A referendum will decide whether Australia will add an official legislative branch representing First Peoples to advise its parliament. Will Canada ever consider the same?
commission with interest: Norway’s Sami also experienced assimilative boarding schools, where children lost their language and culture. I remember he was frustrated that Norway’s legislature, not the Sami Parliament, had more power over the process of pursuing truth and reconciliation.
In countries around the world, colonization has meant the violent separation of our peoples from the land and our ways of life, often through oppressive policies of assimilation. Indianin Canada nearly eradicated us, and as a result, we share many similarities with the Indigenous communities in other countries that had boarding school systems, including high youth-suicide rates, high incarceration rates, and increased rates of poverty.
If the referendum produces a “Yes,” it remains to be seen whether Australia’s “Indigenous Voice” will achieve something more. But at least it is trying. Here in Canada, do we have the guts to start down a similar path – pursuing meaningful constitutional change acknowledging the First Peoples of this land? Section 35 of the Constitution is not a full box of inherent rights, especially when it is interpreted by Ottawa to pit Indigenous people against each other.
Canada’s parliamentary system has failed Indigenous Peoples time and time again. We understand that something has to give. But for that to happen, Canada must be willing to share law and policy-making power – and that’s a large leap from seeing us as wards of the state. We must be treated as equal partners – this is what our ancestors understood when they signed the treaties.
It is time for Canada to think differently, recognize the truth staring at it in the face, and live up to its promises of meaningful reconciliation. Australia and Norway have proven they’re at least willing to start down that path. Why don’t we?
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