We Are a Resilient People

Lawrence Martin begins an article on the recent book, “A Fair Country” by John Ralston Saul, husband to former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, by saying:

As Canadians we think of ourselves as Europeanized, then Americanized. More recently, with the waves of non-European immigrants, multiculturalized. Remarkably and ignorantly, we never get below the surface. We overlook, Saul argues in his provocative and brilliant study, our real driving force — our Aboriginal moorings.

Too often many seem to consider that the history of the land we call Canada began with the coming of Europeans to its shores. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For thousands of years before European technology allowed their first explorers to cross the ocean and “discover” what they called the “New World” my Inuit ancestors called a large part of that land home, and we have a long and rich history.

Unfortunately for all Canadians that history was neither recognized nor valued by the early European explorers or the Canadian government that ultimately followed them. Our culture, our language, and our history, were seen as unnecessary hindrances to what they determined were happy, successful, and productive Canadian lives.

To that end different assimilation strategies were developed and implemented. Our people were relocated from their homes into communities where a great many of the social conventions and structures our people had developed over thousands of years simply were not relevant. The churches told us that our spiritual beliefs were wrong and attempted to wipe them out, many of our children were taken from us and sent to residential schools where they were taught in English and punished for speaking their mother tongue. And in many cases our mobility, independence, and even the ability to feed and clothe ourselves was taken away from us when our dog teams were shot by the RCMP.

These are also parts of our history that, until recently, were not generally acknowledged, or if they were acknowledged they were generally minimized.

On June 11, 2008 that changed when the Prime Minister of Canada stood in the House of Commons and issued a formal Apology for those actions, and when I stood in front of him on the floor of the House and spoke directly to him in Inuktitut it was proof that our history, our language, and our culture, even in the face of the formidable barriers that were placed in front of them, had survived and was still strong.

The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996 Report included a recommendation called the Aboriginal History Series Project (1.7.1). It called on the government of Canada to “commit to the publication of a general history of Aboriginal peoples of Canada in a series of volumes reflecting the diversity of nations, to be completed within 20 years.”

Inuit are Canadians, and our history, and our culture, is a valuable part of Canadian history and culture that we believe should be acknowledged as such by Canada and by Canadians.

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