There. The moment of the year is over – the celebration of Canada’s 150 birthday.
When it comes to celebrating our nation, I’m proud to celebrate our achievements, but that doesn’t mean I shut my mind off and remember the horrible stuff.
It’s a fact when settlers from the Old World came to what would become Canada, they were entering a post-apocalyptic world, with up to 80 per cent of the local population wiped out by new diseases.
In that state, over a period of years, the new settlers were able to achieve a position of power over that population and, as is common in history, didn’t exactly use it for good.
I realize this is somewhat of an oversimplification, but there’s only so much room for this column.
While we can’t change that past, there’s a lot of work to be done when it comes to reconciling with the First Nations that populate modern Canada.
That’s the largest example, but there’s other things that have been done in the name of Canada that aren’t so great: like turning back the Komagata Maru in 1914, full of British subjects from India that wanted to come to Canada. They were turned back and labeled as troublemakers by the local Indian governments, becoming persecuted for their political stance.
We can be proud that Canada today is a mostly peaceful nation, where we used votes, words and protests to try to make political change, not guns and bombs.
For the next 150 years, Canada’s challenge is to become better, to become more of a beacon to the world. We have done a lot to get to that point, but we’re not there yet.
So celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, but don’t forget the bad when remembering the good.
