12 hours ago
Indigenous professor fearful Canadians think reconciliation finished after '10 most progressive years in Canadian history'
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, and for Niigaan Sinclair, also marks a decade of progressivism never seen before in Canada.
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'I'm not telling you it's perfect. I'm not even telling you it's great. I'm telling you that it was the first steps any Canadian government's ever taken,' Sinclair said, after presenting at the 15th United Way Annual Connect Event as a keynote speaker. He pointed to former prime minister Justin Trudeau's government and legislation such as Bill C-15 that recognized the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 'Now there needs to be another 150 years of steps,' he said.
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The University of Manitoba Indigenous Studies professor worried Canadians won't take those next steps.
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'I think that Canadians have been taught to think of reconciliation as a fad, as something that just came and went, and we're somehow in a place that we're finished.'
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Marla Kailly, an Indigenous parallel manager for United Way, presented a land acknowledgement prior to Sinclair's speech. She referenced a national public opinion poll asking whether Canadians feel they're living on stolen Indigenous land — and 'those living in Calgary, were the most vociferous urban centre rejecting that statement,' Kailly said.
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In Calgary, 69 per cent of respondents answered no, they were not living on stolen land. Only 20 per cent said yes, and 11 per cent didn't answer.
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'They're still debating the facts, and the truth, or what I call 'the why?'' Sinclair said. 'We shouldn't be debating why, we should be talking about how.'
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Sinclair sees continued progress
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While he would not describe Prime Minister Mark Carney as 'aggressively regressive,' he does believe that 'a progressive government is often followed — actually, I think it's always followed — by a regressive one.'
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Sinclair believes the federal government is shifting focus to an aggressive resource agenda similar to the early days of Stephen Harper, the era in which Carney served as Governor of the Bank of Canada.
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He expects that shift to be met with resistance, especially in the wake of the hastily passed Bill C-5.
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'There will be conflict from that, because you're trying to push something that haven't done the legwork necessary,' he said. 'There are people who are gearing up for resistance this summer.'
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Sinclair is not left without hope, and emphasized the last decade as one of true — albeit slow — progress. This election cycle saw the highest number of Indigenous MPs in history, and by the end of Bill C-5's amendment cycle, conversation about Indigenous peoples had become a centre point of discussion. The Conservative party's costed platform included a page on economic reconciliation, when 'Stephen Harper would have never even had a page,' Sinclair said.
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More than anywhere, Sinclair's barometer on the state of reconciliation is in the school system.
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'I go listen on the playground after I've given a talk,' he said. 'I listen to what the kids are talking about. They're talking about reconciliation on the playground. If they're talking about it on the playground, they're going to talk about it at the voting booth. They're going to talk about it in the workplace. They're going to talk about it in their marriage, raising their children. And that's when you can't turn it off.'
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