By: Olivia Visser, Staff Writer
Content warning: anti-Indigenous violence and discrimination, residential schools
Canada Day is a celebration of national pride. From endless hiking trails, to universal(-ish) healthcare and Tim Horton’s, many Canadians get to celebrate their quality of life. However, not everyone shares this privilege to the same degree. And it’s due to our failure to provide those Canadian privileges to Indigenous peoples that we should cancel Canada Day in favour of a Day for National Reconciliation.
In this country, Indigenous people have historically suffered from and continue to endure systemic injustices that our government both caused and refuses to tangibly address. A celebration of a country’s history that takes place while a large segment of its citizenry is actively suffering isn’t innocent, it’s nationalistic. We’re minimizing the country’s colonial history and continuation of genocide in favour of an artificially positive vision of the country.
Canada’s history, inextricably linked, as it is, to violence and discrimination against Indigenous peoples is nothing to be celebrated — particularly when that celebration inevitably turns to talk of how Canada is uniquely multicultural. The treatment of Indigenous peoples makes the country’s claim to multiculturalism ring hollow.
Beyond having their land violently dispossessed, Indigenous people experienced cultural genocide by being forced into residential schools and forcibly stripped of their Indian Status through the Indian Act’s policy of enfranchisement. The enfranchisement process involved losing “their treaty and statutory rights as Indigenous peoples, and their right to live in the reserve community.” The Act also banned practices like potlatchs and the Sun Dance in a deliberate show of racism. The government was intentionally trying to establish its own eurocentric culture, yet nowadays people praise Canada for its public commitment to diversity. The central Canadian myth — that we value multiculturalism — is undermined by the history that we choose to celebrate every July 1st.
Today, Indigenous people continue to suffer the consequences of Canada’s genocidal past. The last residential school was only closed in 1996, so many survivors are still alive today. New unmarked graves are continuously added to over 1,300 that have been confirmed to be discovered so far at residential schools. For most Canadians, this is a devastating reminder of our history, but for Indigenous people, it’s a traumatic manifestation of the violence that still burdens survivors and their loved ones.
Before we begin to celebrate Canadian culture, we need to address our present-day injustices. The Canadian government still violates Indigenous rights by encroaching on their lands for resource development and denying basic needs like water and healthcare. We also need to seriously address the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women by moving away from performative gestures and towards measurable action. Land acknowledgments are essential but don’t generate substantial change on their own. The Canadian government can start by addressing the material well-being of those living on reserves by increasing funds for essential resources and restoring land rights. Reconciliation by our government is performative if many communities still lack access to safe drinking water, and live on land owned and controlled by the Crown.
Reconciliation isn’t as simple as holding hands and pretending everything is all sunshine and rainbows. A step as simple as adding “Reconciliation Day” to the calendar, as the country did last year, isn’t enough. It is performative in the same way Canada claims to care about reconciliation, while still actively harming Indigenous communities — because every Canada Day we still celebrate being on stolen lands.
Reconciliation is just a word for the starting point, not the endpoint, in accounting for the trauma that’s been forced onto Indigenous communities. It involves respecting Indigenous land rights, honouring treaties, and recognizing the contributions that Indigenous people have made to our society. It’s time to ditch Canada Day in favour of an alternative that actually accounts for our country’s dark history, and celebrates multiculturalism in a genuine manner.
We also can’t sit back and expect the government to entirely fix a problem caused in part by civilian complacency. Reconciliation involves individual as well as systemic solidarity. Canadians can donate to Indigenous-run mutual aid organizations as a way to directly support those affected by colonization. Indigenous Mutual Aid is just one organization that offers emergency funds, medicine, and community resources to Indigenous people in need. Because these funds bypass government involvement, independent organizations like this can allocate their resources more effectively, with firsthand knowledge of where support is needed.
Canada is far from meeting the mark on reconciliation, but that doesn’t mean justice is a hopeless feat. The only real way forward is for everyone to recognize their place in this system that has targeted Indigenous communities since it began. Every settler in this country benefits from contributions made by Indigenous people who were subjected to genocide. Because of this, Canada Day should be permanently replaced with a Day for Reconciliation. We should have a holiday that reflects the values our society emptily articulates and should genuinely strive toward.
