The question that arises is how can Canadians with even a sliver of morality and conscience, celebrate the birth of a nation which was built on the ashes and the genocide of the people that have lived on the same lands for thousands of years? How can they celebrate when the “progress” of their nation has been intertwined with and dependent on the massive oppression of their native people? And how can they celebrate when the very people that once walked these lands freely, continue to exist today, chained and smothered by a system that continues to shaft them and leaves them without a voice to be heard? The answer lies in the obliviousness of the average Canadian to the present day condition of the indigenous people. It is this obliviousness that the governments and the corporations use as fuel to run their machines of oppression of the natives. It is this obliviousness and apathy that needs to be annihilated.
As fireworks lit up the sky on the 1st of July, the indigenous communities celebrated too. The context however, was quite different. They celebrated the Onkwehón:we (Indigenous) peoples’ resilience to the genocide enacted by Canada in the name of “progress” and the security of who they call it’s “settlers”. The Onkwehón:we celebrated their resistance to assimilation. For every cake cut, every firework burst, every concert held, it is important to remember that deep down the line, the cost has been incurred by the natives in blood. How many of the 25,000 at the Parliament lawn would celebrate knowing that?
How can the natives be emancipated when their history of subordination itself isn’t universally recognised? There still exists a great deal of debate on the use of the term “genocide” with reference to Canada’s treatment of it’s natives. That said, the burden of evidence has been so overpowering that even the political class was forced to recognise that at the minimum, the Indigenous community has faced a “cultural genocide”. Paul Martin, the ex prime minister, told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that it was time that Canada accepted and called the residential school policy what it was: cultural genocide.
What are residential schools? The residential school system was a network of boarding schools for indigenous people, funded by the government and run by the church. Some Canadians argue that these were created in the pre-confederate times but one just needs to look into records to see that while plans for creating residential schools existed in pre-confederate times, they started being enforced not much after the Canadian Confederation. The intention behind the inception of such residential schools was best elucidated by Nicholas Davin’s report in 1879 (now known as the Davin Report) called, “Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds” which made the case for a cooperative approach between the government and the church to implement the “aggressive assimilation” of the natives into the majority culture as was done by the United States under Ulysses Grant. The residential schools were a part of Canadian history not in the distant past. The last residential school was shut down in 1996.
The students in these schools faced massive oppression in the form of physical assault, sexual abuse, harsh discipline and even corporal punishment that resulted in death. They were often malnourished and the terrible sanitation conditions and lack of healthcare systems led to high rates of diseases like tuberculosis. Out of the 150,000 children that were placed in these schools, around 6000 have been reported to have died while being residents. As is the case with such institutions, the number of unreported deaths could be much higher. True to it’s purpose, the residential schools deprived generations of indigenous people of their ancestral languages, removed them from their families by minimising contact between the students and their communities and by the time the students that survived the brutality of residential schools were brought into the Canadian society, they struggled to assimilate into the majority while at the same time being unable to go back to their communities.
Ex-Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a hollow public apology in 2008 on behalf of the Canadian government. But can words alone suffice centuries of oppression? Just a week before his public apology, the TRC was set up to unravel the truth about the residential schools and their effect on the native people. The TRC concluded that the totality of Canadian policy toward indigenous people amounted to their cultural, biological and physical genocide. Not all genocides stem from wars and not all genocides take place in gas chambers.
The residential schools were not the only form of oppression. Other forms of genocide included the forced sterilisation of Indigenous women and girls. In fact, the “famous five” women of Canada noted for their struggle for women’s rights and inclusion of women in the political process are themselves not devoid of controversy. Emily Murphy, one of the “famous five”, a women’s rights activist and the first female magistrate in the British Empire played a significant role in the Sexual Sterilisation Act of Alberta in 1928 which aimed at “protecting the gene pool”. She also held the belief that a rise in immigrant populations, especially from China would corrupt the white race by creating an atmosphere of drug abuse in the white community.
The crux of Canada’s policy towards the Indian people was however, the assimilation of their lands and resources while reducing financial obligations to the indigenous people. The modus operandi was simple - assimilate or eliminate. This included forbidding the indigenous people from hunting, fishing or gathering on their own lands, confining them to live in isolated, tiny reserves and providing them with insufficient rations in exchange for the government’s right to use their lands. The government went on to clear their lands, extract their resources, build mines, oil plants and so on in the name of development. Development of the sort that the cost-bearers (natives) could not reap the profits of.
Over time, there have been improvements in the situation of the natives but only marginal. After a long and arduous struggle by the indigenous community, section 35 of the Canada’s Constitution Act, 1982, recognised the rights of the Aboriginals. However those rights were never clearly defined, limiting their strength in the judicial process. The Sparrow Case of 1990 which was the first case to recognise the above mentioned Constitution Act ruled that the First Nations “have an Aboriginal right, as defined in the Constitution, to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes and that right takes priority over all others, after conservation”.
Were these rights respected by the government? Far from it. Instead of implementing these rights the Canadian government with it’s neoliberal model of growth made sweeping approvals of major corporate and industrial projects on indigenous lands without the consent of the indigenous people like the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion. The project was approved by none other than the internet’s heartthrob and the Canadian government’s PR achievement - Justin Trudeau.
The core of the problem is not only Canada's failure to take steps to right the wrongs of the past. More indigenous children today are taken away from their parents and put in foster care than at the height of the residential school system. Trudeau has routinely asserted the importance of reconciliation with the indigenous people while at the same time spending more than 700,000$ in legal fees, fighting a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal order insisting that the discrimination against Indigenous children in provision of healthcare be brought to an end. The problem is systemic. The problem isn’t just the lack of motivation. It is quite simply a conflict of interest between the centralised power and the people. Despite it’s attempts at trying to form an all inclusive government by bringing in people from various communities and religious backgrounds into it’s government, the liberal party (and every other party) does not represent the people in it’s actions. When asked why the Liberals are not providing First Nations with the cash that would pay for the same level of social services available off-reserve, Trudeau said that the First Nations are unready to handle additional cash for social services. And this, is the reality of Canada's socio-politics today.
No amount of showcasing indigenous art and culture at the Canada 150 celebrations will bring to an end the centuries of pain, suffering, suicides, police abuses, substandard healthcare and utilities, forceful land acquisition and the loss of a rich, ancient culture. Had the half a billion dollars been put into the creation and implementation of policies aimed at uplifting the indigenous communities, perhaps only then would the hollowness in the words of Canada’s political spheres be filled with meaning. The Canadian people need to snap out of their obliviousness and meaningless obsession with their charming leader and hear the cries of their indigenous brethren. The crimes against some are the crimes against all.