Truth before Reconciliation

This week’s Teachings Tuesday comes at a time when political divisions are tugging at the already-frayed threads of Canada’s national identity. The recent election laid bare long-standing fractures, now widely framed as a unity crisis. But what if the real crisis isn’t disunity — it’s discomfort?

What we’re witnessing isn’t a collapse of unity. It’s the discomfort of a nation being asked to reckon with the truths it has long ignored — truths about how this country was built, who paid the price, and who continues to benefit. This discomfort is not a threat to unity; it is the necessary beginning of truth.

This week, we are honoured to share the words of Dr. Bruce McIvor, Métis lawyer, historian, educator, and author. Bruce offers a clear and direct response to a recent Globe and Mail editorial that attempts to position the Hudson’s Bay Company Charter alongside documents like the Magna Carta and the U.S. Declaration of Independence — an act of erasure cloaked as national pride.

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"The Canadian dominating class continues to bend over backwards to excuse Canada's theft of Indigenous lands and avoid dealing with the uncomfortable truths of Canadian history.

In 1670 King Charles II, in an act of economic imperialism, granted exclusive rights to what is now nearly 40% of Canada to a group of his English capitalist friends through the issuance of the Hudson's Bay Company Charter. This was one of the largest thefts of Indigenous lands in world history. It was based on the Doctrine of Discovery, i.e. the racist ideology that Indigenous people were uncivilized savages and, therefore, a European Christian country could simply acquire their land.

In what reads as a dispatch from Bizarro World, today the Globe and Mail's editorial board compares the HBC Charter to Magna Carta and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

https://lnkd.in/gVsRmVbn

Anticipating howls of criticism, it makes a polite nod to the HBC Charter's role in the theft of Indigenous land and then quickly follows up with the magical 'but' that supposedly washes away the stain of empire:

"But the dark moments of history don’t make its milestones any less meaningful. More than four centuries after the first permanent European settlement, in Acadia, Canadians have built the second biggest nation in the world. It stretches between three seas and is proudly independent."

This is an example of the logical fallacy called rationalization. Attached is a screenshot of what ChatGPT says about it.

Rhetorical slight of hands such as this undermine and silence the hard truth telling required for meaningful reconciliation. Canadians need to identify, call out and reject these bogus arguments.

If you found this comment helpful pls share it with your network as part of denouncing the whitewashing of Canadian history."

~ Bruce McIvor

What Bruce names here is more than flawed logic — it’s a systemic strategy. When national milestones are celebrated without acknowledging the violence that made them possible, it isn’t just omission — it’s whitewashing.

I’ve been sitting with the tension between national pride and historical truth — how often the stories we’re taught are sewn together with threads of erasure. And I’ve come to understand that the strength of a country isn’t measured by how seamless its narrative appears, but by its willingness to hold the weight of the truth.

If the fabric of our country feels strained, maybe it’s because it was never woven with truth in the first place. I’m learning that strength doesn’t come from stitching over the past — it comes from unearthing it, acknowledging the harm, and choosing to participate in the repair. Each time I choose honesty over ease, I feel something strengthen — in me, and I hope, in the wider fabric I’m part of.

This is part of my own healing and learning. And it gives me hope that we can repair what’s been torn — not to make it perfect, but to make it whole.

🧡 Kim