Not Now, Not Ever
By John Swartz
September 30, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. From coast-to-coast for only the fifth year we have one day during which we are supposed to be honouring the children who were taken from their homes and put in residential schools in order to ‘civilize’ them. Many of those children never went home ever again. Many more of those children have lived and continue to live traumatized lives.
So we have a day to recognize this stain on our history and symbolically make amends. That’s the intent. If you’re a federal employee or happen to work for a company that is enlightened you get the day off work. Whoopee. Most of us are going to be working today anyway.
It’s also a day where many people are going to wear orange coloured T-shirts or sweatshirts. For some people they do so as an act of contrition and brotherhood and sisterhood. For others it’s just something you do, same as wearing something green and drinking green beer on St. Patrick’s Day. That really doesn’t make you Irish and wearing orange doesn’t mean you understand. For many of you, judging by the comments you make online or overheard, it’s just something you do because it seems like everybody else is doing it.
I won’t be wearing anything orange, joining the pack, because there are many days throughout the year I think about what our forebearers did to and about our native friends. I like to think I have demonstrated to my friends across the lake even though I am not of their community I don’t think or act like those of our community – on a daily basis. To me they are friends. They are part of our community. Let me turn that around, we are part of their community. Even today we are the interlopers. Just because we overwhelmed them and created a society in our image, in our control, it does not give us any kind of moral authority.
The Truth And Reconciliation Commission came up with a list of 94 Calls To Action. Some of those are works in progress. Reconciliation Education says 12 actions have been completed. I’m sure our native friends noticed. I’m also sure you can’t name one of those 12.
I think there should have been 95 Calls To Action. The one that’s missing is a one-word bullet point. That word is ‘listen’. Based on online comments and ill-informed editorials it is clear to me most Canadians, most Orillians, have not listened and are not listening now.
We have one striking example of our community which I think illustrates very well we are not listening (and I use the words our and we in terms of people living in the City of Orillia who are not Native. To be clear, my sense of what our community means is universal, it includes everyone. But, in the context of this editorial and making this message clear, using the words our and we does not include Natives).
If the banner photograph caused you to click the link and read this you know where this is going. On September 19th Mayor Don McIsaac in a Facebook post alerted the community the Champlain monument can be returned to the city and would be the subject of discussion at the next council meeting. Realizing this was big news SUNonline/Orillia published a story about this.
The news created a flood of commentary, pro and con, mostly pro, to return the monument. It was, yet again, another spike of community commentary that has from time to time gripped the city since the news the monument was being taken away for refurbishment in 2017. Not much has changed about the quality and balance of opinion on the matter since then.
Except for my opinion. In the first instance I thought when it returned creating some complementary art to put in context the circumstances the creation of the monument and the place in history Champlain has was an acceptable compromise. It should surprise nobody that I see the sculpture as a great work of art. The detail, the proportions, the lifelike rendering of humans is extraordinary. Few other communities have sculptures of real people that are as good as that monument. Surely reasonable people could agree on a middle path to having it reinstalled, even if it would be only the figure of Champlain.
The thing about the word compromise is each side gives up something in order to achieve some greater something. On one hand we might sacrifice ever reinstalling the side pieces. But in order to put Sam back on his pedestal, Natives, and not just those who live in Rama (because this thing is much bigger and more consequential than many people here in Orillia recognize or will admit to) are feeling a piece of dignity and part of their sense of ‘we’re all in this together’ is lost.
I was of the opinion that Champlain was welcome in the communities of the Wendat and Huron who already called this place home for centuries before Champlain even drew a breath. In fact, conventional wisdom asserts they nursed him back to health after he was wounded fighting alongside them in a battle with the Iroquois. That did happen, but I have learned there was a lot more than benevolence at play. Part of the motivation for keeping Champlain here was to prevent him from contacting the Iroquois for his own purposes.
I have read three documents, Champlain Judged by His Indian Policy: A Different View of Early Canadian History, The Devil and Champlain and a piece published by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, all by historians who paint a different picture of Champlain.
Amalgamating the information in those three pieces has changed my opinion about Champlain and the monument. He comes off as very friendly and engaging personality in his dealings with Natives. But his motivations and objectives were not friendly. In fact there were several times I thought to myself, “this is just like Trump.” He said one thing to Natives and to others the opposite. He lied to his contemporaries and his superiors for self-aggrandizement. Many people died because of his ego and he pitted nations against each other for his own gain. He was a snake.
Reading between the lines of those voicing opposition to returning the monument (recognizing reading between the lines can be an exercise in futility) I get the sense there is a lot of pain and disillusionment on the part of those who say they are Native, or appear to me to be Native.
Surely each one of you can recall a time you were in disagreement with somebody you cared about and felt you just weren’t being listened to. I get the sense of pain I see being expressed is not just about the monument. It’s about us not listening to them. It’s about us not recognizing them as equals, as brothers and sisters, as our neighbours, as friends living together on such a small patch of this large rock.
We are dismissing their argument and the historical record for our own perceptions and beliefs which were never based on anything, even Champlain’s own writings and the writings of his contemporaries. We believed a fictional account of Champlain’s time in Canada and specifically in this neighbourhood. And it is clear many are not prepared to admit that.
It is time we admit we have been wrong. I am now opposed to having any part of that monument reinstalled on the very spot where the residential school system was imposed, where the Chiefs of the many Native communities within traveling distance gathered to hear the fate of their children (to which Chief Yellowhead was one of only two Chiefs who spoke against this policy). I’m guessing you didn’t know that; that those schools were born on the dirt underneath the pedestal Champlain’s figure was displayed.
Restoring the monuement’s presence is the same as if we were in Virginia and there was a proposal to restore a monument to Robert E. Lee. It should be unthinkable.
There will be other proposals for what to do about those sculptures. As art objects they are significant. There are many significant pieces of art and sculpture that are historically as inaccurate as anything coming out of the mouths of the microphone stands on Fox News. That sculpture just cannot be placed in that park on that spot if we are to be serious with regard to our friends across the lake and all others in Native communities in this country.
I think we owe the Native community an apology, maybe Council could make an official apology, for being shortsighted and boneheaded about entertaining the idea of reinstalling any part of that monument. And we need to make a very sincere apology for dismissing the concerns of our friends. That would be making a concrete effort at real truth and reconciliation.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia)
