The Canada 150 events in 2017 were supposed to be a celebration of Canadian values and identity. But, one year later, statues of Canada’s first prime minister are being torn down. John A. Macdonald is recognized as one of the Fathers of Confederation, but under his leadership, the residential school system increased the number of schools and students.
In an attempt to appease people’s concerns with Macdonald’s role in the residential school system, the City of Victoria recently tore down a statue of the former prime minister on Aug. 11. The removal has been controversial but necessary, Lisa Helps, the city’s mayor, told Global News.
“We need to find a way to both commemorate history and reconcile with history,” she said. “We’re having a conversation on the streets of Victoria and across the country about [the] history of Canada. They’re difficult conversations.”
Reconciling national pride with a country’s troubling past is a difficult task.
The United States has faced a similar debate recently over monuments, but, the debate in Canada has not been as heated.
But, in reality, Canada has a dark past, and how you remember it may change how you view Canada as a whole.
Remembering Canada’s past
The Liberal government is consulting with Indigenous peoples to work out a date for an official federal day of recognition. The day is supposed to represent a time for reflection on the history of Canada’s residential school system, according to reports from CBC News.
The Liberal government is doing this in order to meet the 80th call to action of the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which asked for the creation of a National Day of Truth and Reconciliation to honour the survivors of residential schools.
Doreen Nicoll, a writer on social issues for rabble.ca, said that Canada’s unfortunate history should be acknowledged and is part of our identity.
“Although Canada has been seen by the outside world as a country that treats everyone equally, it’s time for Canada to own the uglier side of its history,” she said, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging the harms caused by residential schools.
Indigenous people are not the only groups who faced discrimination and forced assimilation by the government.
Sheldon Parathundyil, a third-year public affairs and administration (PAPM) student at Carleton, is a second-generation Canadian, whose parents and grandparents were immigrants from India.
He said when his grandparents were first arriving in Canada, immigration authorities changed their last name from “Parathundyil” to “Paul,” in order to facilitate their assimilation into Canadian society.
“Back in the 70s, it was a pretty tough time, for especially Asians. It was just when Asian immigration was getting to be liberalized, and there was plenty of this hateful rhetoric. My family proved those people wrong, everyone wrong.” – Sheldon Paathundyil, third-year PAPM student at Carleton
He said his grandfather wanted to change his family’s last name back to “Parathundyil,” but never thought it was worth the trouble.
Now, Sheldon is adopting Parathundyil as his last name, and is going through the process of legally changing it.
“I was kind of ashamed of it as a kid and tried to hide it for awhile. But I want to wear my heritage proudly, and especially pass it on to my kids to wear,” he said.
Being a Canadian in the present
Jaelyn Jarrett, a Carleton law and Indigenous studies student, is of mixed-race heritage: Inuit and Guyanese. Her background and history as an Indigenous person, is something people struggle to understand, she said.
“Being someone who is of mixed race and being an urban Inuit, I have noticed that not a lot of people are aware that Inuit people still exist,” she said. “It sounds crazy, but it’s a sad reality.”
“I’ve encountered individuals who know Inuit exist, but have these ugly stereotypes about us in their heads—that we all live up north and have no concept of reality. So, through my university education and my day-to-day existence, I want to show people that we exist in all settings, and we can be mixed Inuks as well,” she added.
Increasing awareness is something Jarrett takes personally.
“For me, being Canadian means having a greater responsibility. That responsibility means representing my people in a country that has forgotten them. I wouldn’t want to consider myself a Canadian if I didn’t spread awareness of the issues Inuit face, as well as showing that we are people who exist in cities, small towns, universities, et cetera.” – Jaclyn Jarrett, law and Indigenous studies student at Carleton
Due to a rise in nationalism and anti-immigration rhetoric, in 2016, the Pew Research Centre conducted a survey of over 14,500 people in 14 different countries, Canada being one of them. The survey found that 54 per cent of Canadians out of 1,020 respondents placed a high value on “national customs and traditions” when defining Canadian identity.
The phrase “national customs and traditions” was not defined in the survey and Canadians in the Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories were excluded.
Daniel McNeil, a history professor with a focus on migration studies at Carleton, said broad questions like “what does it mean to be Canadian” are always difficult to address.
“Each individual will have a different understanding or expectation about what Canada might be. But, there’s also a danger that articulating a particular Canadian identity can sometimes be Anglophone conformity or certain types of stereotypes,” he said. “There are multiple historical and modern geographical and cultural factors that contribute to a post-national identity.”
Mawada Hashim, a computer science major at Carleton, said being raised in Virginia, U.S., has given her a different perspective on how to interpret national identity.
“Having that experience of growing up elsewhere, I feel that the construct of a national identity differs from one person to another. There is always more than one side to a historical narrative.”
How can Canada change for the future?
The best way of avoiding past prejudices being a present-day problem is through immersion, said Nicoll.
“Lived experience is the best teacher. Celebrating Canada’s cultural mosaic should not be limited to a single yearly celebration at school or a summer street festival,” she said. “Too often these types of cultural immersion lead to reinforcing stereotypes. Instead, Canadians need to hear the lived experience of Indigenous peoples, immigrants, and refugees.”
While some efforts are being made, Jarrett said what is being done currently is not enough with regard to Indigenous affairs.
“I think Canada has started to ‘include’ Inuit, but in a passive way. They acknowledge us in ways that are not necessarily substantial,” Jarrett said. “For instance, we may be mentioned in government ceremonies but they continue to approve pipelines and projects that threaten land and water—the very foundations that make Indigenous people Indigenous. Our culture exists through land and water.”
These acknolwedgments are somewhat superficial, according to McNeil.
“There is a lot of feel-good rhetoric around what Canada is and can be, and this hides or veils ongoing violence and dispossession of land,” he said.
McNeil added that it is problematic to define Canadian identity only in terms of a people’s relation to government and the state as a whole.
Instead, he offers a different idea of what it means to be Canadian, and how this can be more inclusive for people who have historically been marginalized.
“Ordinary people don’t need politicians to tell them what to do or how to think,” said McNeil. “But also to see how they can develop a sense of lived multiculturalism where people feel at home in Canadian society . . . it’s how people interact on public transport, how they respond to sporting events, how they respond to music, how they engage with things that happen at a day-to-day level rather than the types of events that get hyped up on the media.”
Finding an exact definition of a “Canadian identity” is difficult. But, Parathundyil said, for him, acknowledging Canada’s history is the key factor.
“I am a Canadian; that is a fact I acknowledge in my daily life,” he said. “I accept both the positive and the negative things that come with that.”
