Mr. Kristof, the caricature is dangerous
Dear Mr. Kristof,
I am a first generation settler Canadian of Belgian descent, living in Vancouver, Canada, on the traditional Coast Salish territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish People, villages and community), and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.
I saw your New York Times Opinion piece “Thank God for Canada!” of Feb. 6 posted on Facebook. Despite being someone who was raised in a household rife with European language and traditions, I was still raised in Canada, and so in true Canadian fashion I smiled demurely at the complimentary title and laudatory subtitle. Then I began reading and started to feel progressively more uncomfortable, then eye-rolly, then downright angry.
You see, yesterday, I spent a great deal of time meditating on and trying to find ways to act with integrity regarding this photo:
Is it one of our “compassion[ate]”, “sensible”, non-”imperialist conspirators” kneeling in a ramshackle hut in the “developing world”, a brave and stalwart harbinger of “moral leader[ship]” in a world otherwise filled with “hate” and moral bankruptcy?
Nope.
This is Canadian Member of Parliament Charlie Angus (who actually is quite compassionate and sensible, I confess) in the home of an Indigenous family in Cat Lake First Nation in Ontario, Canada. You likely haven’t heard of Cat Lake. I feel I can safely assume this because most Canadians haven’t heard of Cat Lake. But earlier this week, Angus and his colleague Sol Mamakwa traveled to Cat Lake First Nation to see for themselves the “health disaster” caused by mould in every single home in this community, with over half of them needing immediate replacement. Children and elders are most affected, and regularly suffer from both immediate and long-term illnesses because of their exposure to the toxic mould. Their remote location means hospitalization requires a medevac, and only some parts of Canada will allow for an adult to accompany sick children (or others) needing air ambulance services, so many Indigenous elders and children end up alone in urban hospitals. Cat Lake is not the exception, but rather, the rule regarding housing conditions for Indigenous peoples in Canada. Overcrowding is a huge issue, and leads to a host of other health and societal problems.
Despite being the reason that Indigenous peoples have been herded onto oft-overcrowded reserves often without access to their traditional territories and resources, and despite having a fiduciary relationship with Indigenous peoples of Canada, the federal government has denied that adequate housing is part of this relationship.
If housing were the only crisis faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada, I might be able to find a way to excuse your wildly skewed representation of our country’s moral superiority. However, our country has a colonial history of “cultural genocide” of Indigenous peoples. Yes, Mr. Kristof, Canada is guilty of cultural GENOCIDE. Some assert that there is no need for the adjective “cultural”.
Again, this reality alone would be devastating enough, but the reality is that Indigenous life in Canada remains relatively unchanged from the time that genocide occurred, though the wolf is wearing different clothing:
- many Indigenous peoples have no access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation.
- Indigenous peoples in Canada have a wildly disproportionate rate of incarceration due to the fact that the Canadian so-called justice system is “set against Indigenous peoples”.
- Indigenous women experience vastly higher rates of violence, abuse, kidnap and murder…to the point where Canada launched an inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls, trans and two-spirit people.
- The Canadian Human Rights tribunal ruled in 2016 that the Government of Canada has systemically discriminated against First Nations children living on reserves by under-funding their care. Canada tried to fight the ruling in court, and three years later this issue has still not been resolved.
- Indigenous children are more than twice as likely to end up in the foster care system — the numbers are so terrifying that Indigenous women are hiding their pregnancies and births from “the system” for (the legitimate) fear of their children being apprehended.
- Despite multiple Supreme Court precedents favouring Aboriginal title to land and resources, Canada continually — almost pathologically — ignores Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent as described in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in favour of resource extraction industries.
It is more than unfortunate that this is just a cursory list. But Mr. Kristof — may I call you Nick? Because I’m about to get a bit more personal here — what makes these atrocities even worse is articles like yours.
You see, Canadians don’t want to talk about the issues I have delineated above. We will do almost anything to avoid it. My friend Roderick Mackin has noted that Canada “suffers from incorrigible smugness and the delusion that we value fairness so much we are prepared to stir up apathy”. Part of how we are able to deny and ignore these injustices to such an incredible (and terrifying) extent is our national narrative identity that we are nicer, kinder, and more compassionate than other countries/peoples. We are taught this (both implicitly and explicitly) in school, we tell it to each other, we tell it to ourselves, and it is reinforced repeatedly over and over by others …
…and now by you.
And look, I get it. The going is rough down there in The America and Canada is a close and easy foil to your country’s particular brands of injustice, intolerance, nationalism and racism. But you’re not doing anyone any favours by characterizing — nay, caricaturing — us in order to throw shade on your country’s (and others’) moral failings.
Yes, Canada has done some really good things. The examples you cited are inspiring and good. I love that about Canada, and I can even have moments of pride about that. But that pride is quickly replaced by the question:
How can we treat the Original Peoples of this land so appallingly — willingly standing by while they suffer and die — while taking pride in our “justice work” outside of this land?
Nick, the Canadian in me wants to write; “thank you for your very complimentary article on our country, but please help us to re-examine our national identity and create a more balanced, realistic picture of ourselves by extrapolating on our ‘shortcomings’ and writing a piece that is a fair picture of both our justice-seeking successes and our failures”.
But articles like yours are actually dangerous and undermine the voices of Indigenous peoples who are crying out for justice. So, instead, let me just say;
STOP IT.
Sincerely,
Melanie
ps. Because this letter is rather strongly worded, truthful to our flawed state, and all-around generally un-Canadian, I expect to hear about it. Because, Nick, the other context besides hockey in which Canadians are “brutes” is the comments section on anything about injustices towards Indigenous peoples.
