Canada 150

The Canada 150th Anniversary celebrations are coming in a few days, and of course, the media have to find some First Nations angle. And it has to be a complaint.

So CBC informs us that some aboriginal Canadians will not be singing “O Canada.” Canada Day, apparently, celebrates colonization. It commemorates “150 years of forced segregation, assimilation, cultural genocide.”

“Drawing attention to and celebrating Canada's 150th year, or any other anniversary of Confederation, completely ignores the history of Indigenous peoples —a group that's been here for more than 150 years, said Real Carriere.”

Uh, no. Apparently neither the aboriginal people interviewed nor the reporter, nor the CBC editors, actually know what Confederation was.

It was not a moment when a large ship appeared from Europe disgorging people with white skin. My ancestors have been here for more than 150 years too. The non-aboriginal ones, that is. Are they being ignored too?

We need to teach better history in the schools.