Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
In light of the recent discovery of what is believed to be the remains of 215 Indigenous children at the site of a former residential school in B.C., some are renewing calls for Canada Day to be cancelled this year.
On social media, the hashtag #CancelCanadaDay has gained traction in recent days and several rallies organized by the Indigenous protest movement Idle No More have been planned for July 1 in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and in parts of Ontario.
Dakota Bear, an Indigenous hip-hop artist and Idle No More activist who is organizing the rally in Vancouver, said the discovery of the children’s remains at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in late May has reminded the country that Indigenous Peoples are still in mourning.
“For us, July 1, there's nothing for us to celebrate,” he told CTV’s Your Morning on Wednesday. “We have a lot of healing to do, together, everyone that lives on these lands.”
According to the Idle No More website, the rallies will be an opportunity for people to come together to “honour all of the lives lost to the Canadian State – Indigenous lives, Black Lives, Migrant lives, Women and Trans and 2Spirit lives.”
Bear said there are still so many issues affecting Indigenous communities that need to be addressed before they can celebrate, including the lack of infrastructure for safe drinking water, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, proper housing, youth suicides, and the effects of the residential school system.
The activist said Canada was built on 500 years of genocide and that genocide continues to this day as cited in the report by the national inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA people.
“The systems that we’re facing, and the oppression that we’re faced [with] through these systems is ongoing, and it’s costing Indigenous lives,” he said.
“For Canada to become what it is today, we had to go through and continue to go through that genocide. So we have to acknowledge that history. But to move forward, there's so much work to do before the celebration comes. I feel like we’re skipping ahead.”
In order to address these problems, Bear said people have to come together as a collective to educate people on what has happened and is happening to Indigenous Peoples in Canada.
“The truth is coming to light,” he said. “The information is more readily available and I think that people are starting to digest that information.”
And while Bear said they won’t be commemorating the founding of Canada on July 1, he said they will be celebrating in their own way.
“We do have a lot to celebrate. There’s a lot of resilience within our communities and we’re still here. So we need to acknowledge that as well,” he said.
---
If you are a former residential school student in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419
Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.