Orange Shirt Day is held every September 30th.
Orange Shirt Day is held every September 30th. Credit: Province of British Columbia / flickr Credit: Province of British Columbia / flickr

In 2015 when Justin Trudeau came into office, he stated that the most important relationship that he sought to work on was between Canada and Indigenous peoples. Six years later, the finding of graves close to Kamloops Indian Residential School sent shockwaves around the world.

Canada had a lot to answer for, and the Prime Minister quickly declared a national holiday that co-opted Orange Shirt Day, and gave Canadians a day off. There were no memorials, national monuments and directions to the country to do anything other than take a holiday…for a job well done perhaps? Without any leadership, who can say what the truth is? Prime Minister Trudeau set an example for the country, taking off on this national day of mourning to enjoy himself in Tofino. Was this Trudeau taking a victory lap for Canada’s genocide?

The words of politicians ring hollow when we stop listening to what they’re saying and start looking at what they’re doing.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was struck by residential school survivors. It was part of the settlement agreement for the abuse of the federally sanctioned residential school system. The survivors wanted to memorialize the dead and open the wounds as South Africa had after the end of apartheid. Only the system of abuse and oppression was never dismantled here. Canada has been dragging its feet supporting the Commission, complaining of costs to meet many of the Commission’s recommendations.

Instead of reconciliation, Canada broke down the department of Indian Affairs while gaslighting concerns about genocide and environmental destruction. Canada continued to ignore women and children being killed by the system, and vilified Indigenous peoples for standing up for their rights.

The government has systematically tried to stop all efforts of Indigenous peoples to tell the truth.

The only reason the graves of children were suddenly and surprisingly found was because the Commission’s work had stopped due to lack of funding and political interference and First Nations were doing the work themselves. Canada did not want to know what had happened. Canada, throughout this ordeal from Harper to Trudeau, has actively worked to sideline and undermine the revelations of truth. Canada has never attempted to reconcile with its past.

Canada has never come to terms with the abuses and injustices it perpetrated against the First peoples, and it has never confronted the abuses it commits today in the name of social justice and the rule of law. When Canada unilaterally let the Catholic church off the hook in August 2022 for its residential school funding commitments, it showed Canada’s commitment to reconciliation. It is only seeking tears for the cameras and headlines for its miniscule efforts. Meanwhile Indigenous peoples continue to struggle, give up and die because that is how the system was designed.

We are not on a path of reconciliation. We are watching the theatrics of a system that doesn’t want to change. A system that thinks it doesn’t have to change.

For Canada to enter into reconciliation, fundamental change has to happen. Indigenous governance has to be implemented on collective or whole First Nations community terms. Justice must include a voice in the protection of the land and its sacred sites. Families have to be restored and children returned. Mothers have to be supported. Our elders must be honoured. Addicts must be treated and trauma must be addressed for healing to occur. Injustice and overincarceration must end. Where is Canada in making change happen for the next generations? Where is our voice as Indigenous peoples guiding that change?

First Nations are given propositions of incremental change. Changes that only alter the status quo in ways that suit white Canadians — ways that make no real impact on the lives of Indigenous peoples and our descendants. It is a mass delusion that spins the same narrative and ensures nothing changes.

Canada cannot start to talk about reconciliation without understanding who we are as First Nations. It is merely performance. It is treading water while the oceans are rising and drowning out whole communities.

Trudeau’s government has enacted language legislation, child and family service legislation, and committed to spending forty billion for the case Canada lost at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.

The language legislation did not undertake proper consultation. Trudeau had his yes man: Assembly of First Nation’s former National Chief Perry Bellegarde acting as an Indian scout selling this watered down legislation to the First Nations across Canada. Compromised and malleable Indians were interviewed to make this legislation happen in a rush before the next federal election. A similar process was undertaken to rush and approve the child and family legislation.

In the midst of answering to the state’s own Human Rights Tribunal, Canada sent in lawyers and pulled legal manoeuvres to avoid taking responsibility for the unfair funding that has been sent to on reserve programs. These funds compared to the funding Canada sends to non-native organizations or institutions for First Nation education, health, foster care, access to health specific dollars, housing, and economic development confirms the discrimination that keeps reserve communities in poverty.

There have been documented cases at the federal level where for instance the contracts in water were given to conservative sycophants. Bruce Carson was the Harper advisor who “witnessed” the contract which resulted in him and his fiancée profiting from the lack of clean water in First Nations. Is it any wonder that Canada is still dealing with First Nations who have had boil water advisories for over thirty years? Trudeau also promised to deal with this in a timely manner.

What Trudeau’s government has done is continued the extinguishment policy of the 1969 White Paper to try to turn reserves into another lower order of government; to extinguish the last remnants of Indigenous sovereignty in favour of Canada’s white supremacist state.

Canada’s treatment of the First Nation Indigenous people shows a bleak report card. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report listed recommendations that Canada interprets from a white saviour stance so that First Nations will not be restored to their original strengths as a people.

This is what Canadians need to know. There are so many more ongoing issues that are affecting the health and well-being of First Nations across their own lands. There are injustices in the judicial system and well-meaning do-gooders still trying to convince the First Nations that they need to change and accept the colonial capitalist way of life as nirvana.

Meanwhile the reality for First Nations people is this: there have been historic injustices thrust on our people who only ever wanted to share and enjoy this land now called Canada. These historical injustices were so genocidal that the First Nations people are still trying to recover from the trauma that has been handed down from generation to generation. Canada denies the genocide. They feel that they can bury their genocidal actions by putting the word cultural in front of their attempts to kill off the Indians. It was Duncan Campbell Scott who said we must kill the Indian in the child as he set up residential schools taking children away from their families and communities.

While Canadians “celebrate” this hastily struck holiday, they should be more concerned about learning the truth before we can ever even begin to talk reconciliation.

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Rachel Snow

Rachel Ann Snow is Iyahe Nakoda, the daughter of late Reverend Dr. Chief John Snow. She holds a juris doctor from the College of Law, University of Saskatchewan and is an outspoken educator, speaker, writer...