This day means something different this year. As a Canadian, it’s hard to rejoice on a day celebrating the colonial ‘achievements’ that have come from Canada’s founding as a Dominion under the British Empire. The failures of Canadian governance churn my stomach.
I want to tell you a story. I call it a story because my knowledge of it is filled with holes, choice memories, and intentional biases. But it is the story of myself that I know. It goes like this:
My ancestors were Scottish settlers that came to Canada in the late 1800s. They were teachers, writers, engineers and at least one lawyer. Many of my female ancestors wrote poems, songs, novels, and letters. I even have several letters written to my great-great-grandmother, Florence Carmichael, from Nellie McClung and Lucy Maude Montgomery, giving her advice on breaking into the publishing industry. In one of the letters, Nellie McClung says to my great-great-grandmother that “publishers, as a class, are absolutely lacking in literary taste.” Mrs. McClung sounds firey!
Since the crossing, my Scottish ancestors married Danish, Irish, and French settlers and helped establish North Bay, Ontario. My story also includes a Metis woman among the shuffle of old photographs (now lost). My father sings songs and stretches canvas across the frames of hand-shaped cedar canoes. I look at my skin next to his sun-darkened hide, and I am as white as the northern snow. The rumours of a secret native ancestor, like many similar ‘Indian princess’ stories told by European settlers, are probably BS. I don’t know what to do with this bit of rumour.
The problem with my story is that, beyond whispers of a secret Metis ancestor, it says nothing about the aboriginal people that lived in the land where my family immigrated to. While my ancestors were busy building a new town, the Canadian government spun the line that it was the white man’s responsibility to force civilization upon the remaining aboriginal population. The means to do this was the implementation of the residential school system. The despicable man that implemented many of the horrific policies of the residential school system at the time was fond of saying, “kill the Indian, save the man.” (Duncan Campbell Scott)
Many white settlers in the late 1800s believed only enlightened Europeans knew what was truly best for the Canadian aboriginal population. My ancestors were sold a grand picture of the future, where through forced European education, the civilized aboriginal would walk, talk and believe as the white man, and in doing so, would find what it meant to be truly happy.
A stark example of this attitude can be found in a quote from a man named P. G. Anderson, the Indian Affairs Superintendent. In 1846, at the General Council of Indian Chiefs and Principle Men in Orillia, Ontario, he stated,
“... it is because you do not feel, or know the value of education; you would not give up your idle roving habits, to enable your children to receive instruction. Therefore you remain poor, ignorant and miserable. It is found you cannot govern yourselves. And if left to be guided by your own judgement, you will never be better off than you are at the present, and your children will ever remain in ignorance. It has therefore been determined, that your children shall be sent to Schools, where they will forget their Indian habits and be instructed in all the necessary arts of civilized life, and become one with your white brethren.”
However, the truth behind Canada’s forced reeducation policies had nothing to do with education. They were about repression and submission. The schools were designed not to elevate but to destroy First Nations children’s culture, language, and beliefs. Ironically, real education within the residential school system was actively discouraged. Only 3% of all First Nations children progressed in their education beyond grade 6. It was actually against the law for First Nations children to attend regular schools until 1945.
In the 1940s, at a residential school in northwestern Ontario, a Federal Inspector, in a letter to the school’s administrator, admonished him for encouraging Native students to go to grade 9 and beyond. “If we let the Indian go to grade 9, then they’ll want to go to grade 10, and then they’ll want to go to university, and that’s what we don’t want!”
I shake in shame. The abuse and murder of the First Nations people in Canada are a part of my story that was conveniently untold until now. The unpleasant truth was hidden from me; why? Because, for all their grand words, European policymakers and the people that supported them knew that what they were doing was wrong. Why hide it otherwise? Why bury the truth? Instead, I was taught that the land my people came to was wild and empty. I didn’t even know what a residential school was until my early twenties.
But I knew the slurs. I felt the mistrust and suspicion between the native and settler communities, yet I didn’t know why this tension existed.
Now I know where the tension comes from. I know of the pain of the dark secrets untold in the true story of my family history. My family continues to live in relative comfort and privilege in a land of wealth. Yes, there are also times of poverty and struggle within the stories of my settler family, yet I am white. I am insulated. When I ask for help and access to government services, I have little difficulty being heard and finding the support I need.
The Canadian government is responsive to my needs because white settlers created it to serve the Europeans who colonized Canada on behalf of the British. In other words, it was a white government built to serve white colonists.
I don’t know what my ancestors knew. I don’t know what they voted for or if their actions were malicious or criminally ignorant. But I know now what was done in their name. To turn a blind eye to what happened would only further the suffering of the victims.
Today, First Nations, new immigrants, refugees and the descendants of early settlers are all a part of the fabric of Canada. To build better, we must all share power. The government can no longer serve only one culture. Despite the sins of the past, I do remain hopeful. I believe that we can learn that with genuine compassion, respect, humility, and cooperation Canada can become a country we can all celebrate.
