So, I wasn't going to write anything about this day but a friend of mine talked to me and convinced me that my perspective and feelings are valued. If you've read my writing on residential schools and the state of indigenous people in Canada then you will know that this is a heavy subject to cover, kind of why I was avoiding it in the first place. So, anyways... here I go again...
So, the 30th of September in Canada was "orange shirt" day which was meant to raise awareness for indigenous issues, particularly residential schools and indigenous children's rights. The reason it is an orange shirt was due to Phylis Webstad, the woman who organized it, having the orange shirt that she was given by her family taken away from her when she went to residential school. This was an organized indigenous movement built off of the experiences of one woman that others related to. In this way it allowed indigenous people to share their stories more openly as they saw how many people were affected by the system or were sympathetic to what they went through. For non-indigenous it raised awareness and brought the topic to the table to discuss all of our roles in recognizing what happened and dismantling the system that it allowed residential schools to take place.
"Orange Shirt Day" has been given a bit of a boost and this was the first year that it became the "National Day of Truth and Reconciliation". This should be exciting to hear that now the Canadian government is recognizing an indigenous organized day that is looking to change the system that caused residential schools to happen. The problem is that everything about this "national" day is a great example of how little the government cares about indigenous issues. So, I am going to do some break down of recent events and the implementation of this day.
So, let's start with the "national" part of this because that actually isn't even true. Five of the ten provinces opted out of this day being a statutory holiday, all of the territories accepted it. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec were those provinces which means that nearly half of the country did not recognize this "national" day. For context, National Indigenous Day is also not a statutory holiday. It is really hard not to see this as a refusal of not only to publicly accept the painful history of indigenous people across Canada but also a refusal to allow for them to engage in the day that is meant for them. In those five provinces there were still celebrations and gatherings but they had to be done at the behest of their employer (so long as they are not a government employee). I will relent that this was a statutory holiday that was implemented very quickly, was announced about a month ago (oddly right around election time, go figure...). Even with that excuse it doesn't make sense that indigenous people are not being provided the time on a day meant to recognize their trauma to even engage with it. Considering that Remembrance Day, a national day where people recognizes the sacrifices of Canadian soldiers in second world war, is a statutory holiday speaks to the hypocrisy that is occurring. It is fundamentally stating that soldier's lives should be given more respect than those of indigenous children. Either that or pride feels a lot better than shame.
The next major point that really sullies the day for me is the recent news regarding the court cases that Justin Trudeau has pursued for years trying to fight a UN ruling upholding Jordan's principle. Alright, this is kind of complicated so I am going to try and streamline this but I need to explain a few things first. Jordan's Principle was a law that was created that requires the government to provide care to indigenous children, here is a quote from the Assembly of First Nations site:
"Jordan’s Principle is a legal requirement resulting from the Orders of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) and is not a policy or program. Jordan’s Principle is a child-first principle that aims to eliminate service inequities and delays for First Nations children. Jordan’s Principle states that any public service ordinarily available to all other children must be made available to First Nations children without delay or denial. Jordan’s Principle is named in honour of Jordan River Anderson, a young First Nations boy from Norway House Cree Nation in northern Manitoba, who spent his entire life in hospital while caught in a jurisdictional dispute between the governments of Canada and Manitoba, which both refused to pay for the in-home medical care necessary for Jordan to live in his home and community."
So yeah, basically this law was put in place so that the government couldn't drag its feet in providing care to indigenous children. It is also important for forcing action instead of the provinces, municipality, and nation government arguing about whose problem this is Guess what? They acted like nature in Jurassic Park and found a way.
What happened was that in 2007 there was a complaint that the government was not providing adequate funding to child welfare on reserves. The removal of children from their families on reserves, due to the poor standard of living and low income, has been a constant issue. This is further exacerbated due to non-indigenous foster agencies being provided money from the federal government, creating a system where indigenous children being removed from their families is profitable for non-indigenous people. Sounds weirdly like residential schools, huh?
Back to the court case, that complaint that was lodged in 2007 was only brought to court in 2013. By 2016 the court agreed with the Assembly of First Nations that 163,000 indigenous children were racial discriminated against, that just gives you an idea of the number of children that were going through that system. By the time 2019 rolled around it was agreed that each of the families affected would be provided $40,000 dollars, which is the highest that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal can award, and it was estimated that 54,000 were eligible. For those of you interested in the math that means over 4000 children were taken away from indigenous families every year. Canada didn't like to lose to indigenous people in court so they ended up dragging their feet regarding what children actually fell under the Indian Act, a colonial document written up in 1985 that dictates the nature of indigenous status and reserves.
So, in 2020 it went right back to court so that it could be expanded to non-status indigenous children that are living off reserve. This was appealed, which means to bring to a higher court to try to reverse it, despite a vote in the House of Commons voting to not proceed in further court cases. Trudeau, and his whole liberal cabinet, (who has been the most outspoken about indigenous issues of any prime minister) abstained from voting. That means that despite the years, 14 to be exact, of trying to deny indigenous children welfare when given the chance to stop everyone in the party sat quietly behind the party leader and watched the vote pass. Literally the day before "National Truth and Reconcilliation Day" Canada accepted the terms of the court case. This does not mean that it can't be looked at again or brought to a higher court, it just means they aren't doing it right now.
It is really just showing the nature of this system of oppression. It took 14 years purely to force Canada to recognize the modern residential school that has been created. On the topic of residential schools that has oddly gone radio silent. There was a time when we were getting updates on the weekly about new unmarked graves being found in places that the local indigenous people were not surprised by but government bureaucrats mysteriously didn't have on record. The best estimate that I have been able to come across at this point is 6509 bodies have been found at former residential schools and that number is expected to quintuple.
So it is really hard for me to see this rushed holiday being thrown out during election season as nothing more than a bid to garner some good press and to create a smoke screen for everything else that is happening across the country. What bothers me the most is that these smoke screens are always what gets pointed at for whenever indigenous people try to speak out about injustice. "You got two holidays! What more do you want?" and "The government already gives you enough money, stop complaining" are usually the general idea of those statements. This all just feels so transparent that it is hard to be excited for this when there is still a system in place that is designed to continue the harm to indigenous people of Canada.
I do, however, have some good news to leave you with after reading all of this (btw, thank you very much for reading this). The leader of the Metis Nation of Canada (MNC), not just that but also the first woman too. This election was caused by the Manitoba Metis Federation leaving the MNC after their leader, David Chartrand, had been denied the continued pursuit of his reductive take on Metis identity. David Chartrand and the former president of the MNC, Clement Chartier, had been continually attempting to limit Metis identity. This was most evidently shown when the Metis Nation of Ontario was suspended from the MNC for not respecting the aggressively reduced area of the province that was considered traditional Metis territory. This suspension occurred well before Ontario could even act on this, despite their obvious unwillingness to. Now, Cassidy Caron is the leader of the MNC and as someone who has engaged with Metis across the country that she can foster the unity that Metis across Canada have been desperate for. I am very hopeful for this new era of the MNC with the hopes that once we mend the ties with one another we can look out to the First Nations and Inuit to help them in their fight for equality.