Dominion Society of Canada - Champlain was such a cool guy

00:00:00.000 some of our dark moments whether that be in our personal lives or in the nation's history it is

00:00:04.960 the darkest moments so often that we learn the most from right the time that that memory of you

00:00:10.960 breaking your arm or spending the night in the er or failing a test or whatever it might be it might

00:00:16.800 have been the hardest thing the breakup that you had to go through it might be the worst thing that

00:00:21.120 ever happened to you but years back it's some of the most powerful moments that shape your character

00:00:25.200 and this is the same thing that goes for a nation's history it is the dark moments as much

00:00:30.680 as the triumphs that we learn and that shape our identity and even then to frame Champlain as some

00:00:37.460 sort of dark moment in Canadian history is so disingenuous and historically inaccurate because

00:00:41.180 Champlain was a very unifying character right he took a very different approach to settling Canada

00:00:49.360 than European colonizers in the rest of the new world, right?

00:00:53.640 That was all based on conquest, genocide, subjugation, slavery.

00:00:58.540 This is not what Champlain did.

00:01:00.000 He took a very different approach.

00:01:01.260 He was, Champlain's such a cool guy, right?

00:01:03.580 Before he came to Canada, he was a spy in the Spanish colonial system

00:01:07.460 where he learned, where he saw, he observed how the Spanish were doing things.

00:01:11.460 And he very much actively decided to do things differently in Canada.

00:01:14.920 instead of conquest and subjugation. He actively sought to create partnerships that were mutually

00:01:20.640 beneficial with the First Nations people, whether that be trading first, giving them technology,

00:01:26.580 pots and pans, worked metals, firearms, all these sorts of things, and fighting alongside them in

00:01:33.560 battle. He sacrificed himself. He would get injured fighting alongside the Huron-Wendat,

00:01:39.480 and then he would spend the winter as they nursed him back to good health. This is the history of

00:01:44.740 champlain it's very progressive it's uniting and if we want to have a productive conversation on

00:01:50.320 reconciliation which is necessary right first nations tribes around the country are still

00:01:56.460 living in third world conditions we have to do more to unite and rise up the canadian people

00:02:01.160 whether they be european settlers or indigenous first nations folks we need to do more and instead

00:02:08.120 the reconciliation industry has become so reductive it's become about erasing and lying

00:02:13.620 about our past framing it as this situation where it's like the noble savage right where

00:02:18.260 indigenous people are all good and their culture was great and kind of would be so much better if

00:02:22.860 it wasn't for the evil colonizing europeans this is disingenuous there is good and bad on both sides

00:02:28.460 we can learn and respect both sides of this from that history and forge a new productive path

00:02:34.560 forward but instead it's all about tearing down and forgetting and it's just so reductive

Dominion Society of Canada - July 16, 2026