CANADA DAY
Canada Day festivities fall out of favour with some
A
by Charlie Smith
few months after the 150th anniversary of Confederation, Ginger Gosnell-Myers (Skusgluums) delivered a wake-up call to Canadians. In a TEDx Vancouver talk in November 2017, the Nisga’a and Kwakwaka’wakw public-policy analyst spoke about how she first learned about the impact of Canada’s Indian residential school system on her family, including her father. She was 17 years old, flipping through TV channels. She came across her uncle in front of a black screen. “He talked about how bad it got—that there was a lot of violence and a lot of abuse against the kids—and how much he missed his parents,” Gosnell-Myers said. “When he talked about the abuse he’d experienced and seen, he cried. And years later when he was finally able to go home, he no longer understood the Nisga’a language and couldn’t even talk with his own parents.” The Straight recently contacted GosnellMyers, now the Indigenous fellow with the SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, to ask what Canada Day means to her in light of what happened to so many of her relatives. “I can’t celebrate Canada because all they’ve ever done is harm my family and myself and my ancestors—and people don’t even know this,” Gosnell-Myers said. She cited one example of this history that touched her directly. At a family gathering, an uncle told her that when he and the others came back from residential school, they had to relearn the Nisga’a language. But they also decided not to teach it to the next generation at home for fear that it could be used against them. “None of my cousins learned how to speak Nisga’a fluently, not like our parents,”
“It’s not something to celebrate,” he said. “I think it’s day to reflect.”
Nisga’a and Kwakwaka’wakw public-policy analyst Ginger Gosnell-Myers (Skusgluums) and antiracist activist Imtiaz Popat are not impressed by “mindless patriotism” on Canada Day.
Gosnell-Myers said. “That was a decision made to help us better succeed. That makes me really angry and made them really angry and sad too.” She has not celebrated Canada Day in a long time—and on this July 1, she won’t be alone. Municipal governments in Victoria, Penticton, and Port Hardy have cancelled their Canada Day celebrations, citing the recent discovery of the remains of 215 children on the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. Meanwhile, Vancouver supporters of Idle No More, a movement of Indigenous activists across the country, will hold a “Cancel Canada Day” event on July 1 on the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery, using the slogan “No Pride in Genocide”. “We will not celebrate the ongoing genocide within Canada against Indigenous people,” a Facebook announcement reads. “Instead we will gather to honour all of the lives lost to the Canadian state, including
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the many lives lost to residential schools.” Opposition to Canada Day hasn’t only been triggered by the discovery of undocumented graves of Indigenous children. The murder of four members of the Afzaal family on June 6 in London, Ontario—in what police say was a hate crime—has also shaken the country. The father, Salman, and his wife, Madiha, were out on a walk with their two children and the kids’ grandmother when a motorist deliberately mowed them down with his vehicle. Imtiaz Popat, a cofounder of the Coalition Against Bigotry–Pacific, told the Straight by phone that it’s not possible for Muslims to celebrate Canada Day in light of this horrific crime. That’s because the grieving period is supposed to last 40 days, which he said won’t end until July 9. “For us Muslims, we are in mourning,” Popat said. “This is our family that was murdered.” Popat has frequently referred to Canada Day as “Colonial Day”.
JENNY KWAN, the NDP MP for Vancouver East, said the rising violence against Asian Canadians, as well as the terrorist attack on the Afzaal family, reflects deepseated issues within the country. “People always say when those incidents occur that, ‘This is not our Canada,’ ” Kwan told the Straight by phone. “Well, I’m sorry, this is our Canada. And this is not the first time the Muslim community has suffered such a violent and unspeakable attack for being who they are.” The next bombshell raising questions about Canada’s commitment to equality came on June 15 when Nunavut NDP MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq delivered a scathing farewell speech in Parliament. The Inuk politician talked about everything from being racially profiled by House of Commons security staff to the lack of government action in response to the high rate of suicide among her people. According to Kwan, Qaqqaq said out loud what many Indigenous peoples and Inuit have always felt. Kwan suggested that every time the government brags about its work, it’s insulting to someone like Qaqqaq, who is watching members of her own community suffer immensely, including taking their own lives, because of Canada’s colonial history. “I think this Canada Day, we need to reflect on, first and foremost, Canada’s colonization history and the ongoing impact for Indigenous peoples, especially with the finding of the mass graves in Kamloops,” the Vancouver NDP MP added. see next page
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