FanPost

Canada Day

Tomorrow is Canada Day which is a celebration of some British colonies becoming what is now Canada. I thought I would share some facts about Canada that you may find interesting. I thought I would tell you a little bit about your neighbour to the North. Or West in some cases.

I have only ever lived in Canada. We are the second largest country in the world by landmass. We have a strong and well regulated economy. The country's existence is predicated on the theft of land from and genocide of Indigenous people of all stripes. One time we burned down the white house which was pretty cool. Our Highway of Tears is less cool and more like something you learn about and can never properly process because the horror of such a thing is literally incomprehensible. Hundreds of missing or murdered Aboriginal women that no one is looking for.

Our military exploits are more extensive than you might think. My home province still feels the echoes of Beaumont Hamel. At the Battle of the Somme nearly 800 Newfoundlanders went over the top. About a hundred survived and just 68 answered roll call the following morning. It was a ninety percent casualty rate. Our boys were underequipped and undertrained and many were underage. They were fucking slaughtered. July first, 1916. What did they get? They had Royal added to their title. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment. The Blue Puttees. The British let my great grandfather and his pals go over the top knowing they would be cut to pieces and all they got was a new title.

You have to understand that Canada is even better at whitewashing history than you would think. Our history curriculum is based on a series of lies about how we acquired this massive land. Brother, it was not by asking kindly. It was with good old fashioned Canadian diplomacy. By which I mean things started out quite peacefully but eventually you arrive at a place of forced assimilation into European culture and things like Residential Schools where people as young as five were beaten for not speaking English or French. They were sexually assaulted for no reason at all. Then there was the infamous "scoops" where young children where forced form their parents' homes to live with middle class white people. They call this the Sixties Scoop because most of the worst of this happened in the twentieth century. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that nearly 32,000 people could be confirmed to have been victims of at least one sexual assault during the time spent at Residential Schools.

Think of that trauma added up. Having your heritage stripped from you. Your language taken. Being told you can never succeed unless you emulate the white man. Being raped by priests and teachers and nurses and doctors and care workers and older kids at the school who have had their fucking minds poisoned. Beaten for eating too fast. Beaten for not eating at all. Beaten for speaking your own tongue. Being told you, who are of this land, do not belong.

A Man from Mars Perspective briefly: if your stated aim is to assimilate them why do you treat them like they are not people?

By the way. As I understand it — and please know I grew up around almost exclusively white and Asian people — plain old racism is alive and well here. Two years ago I was still working in St. John's while a fat white guy was screaming go back to your own country at my Chinese pal David and my Sri Lankan friend Achini. I wish I could say I didn't stand there with my mouth hanging open but I did. I failed in that moment to be better than him. I think what the past few weeks have done for me is highlight just how comfortable white people like me are in saying we aren't racists. I'm not a racist, but I could sure stand to speak the fuck up more often.

My grandfather is not a perfect person. If we're grading on a curve, at 91, he's downright progressive. He tells me this story all the time.

When he was a younger man living another life, my grandfather worked as a contractor for the American army. We just call it working for the American's. You guys had bases all over Newfoundland and Labrador pre and post confederation. Anyway he found himself in Greenland for reasons I do not quite understand.

On the base they had all kinds of shit. Army shit mainly but also movie theatres and general stores and all that. One night in what I think was about 1953 or '54 my grandfather walked out of a movie theatre with a black man whose name I do not know. Two white guys called out Not too particular who you're seen with, aye Clancey? There was a confrontation and he told the guys to fuck off and that if that's how they decide who is worth spending time with they must be shit soldiers and worse people.

I always wanted to live up to that kind of courage. Skinny, short guy with a thick Newfie accent ready to throw hands with a couple of American soldiers to defend the dignity of this guy he never really knew all that well. I asked him if they kept in touch and he looked at me like I was crazy. To him it was just the right thing to do. For me it seemed more like a brave choice and the more I think on it the more I realize how woefully insufficient my efforts to make the world better for my friends have been.

I guess I'm saying that on Canada Day we should try to live up to the myths that define us. Be inclusive and understanding. Shut the fuck up and listen when someone is trying to tell you about the problems in this country. Remember that my home province sent their young men off to war to be slaughtered so that we might one day find ourselves independent from Britain. Remember that the work is ongoing and will be for some time. I'll include some information on the things I talked about in this. I just want people to know that Canada is not some post racial utopia. That we have so much left to fix.

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https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/sixties_scoop/ - This is some background on the Sixties Scoop, a practice of separating indigenous children from their parents to destroy their culture. The thinking was that everyone had to assimilate or they would never make it which sounds noble until you think about it for six seconds and realize that assumes they are lesser people.

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/first-world-war/fact_sheets/beaumont-hamel - Here is some more detailed info on the Royal Newfoundland Regiment during the Great War. "It was a magnificent display of trained and disciplined valour, and its assault only failed of success because dead men can advance no further." That quote haunts me as the province slips further and further into debt and what appears to be a deepening recession.

http://www.trc.ca/assets/pdf/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_July_23_2015.pdf - This is a summary of the final report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It's horrifying but hopefully enough people read it and see how wretched we were and never make these choices again. I do not call them mistakes. Backing into someone's car is a mistake. This level of destruction is deliberate.

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I have started to write about ten different essays over the past few weeks and months. Personal things, things about the shooting in Nova Scotia. Things about the protests and police brutality. The general militarization of our police officers. The pandemic and how it has exposed the flaws in American individualism. The election in your country. Mental illness and medication. A black cotton dress balled up on the floor of my bedroom with the sweat cooling and drying on skin in the early hours of the morning.

I have so much to say but I am running out of ways to say it. I like to write in this space because I can be both honest and deliberately withholding. Words are imprecise and I am so scattered. Stay safe, especially to my American friends. Know that I love you and when I think of you and your great struggle — like ours — I smile and know that by and by we will get where we need to be.

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