SENATORS’ STATEMENTS — National Indigenous History Month—National Indigenous Peoples Day

Honourable senators, June is National Indigenous History Month, and tomorrow marks National Indigenous Peoples Day. Last week, several Indigenous senators — with your support, Your Honour — hosted an event celebrating National Indigenous History Month. There were prayers from a First Nations elder, and an Inuk elder lit the Qulliq to bring warmth and light to the evening. The sounds of drums and song filled the hall. There were talented Inuit throat singers and an amazing Métis jigger who helped close our festivities. At the end of the evening, the room smelled of bannock, salmon and sage as participants snacked and elders smudged.

There was an irony that evening that was not lost on me. We gathered to celebrate National Indigenous History Month in the Sir John A. Macdonald Building, named after a man who was the chief architect of Indian residential schools and who attempted to forcibly assimilate and erase the histories, languages and traditions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples.

The first time I spoke in this chamber, I shared with you a story about my father, who was taught from an early age not to speak his language. As a result, he never taught my brothers and me to speak Cree. He wanted to keep us safe. I think about this today. I do not fear as he did, but I too lost the opportunity to speak my language. However, there is still hope for me to learn.

Like many others, I am concerned about the loss of language and the ways of knowing and being it carries for Indigenous peoples. These ways are born from the lands upon which we stand and can be found nowhere else.

Yet there I was, along with other sons and daughters of parents who survived residential schools and day schools, celebrating our cultures, speaking our languages and acknowledging the resilience of our people in the face of what we have had to overcome.

As I thought about that evening, I was reminded of the concept of a “grand notion” by the commissioners who wrote the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples:

. . . the notion that dissimilar peoples can share lands, resources, power and dreams while respecting and sustaining their differences. The story of Canada is the story of many such peoples, trying and failing and trying again, to live in peace and harmony.

Tomorrow is National Indigenous Peoples Day. It may be a coincidence that this day is also my son’s birthday, but it is no coincidence that this day falls on the summer solstice, the day with the most light. On that occasion, I look forward to a bright future for those who will follow in all of our footsteps, proud of who they are and of their unique and shared history, trying again to live in peace and harmony as they take part in this grand notion of Canada.

Hiy hiy.