First Nations didn’t choose the Maple Leaf, though they’ve bled and died for it

What does the Canadian flag imply to you? The solutions to that query are as various as Canada itself. For some, it stirs notions of satisfaction, of accomplishment, of historical past and of place. For others, it’s a image that carries the painful legacy of cruelty, racism and even genocide. To mark this Canada Day, the Star requested a collection of Canadian writers for his or her ideas on what the red-and-white maple-leaf flag symbolizes in our advanced trendy period. This piece is one in a collection of their responses.

Questioning right now whether or not anybody representing the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation was referred to as upon to supply an opinion on what image ought to grace the centre of the nation’s flag a few generations in the past.

The flag in spite of everything, would sing its tune from atop the Peace Tower, positioned on the unceded, never-surrendered lands of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation.

I can solely think about what astronomical outrage and protest would have erupted from a lot of Canadians if somebody from a First Nations bloodline had performed a vital function within the new flag coming into being, again within the Nineteen Sixties. Such had been the occasions! Dare I say such “are” the occasions?

Sadly, supremacist mentalities nonetheless have a robust pulse on this nation. There have been and certainly nonetheless are, hardliners who consider Canada can be a larger nation if not for the presence of the First Nations Folks in it! It’s a undeniable fact that 5 years previous to the maple leaf being proclaimed Canada’s nationwide flag by Queen Elizabeth II, the First Nations Peoples of the nation had been forbidden, by legislation, to vote in federal and provincial elections. It’s not all that way back!

Oh the flag! Earlier than its delivery, there was horror! The atrocities dedicated in opposition to human beings on this nation are embedded deep into its material. It’s a reality Canadians want to pay attention to and may, due to it, decide to all efforts of reconciliation as proposed to them by the individuals of Indigenous bloodlines. A rustic with no conscience, is a rustic with no soul.

The notion of killing “the Indian within the little one” was the collective dream of Canada’s first parliamentarians. Underneath the colony’s “Purple Ensign” the so-called “opposition” didn’t oppose the primary prime minister’s plans to perpetrate genocide in opposition to this nation’s unique inhabitants. The Indian Act was created by the “Fathers of Confederation” for one cause and for one cause solely, and that was to get the First Peoples out of the way in which in order that their resource-rich lands may very well be raped and plundered. It’s outrageous for anybody to consider that it was Canada’s taxpayers who funded the railroad going from the nation’s east to its western edges. It was wealth — similar to that produced by the timber, the gold, the silver, the iron ore and so forth, stolen from the Algonquins, the Mi’kmaq, the Ojibwe and different First Nations within the East that made the development of the railway attainable.

However in spite of everything is alleged and completed on this matter I can actually say from my most humble coronary heart of coronary heart’s viewpoint, that I see a number of good within the Canadian flag.

My child brother, Russell, served within the ‘Canadian’ Armed Forces from the time he was 18 until his loss of life, ensuing from being struck by a automobile, pushed by a drunk driver in his twenty fifth yr of life. Russ served three years within the military after which three years on the ‘Saskatchewan’, a Canadian battle ship. He liked Canada! He would have put his life on the road (as did so many different courageous First Nations troopers of previous wars) for Canada, anytime, anyplace, of that there is no such thing as a doubt.

After I have a look at the maple leaf on the Canadian flag, I see the guts of Terry Fox. Inform me, was there ever a finer younger man than Terry Fox? Think about a world the place all individuals had Terry’s coronary heart and with it the love and respect he had for all individuals, no matter tradition or pores and skin color! There are various residents on this nation who’re precisely like Terry Fox. They’re of various pores and skin colors. They’re previous and they’re younger! They’re the easy residing and they’re the highly effective! I do know, as a result of I’ve labored with a lot of them over time. And that’s the reason I, too, care drastically about Canada. When such good individuals stand collectively in defending the integrity of the “maple leaf,” they will rely on me to be by their aspect.

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