Canada Day is again upon us. As the Canadian government describes, it is traditionally “a day of celebration” in which Canadians gather to “show their pride in their history, culture and achievements.” Of course, the recent discovery of mass graves of Indigenous children buried at the Kamloops Residential School, and subsequently other sites across the country, raises questions about the genocidal violence underpinning Canadian history, culture, and achievements.
In the wake of these events, a number of cities in British Columbia have decided to cancel Canada Day festivities. Victoria City Council unanimously decided to cancel its planned Canada Day programming. In a statement to the media, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, explained they wanted to create space for grieving and reflection as “First Nations mourn and in light of the challenging moment we are in as a Canadian nation.” Subsequently, Penticton and Port Hardy also determined it was appropriate to suspend celebration of Canadian national accomplishments.
This move, of course, has been controversial and subject to criticism. British Columbia Premier John Horgan discouraged municipalities from making the national holiday an opportunity for reflection and reckoning with the history of colonialism. “The 21st of June, National Indigenous Peoples’ Day, would be a more appropriate time for us to collectively focus on how we can redress the wrongs of the past, and build a brighter future together,” he suggested.
However, this suggestion is incredibly problematic. It reduces commemoration of Indigenous history to recognition of the “wrongs of the past,” as well as a vague “brighter future together.” Absent from these frames is the majority of Indigenous history and cultural achievements. Colonialism, while devastating in its effects, is only one part of Indigenous culture and history.
Portraying Indigenous peoples as simply colonialism’s victims, as Indigenous author Thomas King writes, “cuts us off from our traditions, traditions that were in place before colonialism ever became a question, traditions which have come down to through our cultures in spite of colonization.”
Conversely, bracketing colonialism as an Indigenous issue fails to recognize its centrality to Canadian nation-building. The dispossession of Indigenous societies and destruction of Indigenous families is not simply a tragic footnote to the otherwise heroic progress of the nation. It is foundational to Canada and it is still ongoing.
The horrors of residential schooling, while shocking to many Canadians, have long been recognized by Indigenous communities. In their very incarnation, the schools were designed to rupture Indigenous kinship relations, as captured in the infamous dictum that the aim of the schools was to “kill the Indian in the child.” Moreover, the violence of those schools towards Indigenous lifeways is a consistent broader pattern of Canadian treatment of Indigenous peoples.
In the North, provincial development was literally powered by the violent displacement of Indigenous communities, as exemplified by the Kemano Project in the 1950s, which blocked the flow of the upper Nechako River to power industrial development.
Dakelh communities were not consulted about the project and only notified as the reservoir began to fill. Unable to prepare for flooding, Cheslatta community members abandoned their homes, displaced to refugee camps south of Francois Lake. The rising waters unearthed community graves, literally leaving the bodies of their ancestors adrift in shifting currents of colonial modernity.
This pattern was repeated with the 1968 creation by BC Hydro of the W. A. C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River. The flooding displaced Tsay Keh Dene, Kwadacha, and McLeod Lake.
Both the dams not only flooded communities but also devastated local Indigenous lifeways. Fisheries officials and the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission raised concerns that the Kemano Project would devastate local salmon; nevertheless, provincial authorities approved it. The restriction of Nechako flows devastated fisheries for Dakelh communities, cutting off access to traditional lifeways in the name of development. On the Peace, historian Tina Loo has documented a 300 per cent increase in Indigenous social assistance rates following the introduction of the Bennett Dam.
These impacts endure to the present. However, British Columbians have not proactively accounted for these impacts. Indigenous peoples have been required to consistently challenge the enduring legacy of displacement. In 2001, Kwadacha First Nation sued the government for the impact of the Bennett Dam, eventually settling for a one-time payment of $15 million alongside annual payments of approximately $1.6 million. But this is only one of many impacted communities.
The Dakelh communities impacted by the Kemano Project also struggle for justice against enduring government and corporate opposition. The communities of Saik’uz and Stellat’en have advanced a lawsuit against the company, asking the court to impose a water-flow regime that enables the restoration of the Nechako fisheries.
The imposition of colonial designs for development continues. In the Northeast, Site C, another major hydroelectric project is under construction despite extensive Indigenous opposition and repeated legal challenges. While the nation locked down during the pandemic, Horgan’s government provided essential service designations that enabled dam construction to advance. Despite outbreaks among Site C workers, construction continues, again willingly risking more lives for colonial development.
The destruction of Indigenous lifeways and acceptance of Indigenous deaths is a pattern that stretches from the very origins of the country to the present. This is not an Indigenous problem; it is fundamentally a Canadian one.
Indigenous communities continue to reassert other ways of valuing life and kinship. For instance, as the Stellat’en fight to restore water flows, they are also reasserting their ethical relationship to salmon. They have revitalized ceremonies recognizing the seasonal return of the salmon.
Similarly, Kwadacha has emphasized the importance of revitalizing the Tsek’ene language as part of the process of renewing their traditional relations to the land. The Tsek’ene language is part of a distinct conceptual apparatus that reflects different ways of relating to the world, and thus integral to processes of renewing relations with traditional territories.
Reckoning with the legacy of residential schools requires more than simply mourning historic Indigenous deaths. It requires confronting Canada’s enduring colonial present. The possibility of building a different future requires looking beyond colonial frames, remembering Indigenous practices maintain alternative forms of kinship with the world.
- Tyler McCreary is an adjunct professor of the First Nations Studies at UNBC and assistant professor of geography at Florida State University. He is author of Shared Histories.
