This Ontarian lived in Montreal for 9 years. Voted in the 1995 referendum. Witnessed first hand the very real issues of a French culture struggling to survive in a continent of English speakers. It took 250 years for at least the partial addressing of the shadow that came with being a conquered people.
The indigenous shadow and trauma is orders of magnitude deeper. Work only partially underway. Yet, in what other country are indigenous people becoming co-owners in substantive projects vs the passive recipients of charity? What we are trying in Canada is globally pioneering. What gives me the most hope is Indigenous youth. Indomitable, whip smart, funny, great music. We need them!!
Meg — this is the kind of comment that earns its place, so let me answer it at the level you brought it.
Your proportionality point is the one I'd underline. The French shadow took two and a half centuries to reach even partial address, and you watched a piece of that work from inside Montreal in the referendum years — which means you know in your body what the essay can only state: integrating a conquered people into a federation is the work of generations, not governments. If the French reconciliation took 250 years to reach "partial," measuring the Indigenous file against an electoral cycle is a category error. You've named the right time-horizon, and almost no one does.
On co-ownership — you've put your finger on what may be the genuinely pioneering thing. The shift from Indigenous nations as objects of the duty to consult to equity partners in the projects on their land is the whole difference between charity and sovereignty, between being managed and being party to the decision. Where it is actually happening, it is one of the few places the federation is operating at the depth the Treaties always implied. Whether it scales is the open question — but the model exists, and you're right that few other settler societies are even attempting it.
And the youth. I'd only add one note, in the spirit of the piece: the hope is real precisely because it isn't the federation's to grant. The nations survived the schools, the Scoop, a century of policy aimed at ending them — and they are still here, raising exactly the generation you describe. The hope was never that the country would save them. They have already done that. The hope is that the country finally catches up to what they have been doing all along.
Baldwin said diagnosis without hope is cruelty. You brought the hope — and the ground to stand it on. Thank you for reading this deeply.
This Ontarian lived in Montreal for 9 years. Voted in the 1995 referendum. Witnessed first hand the very real issues of a French culture struggling to survive in a continent of English speakers. It took 250 years for at least the partial addressing of the shadow that came with being a conquered people.
The indigenous shadow and trauma is orders of magnitude deeper. Work only partially underway. Yet, in what other country are indigenous people becoming co-owners in substantive projects vs the passive recipients of charity? What we are trying in Canada is globally pioneering. What gives me the most hope is Indigenous youth. Indomitable, whip smart, funny, great music. We need them!!
Meg — this is the kind of comment that earns its place, so let me answer it at the level you brought it.
Your proportionality point is the one I'd underline. The French shadow took two and a half centuries to reach even partial address, and you watched a piece of that work from inside Montreal in the referendum years — which means you know in your body what the essay can only state: integrating a conquered people into a federation is the work of generations, not governments. If the French reconciliation took 250 years to reach "partial," measuring the Indigenous file against an electoral cycle is a category error. You've named the right time-horizon, and almost no one does.
On co-ownership — you've put your finger on what may be the genuinely pioneering thing. The shift from Indigenous nations as objects of the duty to consult to equity partners in the projects on their land is the whole difference between charity and sovereignty, between being managed and being party to the decision. Where it is actually happening, it is one of the few places the federation is operating at the depth the Treaties always implied. Whether it scales is the open question — but the model exists, and you're right that few other settler societies are even attempting it.
And the youth. I'd only add one note, in the spirit of the piece: the hope is real precisely because it isn't the federation's to grant. The nations survived the schools, the Scoop, a century of policy aimed at ending them — and they are still here, raising exactly the generation you describe. The hope was never that the country would save them. They have already done that. The hope is that the country finally catches up to what they have been doing all along.
Baldwin said diagnosis without hope is cruelty. You brought the hope — and the ground to stand it on. Thank you for reading this deeply.
Yes. This. The time is absolutely now.