30th September was declared the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation by the Canadian government. Such efforts while they can degenerate into tokenism, can provide the opportunity and create space for knowledge and information, and potentially lead to concrete actions to address the terrible consequences of policies by settler-colonial governments. These included genocidal policies of physical and cultural elimination of Indigenous peoples, that characterized Indigenous people as not as fully human and therefore expendable. The Indian Act, the residential schools that destroyed communities and led to the deaths of hundreds of children and whose consequences continue to reverberate through intergenerational trauma need to be taught and recognized. It takes a lot of work. Nothing will change without ‘truth’ being faced without denial and without actions that demonstrate genuine attempts at Reconciliation.
At the South Asian Women’s Community Centre, when we adopted our territorial acknowledgement that we are on the unceded lands of the Kanienkehaka, we pledged “our support and solidarity with Indigenous peoples on this land in defense of their lives, their lands, and their struggles to live in dignity, and justice. In particular, we are in solidarity with Indigenous women, and we commit to act in solidarity in tangible ways https://www.sawcc-ccfsa.ca/EN/ ways.
In Quebec we have just marked the second anniversary of the death of Joyce Echaquan in a Joliette Hospital. The Quebec coroner who presided over the three-week enquiry into her death said that she would still be alive today if she were white. However concrete steps of action written in Joyce’s Principle (2020) have yet to be adopted by the Government of Quebec. The recommendations of the 2019 Viens Commission Report that came out of the Commission that was set up in light of it becoming public that the police in Val d’Or had subjected Indigenous women to violence, intimidation, sexual harassment and sexual assault. While we recognize that the Commission itself was problematic as evidenced by Indigenous women leaders like Viviane Michel from the Femmes d’autochtones du Quebec (FAQ) because it invisibilized the Indigenous women of Val d’Or, we also note that cross-disciplinary recommendations coming out of that Commission with regard to health, youth protection, policing, justice, have yet to be actualized.
Meanwhile we live in a province where leaders deny systemic racism in the face of glaring and repeated evidence. We live in a province where when elections were announced there was still hope expressed by leaders like M. Ghislain Picard of the Assembly of First Nations (Quebec-Labrador) that outstanding land claims issues would be addressed. The time is long past. Meaningful action now!
There can be no Reconciliation without Truth!!
Tomorrow, Friday 30th September at 1pm, the “Every Child Matters” demonstration will take place with speeches and a march starting at 1pm from Mont-Royal park (on Avenue du Parc, the place where the tam-tams happen). https://www.facebook.com/events/396909412508477 [see image below]
If you can attend, or even if you can’t, wherever you are and whatever you do try to wear a orange t-shirt or kurta or jacket or scarf. https://www.orangeshirtday.org/
