By Jennifer David, NVision Insight Group
"We must be honest about the real two solitudes in this country, that between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens, and commit to doing tangible things to close the divide in awareness, understanding and relationships."
Commissioner Marie Wilson, Truth and Reconciliation Commission
In this post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) era, Canadians must have uncomfortable conversations about racism, racism against Indigenous Peoples in particular. The provocative headline in Maclean’s magazine in 2015 sums it up: “Canada has a bigger race problem than America.” In the 10+ years since, there remains stubbornly high rates of racism, bias and stereotypes. And by nearly any standard or indicator, it is glaringly obvious that First Nations, Inuit and Métis in Canada have poor health, well-being and life outcomes.
Over the years, numerous commissions, inquests and inquiries sought to address these issues; for example, from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1996, to the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in Manitoba in 1999, to the TRC in 2015 and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in 2019, and the coroner’s inquest into the death of Joyce Echaquan in 2021. There is no lack of research and statistics on anti-Indigenous racism, ‘so called white’ supremacy, cultural bias and Eurocentric attitudes in Canada.
How did things get so bad? Take a course in Indigenous cultural awareness, and you’ll learn about Canada’s colonial history of genocide, racism, misogyny, displacement and assimilation. This is not Indigenous history; it’s Canada’s history, from the perspective of the dominant society. Today, Indigenous Peoples are telling their own stories, and taking a cultural awareness course will give you Indigenous perspectives on Canada’s colonial history—perspectives that were not in school curricula until recently.
Why can’t we fix it? We need to move beyond simple awareness education. You could learn everything there is to know about Canada’s colonial history and still not understand how the systems that were created and built in this country, were built on racist foundations, and gave us racist structures, policies, laws, and institutions such as the Indian Act, the numbered treatie, and concepts of ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ and ‘terra nullius’. There is no quick or easy fix. But we cannot address a problem if we can’t see it and don’t understand it, which is why anti-Indigenous racism and cultural bias training is so important.
We have to look at how these systems were built to benefit the dominant society, based on Eurocentric models and attitudes. And we must look inward to understand our own biases, how we carry stereotypes and perpetuate systems of oppression if we want to truly start to unravel, decolonize and dismantle these structures and institutions and replace them with structures based on equality, equity and justice.
And then we have to act. We must shift the power dynamics, confront the inequities, re-structure our organizations, decolonize our minds, Indigenize our educational institutions, and demand more from our governments.
Why Indigenous-Specific?
Some might ask, “why not just anti-racism training to include Black, Indigenous and People of Colour?”
This is because Canada has a unique relationship with Indigenous peoples starting with Peace and Friendship Treaties, to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, to various historical treaties, the Constitution Act, 1982 and numerous Supreme Court of Canada decisions. The British Crown signed treaties with First Nations. The Crown, as the Government of Canada, continues to sign comprehensive land claim and self-government agreements with First Nations, Inuit and Métis governments and nations. It does not do any of this with Black or People of Colour communities.
As Chief Justice Lamer stated in R v. Van der Peet in 1999: Aboriginal rights exist
“because of one simple fact: when Europeans arrived in North America, Aboriginal peoples were already here, living in communities on the land, and participating in distinctive cultures, as they had done for centuries. It is this fact, and this fact above all others, which separates Aboriginal peoples from all other minority groups in Canadian society, and which mandates their special legal status.”
This country we now call Canada exists on First Nations ancestral land, or on the Inuit homeland in northern Canada called ‘Inuit Nunangat’, and on the Métis homeland across the historic Northwest. Indigenous Peoples are not immigrants and have no history, no ties, no memory of another place, nor are there stories about how their people came to Canada. All Canadians need to reflect on this unique relationship and its implications.
It can help to disguise the specific responsibilities that the Government of Canada has with First Nations, Inuit and Métis by lumping Black, Indigenous and People of Colour into one broad category and simply addressing it as an issue of “anti-racism.” We must clearly and distinctly take the opportunity to understand the challenges, barriers and history that are unique to Canada.
Why Anti-Indigenous Racism Training is Not Enough
Learning about the structures, systems, policies and institutions that uphold racism in Canada is not the same as actually working to dismantle them. As Senator Murray Sinclair has said,
“If you get rid of all of the racists in all of the positions of government, policing, justice, health – you will still have a problem. Because you will have a system that is functioning based upon policies, priorities and decisions that direct how things are to be done, that come from a time when racism was very blatant.”
While it’s important to understand how systemic racism is embedded in all elements of Canadian society, this understanding alone does not necessarily change people’s attitudes or behaviours.
Anti-Indigenous racism training is a good stepping stone on the journey of reconciliation. As outlined in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action #27:
“We call upon the Federation of Law Societies of Canada to ensure that lawyers receive appropriate cultural competency training, which includes the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal-Crown relations. This will require skills-based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.”
We must acknowledge that these racist systems and structures of oppression were built over generations. They can only be dismantled, re-built, and re-imagined over the next several generations when all people come together.
“Alone, Indigenous people can do little to combat racism, particularly when it is so pervasively and deeply embedded in the ideological, political, economic and social structures of Canada. But together, as allies, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are turning the tide.”
National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health – Policies Programs and Strategies to Address Anti-Indigenous Racism (page 12)