My Goals to Change Canada as an Indigenous Person

"O, Canada. Our home and native land."

Is the beginning of the national anthem that I was forced to sing every single day of elementary, middle, and high school. I hated it. As a kid that made sense since it was just annoying after the first week, but during high school? I hated it for a different reason, a reason that persists to this day.

I was born Indigenous. Not Indian, not Aboriginal, not even Native American. Indigenous. Indigenous is the correct term for the first people who called North America home and I want to stress that before I dive deeper. In Canada, there are 3 subsets of ethnic groups that fall under the term Indigenous.

They are:

- Metis

- Inuit

- First Nations

For privacy reasons I am not going to specify which group I fall under.

Canada portrays itself on the world stage as a friendly nation that is a bastion of multiculturalism when it couldn't be any further from the truth. It is a friendly nation if you are a white settler. There is no beating around the bush with that because Canada is horrible for any people of colour but Indigenous people especially.

Starlight-tours, the Highway of Tears, the over-policing of Indigenous people, improper death investigations involving Indigenous people, missing cases of Indigenous youth and women taking years to be taken seriously by authorities, boil-water advisories persisting for decades, the chronic underfunding of Indigenous-led initiatives, and that's all without mentioning the Residential School system.

I'm not listing things from centuries ago. The last residential school closed in 1996. Neskantaga First Nation is STILL under a boil-water advisory that has persisted for the last 31 years. The Highway of Tears had its last case connected to it in 2023. This is only the surface of how deep the systemic racism and racial violence goes in this country. The worst part? No one takes it seriously.

In an era supposedly defined by "Truth and Reconciliation" why has it felt like it has been more words instead of actions?

My goal is to enter law.

"And do what? Siphon the budget to communities and when it runs out, complain?"

Tempting, but no.

I want to codify Truth and Reconciliation into law. I want to remove the politics of Truth and Reconciliation. I want to feel, see, and hear the impact of Truth and Reconciliation in daily life. I want to stop feeling, seeing, and hearing about the lack of change in this country for Indigenous people. That is my goal with this life, anything else is merely a side quest along the way.

I'm not saying that white settlers should leave the country. What I want is for Indigenous people to be treated like human beings. What I want is for Canada to actually follow the United Nations Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples, a declaration partially written by an Indigenous person. What I don't want is legislation like Bill 5 and Bill C-5 continuing to pass through the legislative process without Indigenous consultation because that is actively circumventing what little rights exist for us in the Charter.

Canada needs to change.

Please inform yourself on Canada's mistreatment of Indigenous people because what I talked about is only the surface. It is important because I know for a fact that many schools of all levels do not teach this enough which is why we have people that deny the existence of residential schools.