[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
First of all, thank you.
I will be speaking my own language. The federal government tried to erase our language.
[English]
I didn't realize that there's a very constricted time limit in these presentations and I had prepared an eight-page summary of what I wanted to say to the committee members; however, with the time constraints, I will read only one of those pages to give the sense of where I'm coming from on the definition and issue of reconciliation, which I equate very strongly with decolonization.
The word “reconciliation” has been in national circulation since 2008, when Canada's government established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine the matter of Indian residential schools. This commission produced a report containing 94 calls to action designed to facilitate “reconciliation” between Canada's colonial governments and the indigenous peoples.
However, the word “reconciliation” is a misnomer and totally off the mark of truth. Here is why: Reconciliation assumes that sometime long ago there existed a utopian state of “conciliation” between colonial governments and indigenous peoples. This implies relations among equals, with neither side being superior or inferior to the other. “Reconciliation” suggests that a mutually beneficial balance, which once ruled the relationships between colonial authorities and indigenous parties, can be rediscovered. As we all know, there has never been any such thing.
Ever since immigrants from across the ocean set foot on the territories that eventually became Canada, these immigrants have been superior to all indigenous peoples who had occupied these territories prior to their arrival. This superiority is arrogantly deliberate and is so hardened that it continues to be ruling over life right to the present day.
From first contact, indigenous peoples have been treated as inferior beings who don't own any lands or resources. The hallmarks of colonial history are a narrative without a single trace of anything resembling equal-to-equal respect by colonial powers toward the indigenous peoples whose territories they stole, conquered or simply took over.
Kings of England issued royal charters and proclamations that arbitrarily dictated the status of indigenous ancestral lands without the consent of the indigenous groups affected. In these, there is nothing positive to reconcile. The colonial format has absolutely nothing for indigenous inhabitants of the country they “founded” in 1867.
The single mention of original inhabitants in the BNA Act was a one-liner assigning responsibility for “Indians, and Lands reserved for Indians” to the new federal authority. Canada's so-called founders were not educated enough to know about and acknowledge the existence of the Métis or the Inuit.
There's nothing to reconcile to. No state of Utopia that we can simply return to has ever existed.
Let's go back to the word “reconciliation”. The meaning of this word is listed in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as the “action of reconciling; an instance or occasion of friendly relations being restored.” Friendly relations must have first existed before their restoration can be pursued. To seek reconciliation of something that never was is impossible.
We can, however, pursue a real objective called “decolonization”. Governments in Canada have plenty to make up for: their bullheaded, coercive policies in attempting to erase indigenous languages, cultures and identities. Think of these two words: “cultural genocide”. Within these words are lost identities, lost languages, lost family ties and cohesion, lost sense of belonging, lost innocence and lost lives. Repairing all of this will take plenty of time and resources...to right these profound wrongs.
[Witness spoke in Inuktitut, interpreted as follows:]
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.
[English]
I am ready to share my 21 pages of writings on this issue, which I have delivered on CBC North radio in English and Inuktitut over the years, in order to enlighten people like you, who are designing activities and actions toward the goal of positively processing this something called “reconciliation”.
Thank you.