Year: 2021

These past few weeks have been difficult for Canada and what it means to be Canadian. That discomfort is nothing compared to the legacy of trauma settlers and successive Canadian governments have inflicted upon the Indigenous Peoples of the land now called Canada.

Canada Day feels different this year—and it should. At last count, 1,148 unmarked graves (182 announced yesterday in Cranbrook, B.C.) have been discovered at just THREE of the 139 residential schools that were operated by religious orders and the Canadian Government from 1880-1996. That number is sure to grow.

Across the country flags fly at half-staff in a symbolic gesture of mourning for these horrific discoveries. But these discoveries were not unexpected for the survivors of residential schools. They tried to tell us about what happened to them and their schoolmates who suffered and died from squalid living conditions, medical neglect, mental/physical/sexual abuse or simply trying to escape and return to the families and communities from which they had been forcibly separated. All this in the name of solving the “Indian problem” via a program of cultural genocide.

That Canada and Canadians did these things does not make me proud.

I want what we do next to make me proud.

I want to see more than flags lowered. I want the banks whose headquarters surround this flagpole to donate money to Indigenous students and businesses. I want real change. I want an end to the long-term drinking water advisories still in effect on 51 reserves. I want recognition and reckoning. I want the religious orders and the governments that administered the schools to release their records. I want the Pope to apologize. I want the truth to come out and I want reconciliation to be made real.

I want Canada to be better—for everyone.