It is a stereotype of Canadians that we say sorry a lot. Many of us like the stereotype, presumably thinking that it means we are empathetic and caring. Maybe we are a caring people, but history doesn’t show that, at least not in these parts.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was here in Iqaluit last week to apologize to Inuit for the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) patients in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.
It was an excellent speech. In addition to saying sorry to the victims, he acknowledged the disrespect and harm done to families and communities, and to those that never lived to hear the apology. He also acknowledged that this wrong was on top of other wrongs perpetrated on Inuit by the federal government: residential schools, the sixties scoop, forced relocation, disempowering and paternalistic policies, and the shooting of sled dogs. He acknowledged the cumulative effects. Whoever wrote his speech actually gets it, and the Prime Minister didn’t shy away from delivering it.
The Sled Dog Slaughters Acknowledged
Woah, back up a second. Did that list include the shooting of sled dogs? The Prime Minister just obliquely admitted that the federal government did in fact shoot sled dogs! This is something Inuit have been pushing for for years. In 2005 the federal government asked the RCMP to investigate their own actions (very trustworthy, no?), but the RCMP, in their own investigation of themselves, determined that while a bunch of sled dogs were shot, the RCMP didn’t want to shoot them, and there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with what they did.
That is of course complete garbage and they should know that and probably do know that, but in fairness the RCMP only really cares about whether they did something criminal, and not touchy-feely things like whether or not they ruined people’s lives.
The story is a little complicated, but not complicated enough to be a valid excuse: as many Inuit settled into communities there were a lot of dogs running around and this can cause problems for dogs and people, including the spread of disease. At the same time as vaccinations were undertaken and even in a few cases as dogs were flown in to replace lost dogs, many dogs were shot. There were certainly many who were sick and some probably needed to be put down. There were probably cases of loose dogs in communities becoming a problem, and perhaps – perhaps – shooting them was not an unreasonable action in certain instances, given the options available at the time.
Sound reasonable? Not most of the time. Estimates say 20 000 dogs were killed in Nunavut and Nunavik. In some cases Inuit hunters whose dogs were shot tried to walk to the flow edge to hunt for their families. In many cases it was people coming into town temporarily or seasonally whose dogs were shot when they arrived. Many families had to stay in communities that weren’t planning on it after their dogs were shot.
De-humanized
Am I off topic here? I don’t think so. TB was a problem and needed a solution. The representatives of the federal government took action. Sled dogs were at times a problem (and perhaps, to the government, Inuit who didn’t want to stay in communities). The problem in both cases is that the actions taken essentially forgot that Inuit are human.
First off, with the sled dogs, officials didn’t understand or didn’t care what the effects would be on Inuit, on their ability to maintain the lives they wanted to lead, on their ability to care for their families. It took away their culture; it doesn’t take much learning about Inuit history to see that. But what most people don’t seem to get is that pride was taken. Family bonds were taken. Community bonds were broken. Independence was taken. Strong and independent people were turned into dependents on the state.
In many ways this is worse than war. In a war, there is an enemy. The enemy is fought against. The enemy can take your body but not your soul, because you know they are the enemy. In Inuit and First Nations history, Settlers came as traders and ostensibly as helpers. Then they tricked and swindled indigenous peoples at times, and at other times earnestly tried to help while eroding the resources that indigenous peoples worked with to build they’re societies. They took a chunk of the soul, but left the body.
Money or a Soul?
As an aside, this is the answer to people who say things like “my grandparents came to Canada with nothing but the clothes on their backs and they built a life for themselves and our family through hard work. Indigenous people are given so much and yet they are still in poverty and have so many problems. What is wrong with them?”
Those peoples’ grandparents had far more than the clothes on their back. They had their soul. They had their pride and strength of family and culture, even if they left their homeland and family across an ocean. Those things are worth so much more than the so-called free-ride some people think indigenous people get. Would you prefer a $5 annual cheque from the federal government, a sales tax discount, and a sweet deal to access university if you can get through an under-funded and broken K-12 system with a broken soul, or would you prefer to have your rights, culture, means to be a productive family member and self-respect preserved?
Does that sound like an exaggeration?
Imagine the icebreaker CD Howe coming into town. Everyone is marshalled onto the ship and told to take their clothes off by people they have never met who don’t speak their language. They are not told why. Many are found to have TB. They are not allowed to leave the ship. Their families are not told. They are taking south to hospitals where they might stay for several years. Not just adults. Children. Some die and are buried in the south. Families are often not told. Those that get better are dropped off in the community. Again, family are not told. Some children don’t know who their families are.
As Justin Trudeau did well to point out, The treatment of Inuit with TB in that era was terrible, but not the only trauma inflicted. Overlapping with that era are the residential school era, which is the educational version of the de-humanizing health care. And the dog slaughter, with the de-humanizing effects on self-sufficiency. And forced relocations, and on top of that, a generalized lack of thought about the effects of government policies on individuals, families and communities.
You want to break peoples’ souls for generations? Take their children. Like residential schools did, like the sixties scoop did, like the CD Howe did.
Reconcile It
We have had apologies for residential schools. We have had apologies for forced relocations. We have had apologies for the treatment of TB patients. We have had several provincial apologies for the sixties scoop of children into non-indigenous foster homes. The governments are getting good at apologizing.
These apologies are important. They do help with healing, with rebuilding trust and self-respect. Hopefully they help with non-indigenous Canadians understand the history and the effects of that history today.
Apologies are not enough, but they are a chance to see what cannot be seen. Non-indigenous Canadians can see some of the legacy of the de-humanizing government policies (and de-humanizing actions of individuals). They cannot see the broken souls inside people, or the broken family and community bonds. They cannot see the burden that managing crisis after crisis in modern-day families and communities has on people still today.
People need to know that you do not have to see it and you do not have to be able to fully understand what it is like. All that you have to do is realize that we all have inner lives that cannot be seen. We all struggle with inner dialogues. These invisible parts of us are very real to ourselves. People need to remember that others have inner lives too. The problem is that I think most people apply sympathy to themselves because they know their own inner challenges and what they have done to overcome them. It is hard to believe that others’ struggles, which we cannot see or hear, could so much greater than our own.
Believe it.
Apologies are common these years, but apologies generally only happen once. Don’t let it slip by without using it as a window to see what might be going on in the souls of others.
After the apology, reporters wanted to question the Prime Minister about the SNC-Lavelin affair. Natan Obed, President of Inuit Tapirit Kanatami, the National Inuit Association, shot them down, asking them to give attention to the apology, at least for that time. People present for the apology were surely still crying and applying the apology to their wounded soul when the media moved on. We as individuals need to do better than that.
If Canadians are good at saying sorry, I hope it is a sign of empathy. There is no better act of reconciliation than first to accept that Canada inflicted trauma on indigenous people – repeatedly – as individuals, as families, as communities and as a culture. Then to accept that the damage is still here, even if it can’t be seen; souls don’t heal so easily, and damaged souls have a habit of damaging other souls. Then, finally, we need to be sorry, too.
Trudeau spoke on behalf of the country when he said sorry. That means he spoke for me. I have my own voice, too, though, and I should use it: I’m sorry, too. I want everyone to know that.
I recommend saying it if you get the chance. It makes you realise how inadequate the words alone are, but it is better to be good at saying sorry than to be what we were before we said sorry.
P.S. Not sure when or how you would go about saying sorry? Share this.
References:
Qikiqtani Truth Commission report on sled dog slaughters:https://www.qtcommission.ca/sites/default/files/public/thematic_reports/thematic_reports_english_rcmp_sled_dog.pdf
Article from 2010 about sled dog reports: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/inuit-dog-killings-no-conspiracy-report-1.971888
