Margery Fee, Submitted Winter 2012
Fee, M. (2012). The truth and reconciliation commission of Canada. Canadian Literature, (215), 6-10. Retrieved from https://login.libproxy.uregina.ca:8443/login?url=https:// search-proquest-com. libproxy.uregina.ca/docview/1373225407?accountid=13480
Critique of Article
Margey Fee’s article The Truth and reconciliation commission of Canada, is a very well written piece covering the journey of reconciliation that is not being done very well by Canadians. A major part of this is the federal government is not stepping up to what they promised to do. Resulting in major problems. Canadians do not hold the government to this because unfortunately many Canadian are not educated enough about the situations like Lee mentions. Resulting in this lack of education, many Canadians think “Canada has treated Aboriginal people fair and square and that their land has come to us through official channels (Fee). which is a major problem that Canadians are faced with today because their government has left them in the dark. One of the big positives from Lee’s article is that she very much tells the cold hard truth about how what Canada is doing, and how Indigenous people still lack that sense of reconciliation.
At the beginning of Lee’s article she mentions how “Harper’s apology was part of a larger process” (Lee). Many would agree that Harper’s apology did get steps taken towards reconciliation, but in other eyes Harper’s apology is just the beginning of reconciliation. Harper gave to the survivors from residential schools “$10,000 for their first year in the school and $3,000 for each subsequent year. Around 12,000 former students have received further awards of between $5,000 and $275,000 for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse”(Lee) . However this money was not enough to fix the trauma that they went through. Not only were the survivors affected by this rauma but so were their families. For many residential schools broke the person inside and then left them broken. The government left them for many years not giving them the resources to heal. So 50 years later when the government finally starts to give Indigenous people the resources that they need, they have lived with the 50 years if not more of trauma that they received from a place where they were supposed to be getting an education. Harper only gave the money to the “80,000 of these students who are alive today” (Lee) , but what about the families that were affected by the trauma of losing their child, that are no longer alive today? Those families are still affected by the trauma and are given no resources today to help them heal.
Fee mentions how history in school is very much based on putting significance on Sir John A. Macdonald and the Canadian railway, then Louis Riel and the Buffalo. When this article was written in 2012 this was very much true. However the school systems are now talking a lot more about Indigenous culture and putting indigenous education more into schools. For example in elementary schools indigenous education is put into the curriculum, and students that are in high school and university are offered classes such as Indigenous studies. Indigenous education that is being offered is still not at what it could be, but the fact that Indigenous education is not hidden anymore is a great step towards reconciliation, because Louis Riel and the Buffalo are celebrated.
Lee brings up if one now “reads the guide for new Canadians–Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship” (Fee), that Indigenous people are now listed under the three founding people of Canada. This is shocking to think about, because Indigenous people should be the only founding people of Canada. The other two Europeans did not find Canada, the Indigenous people did. Also another question is, why did it take so long for Indigenous people to be recorded as founding members of Canada? This is one of the reasons why Canada has not fully gained reconciliation, is because society is not giving credit to where credit is deserved. It is said that they are now a part of the guide but the resources are not given so that non-indigenous people can locate them.
Lee gives many facts of what Canadians are doing to move towards reconciliation that support her argument that the proper steps are not being taken, but she does not give a lot of her own personal thoughts into it. If Lee would have given more of what she thinks of the truth of reconciliation then there would have been more passion in her argument and people might have taken her message as stronger.
With every argument comes some bias. Lee does give examples with what Canadians have done, but she leans more towards that than the “ Canadians kept in the dark.”(Lee) . so since she learns from one side to the other she uses words and phrases that are more negative the side she is not arguing “special, negatively, bureaucratic, colonization, suffering the traumatic effects of their education,years of silence, found to be rife, A National Crime” (Lee) . which can make the other side not look the best.
Overall Lee’s article showed the truth behind reconsiliation and how Canada is making some steps but they are not doing everything that they need to do. Canada still has a long way to go, but they have taken the first step with the apologies. Since Lee’s article was written in 2012, Canada has taken a lot more steps towards reconciliation. Slowly as a country we are doing better but we are still not there yet.