Our Outgoing Prime Minister Is Doing Right by the First Nations
Finally, we have something to celebrate as a country
Canada is a country with a deep well of grief and suffering hidden beneath a polite veneer.
There is no country on Earth that doesn’t have skeletons in its closet, and we are no different. Our genocide against the First Nations people of Canada is not some mistake of the distant past; it’s a very recent atrocity that we still need to reckon with.
How recent? Well, I’m about to turn 31. I was a walking, talking toddler when the last Residential School closed in 1996.
For those who don’t know, the Residential Schools were essentially forced indoctrination programs where Indigenous children were kept after being forcibly stolen from their parents’ arms. Our government did that to people. Read up on the Sixties Scoop if you think I’m lying.
Their culture was beaten out of them, they were punished for speaking their own languages, and they were forced to adopt European and Christian names. They weren’t allowed to return home or visit their families or communities.
They were completely cut off from everything they knew, and everyone they loved, and subjected to inhumane cruelty for the crime of being born.
Many children died as a result of their mistreatment and neglect, some being killed outright by the severe abuse they endured. Survivors—many of whom are barely older than I am, having been in the schools since they were little—tell nightmarish stories of what they went through.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a common diagnosis among survivors.
Stolen children, stolen lands, stolen identity and a stolen future—that is what the First Nations of Canada received from our government. We’re beginning to recognize this, take it seriously and seek to make reparations.
And while Trudeau is on his way out the door and intends to leave office when his replacement is selected, he decided to take a stand with one of his final acts as Prime Minister.
He took the historic step of recognizing the Land Back movement’s legitimacy, and he gave the Haida Gwaii archipelago back to the Haida Nation. The Haida Recognition Act was given royal assent on November 7th of last year, and it was officially signed on December 4th.
On February 17th, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Gaagwiis Jason Alsop, the elected President of the Haida Nation, and together they formally sealed the agreement before a crowd of cheering people in traditional regalia.
To call this momentous is an understatement. The formal recognition, by the Canadian federal government, of Aboriginal title via negotiation—this is new.
This is not a small step in the right direction, this is a forceful stride, hauling the whole country around by the scruff and throwing it onto a path towards compassion and reconciliation.
This is a recognition of their traditional lands, an acknowledgement that their people have rights to the land as its native children, and a reminder of why we call them the First Nations of Canada.
It is a shelving of our pride and a commitment to doing right by the people we have wronged.
It is actions like this that remind us what Canada can be, and an example of how we can make the world better for the future.
It’s nice to talk about some good news for a change. Thank you, Prime Minister Trudeau, for this honourable act.
Solidarity wins.