Juno News - What does it mean to be a Native Canadian？

00:00:00.000 hi everybody welcome back to the show I hope everyone had a great Canada Day weekend and

00:00:23.240 thank you once again for tuning in now speaking of Canada Day traditionally Canada Day has been an

00:00:31.100 occasion to celebrate this country's many accomplishments and the pride that Canadians

00:00:36.740 take in their country in recent years however our liberal and progressive elites want to make

00:00:44.480 Canada Day more an occasion for self-loathing they want us to focus on everything that's bad

00:00:52.460 in Canada's history and ignore all the good that we should be celebrating if you think I'm

00:00:58.640 exaggerating consider what NDP leader Jagmeet Singh tweeted on Canada Day today on Canada Day we have

00:01:06.860 much to reflect on we must continue to acknowledge the history of colonialism and its lasting impacts

00:01:13.760 on indigenous peoples while moving to right the wrongs of the past and work towards justice

00:01:19.340 together notice that Singh nowhere says we should celebrate Canada Day but rather we're supposed

00:01:27.860 to spend the day reflecting on everything that he considers bad in Canadian history going back to

00:01:34.940 the arrival of European settlers and the plight of indigenous Canadians while there's no doubt that

00:01:41.240 indigenous Canadians have suffered and in many cases continue to suffer today we have to ask ourselves

00:01:47.540 whether Canadians today have to carry this perpetual cross for the sins of their ancestors in the event

00:01:56.060 that they're of European descent and how does this apply to new Canadians many of whom are indigenous to the

00:02:04.940 places they came from and have themselves been victims of colonization in other words when are we allowed to stop

00:02:14.060 considering ourselves visitors and consider this to be our native land if you and your family have

00:02:22.580 been here for 400 plus years obviously this is your native land or if you came as a new immigrant for your kids this

00:02:32.540 will be their native land asserting that simple fact in no way takes away from the reality that the ancestors of

00:02:41.420 indigenous Canadians came to this continent before anyone else so far as we know let's not forget that when

00:02:48.380 indigenous people arrived here a millennia ago they too were settlers in a new land when they crossed the ice

00:02:54.500 from Eurasia to the Americas in other words if you take a strict definition of who is indigenous really the only

00:03:03.380 people on the planet that would qualify are people from Africa where human life is set to have begun 0.99

00:03:10.040 the rest of the planet was populated in waves of migration that took place over thousands of years

00:03:16.320 now as part of those waves of migration European settlers mainly the British and the French arrived in what is today

00:03:23.500 known as Canada that's a fact of history along with every other migration that has taken place

00:03:29.840 throughout human history it's absurd and really unfair and ridiculous that the descendants of those European 1.00

00:03:38.000 settlers so many generations later should be made to feel ashamed like they're second-class citizens for

00:03:45.080 something they themselves have no responsibility for likewise newcomers to Canada and that included me a

00:03:53.840 a quarter century ago came to this country looking for new opportunities and a new life which includes believe

00:04:02.000 it or not tapping into a positive sense of Canadian identity just imagine how perplexing it must be when you Canadians

00:04:10.880 when they arrive here face a barrage of self-loathing from our political and cultural elites rather than a positive set of values that they can latch on to

00:04:22.880 they're being fed this narrative that Canada is fundamentally racist it's bigoted it's evil

00:04:29.260 while ironically many new Canadians came here to flee bigotry and oppression in their home countries

00:04:35.740 there's something to be learned from our neighbors to the south I happen to be recording this on the 4th of July

00:04:41.820 which is Independence Day for the US and what's noteworthy is that on this particular day

00:04:49.360 Americans across the political spectrum come together to celebrate what is great about America

00:04:57.200 and at least for that day as far as I can tell by and large they seem to be able to put aside their political

00:05:04.460 and ideological bickerings and they certainly don't seem to turn this into a day of self-flagellation

00:05:11.180 by contrast here in Canada under Trudeau's Canada the significance of Canada Day and the symbols that have made this country so great

00:05:22.920 have successfully been whittled down let's not forget that time two years ago when Trudeau lowered the national flag

00:05:31.060 for months on end ostensibly to atone for a highly contested claim that the bodies of indigenous children

00:05:38.260 were found at the site of a former residential school in western Canada

00:05:42.460 two years later no actual bodies have been found

00:05:46.040 yet to even assert that simple fact is seen as taboo by our political elites

00:05:51.200 it's not just that our political and cultural elites are misguided

00:05:55.260 when they keep sounding the drumbeat of past injustices to indigenous people

00:05:59.760 I suspect there's something sneakier going on here

00:06:03.820 they would like to shift our gaze backward to historical injustices

00:06:09.440 which cannot be undone today since we haven't invented time travel

00:06:14.480 it clearly is intended to shift the focus away from the situation of indigenous people today

00:06:22.060 the data show that they consistently lag behind other Canadians

00:06:27.700 both old stock and new immigrants on every possible social indicator 0.61

00:06:32.540 whether it's income, employment, health or education

00:06:37.160 the real challenge is for governments to work toward better integrating indigenous people

00:06:43.580 into mainstream Canadian society

00:06:46.460 rather than lamenting on what went wrong in the past

00:06:51.100 that's really a form of tokenism

00:06:54.020 much like the token land acknowledgements that everyone is now supposed to make

00:06:58.240 just think

00:06:59.860 just think about how ridiculous the land acknowledgements really are

00:07:03.920 on the one hand

00:07:05.860 we're told to say that this is really aboriginal land

00:07:09.300 and then some institution or the other will claim

00:07:12.340 that they're custodians of the land

00:07:14.340 for the aboriginal people

00:07:16.440 really?

00:07:18.380 so we're custodians of your land

00:07:20.660 but we get to decide what to do with it, right?

00:07:23.400 just think about how incredibly patronizing, dehumanizing and even racist this sounds

00:07:30.040 that it really is turning indigenous people into an object of pity

00:07:34.200 and depriving them of any agency to improve their lives today 0.66

00:07:38.480 it has to be the worst form of hypocritical tokenism that the left excels in

00:07:44.360 now the bottom line for me is that

00:07:48.460 rather than being in this constant state of recriminations and self-loathing

00:07:53.440 coming out of ills of the past

00:07:55.340 it's time for all Canadians

00:07:57.740 and that includes indigenous Canadians and Canadians of European descent

00:08:01.660 and everyone else

00:08:03.200 to take pride in this country's considerable achievements

00:08:06.660 and all of the progress that it's made over the decades

00:08:09.620 and celebrate what's positive about Canada

00:08:12.580 as we look ahead, not backward

00:08:15.380 thank you for tuning in and see you next week

Juno News - July 05, 2023

What does it mean to be a Native Canadian？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript