COVER STORY
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION: ARE WE THERE YET?
Dr Shah gets ready to board a seaplane in Sudbury on one of his visits to remote and isolated communities.
Dr Chandrakant Shah has made it his life’s mission to work with Indigenous communities.
He received the Order of Ontario for being a pioneer in public health education in Canada and for developing innovative health-care programs and advocacy for Indigenous communities. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards but perhaps the ones closest to his heart are a blanket and a feather. In 1999, he was presented with the Eagle Feather by the First Nations House at the University of Toronto.
An eagle feather has special significance among First Nations people. With its capacity to soar to great heights, they believe it can communicate with the creator, that it sees nature in all its diversity and is, therefore, more understanding of differences. It has an overview of humanity and uses its wisdom for the good of all.
The blanket, a gift from the Anishnawbe, is the equivalent of being honoured by a shawl in South Asian culture.
Dr Shah welcomed the recently established National Day for Truth and Reconciliation which commemorates the legacy of the Canadian Indian residential school system. And raises several pertinent questions about our relationship with Canada’s Indigenous Peoples.
HOW MANY REALIZE THAT WE ARE ALL TREATY PEOPLE?
At a presentation honouring Dr Shah at Sudbury Indigenous Health Centre.
Dr Chandrakant Shah and his wife Sudha with Phil Fontaine, the then Grand Chief, Assembly of First Nations.
By DR CHANDRAKANT SHAH
It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.
So said Sir John A. Macdonald, the first prime minister of Canada, in the House of Commons in 1883 justifying the residential school system, which would see generations of Indigenous children removed from their families.
In 2015, Justice Murray Sinclair (now retired senator Sinclair) published a report, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future, Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRCC).
The report received wide publicity and stirred the collective conscience of non-Indigenous Canadians. Many of the report’s recommendations (calls to action) were geared towards education, health, welfare and legal institutions run by various governments. Few were directed at us – people not indigenous to Canada.
Though the governments of Canada, territories, provinces and municipalities and health and educational institutions committed to act upon them, six years later, several remain unfulfilled.
The recent uncovering of a large number of unmarked graves on the grounds of residential schools has provided further impetus to act upon those recommendations.
This year, the Canadian Parliament passed a legislation designating September 30 as National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, commemorating the legacy of residential schools as recommended by the TRCC.
It is a day not only to reflect upon and learn about our unpleasant past, but one on which to make sincere attempts to reconcile through individual and collective actions.
In my humble opinion, many recent immigrants and established settlers have little knowledge of what it means to “sign the treaty with Indigenous Peoples”.
Treaties are signed between nation-states – both sides honour the agreements made – and are in perpetuity unless renegotiated.
I hear from Canadians from all walks of life that treaties signed in the past are irrelevant today.
These individuals need to understand that whether they like it or not, they are part of the signatories to the treaties; and they are “treaty people”.
For instance, we have signed many treaties with the US, including the extradition treaty, under which we were required to hold Meng Wanzhou, an executive of Huawei, even though some of us disapproved of this and many thought it to be a political ploy by a previous US president.
As a result, two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were jailed.
However, our government stood firm and adhered to our agreement; we did not break the treaty to free our citizens.
The British Crown had first signed the treaty with Indigenous Peoples in Canada in 1701. Even today, there are several outstanding treaties, ongoing negotiations and a few “unceded territories” where Indigenous nations have not given up their sovereignty.
We all are treaty people and need to fulfil our treaty obligations.
Over the past 150 years, we reneged on those treaty obligations, broke or ignored promises we’d made.
Commissions and many reports on Indigenous Peoples have shone a light on our mistreatments toward them, but we still fail to acknowledge this.
Truth and Reconciliation Day is a day to reflect, giving us time to reconcile, time to learn and confront our past, and time to charter the intended course for the future for all of us, all treaty people.
On a positive note, I have also heard from many individuals who would like to be engaged in transforming our relationship with Indigenous Peoples.
How does one proceed at an individual level? Based on my experience over the past fifty years, here are a few ideas.
Do:
Learn and understand the history of Indigenous peoples in Canada and the impact of colonialism. Read the report of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (www.trc.ca), take a cultural competency course and/or read one of the many books on the subject by both the Indigenous and non-indigenous scholars. Be informed and respectful of Treaties.
In future, vote for representatives who support reconciliation and action. Ask political parties and candidates about their policies on Indigenous issues and vote for the ones who support and address Justice Sinclair’s Report.
Advocate and support Indigenous-led causes. You can lend your support to Indigenous peoples for various issues such as housing in First Nations, clean drinking water, employment equity, cultural revival, murdered and missing women, child welfare, education system, restorative justice for Aboriginal inmates, etc.
Support local, provincial and national Indigenous organizations. The Peel Indigenous Network and Anishnawbe Health Foundation, for instance, are involved in providing services, fundraising, policy formulation and advocacy. Lend a hand and/or join in peaceful protest.
Learn about the Treaties where you live. Learn about the importance of Land Acknowledgement and why and how to do it.
Become friends with Indigenous people. Invite them home, attend cultural events, and visit Friendship Centres like the Peel Aboriginal Network and Native Cultural Centre of Toronto.
Examine your unconscious biases. Work to change them for you and your family.
Do not:
• Prescribe solutions to Indigenous problems; they have had enough of other people providing solutions over the last 500 years that have caused more problems.
• Pity Indigenous peoples. They do not need it! Empathy and understanding are needed.
• Get involved with Indigenous issues out of compassion, as it, like infatuation, wears off in a short time. Over the centuries, Aboriginal People have had experience with many “do-gooders” who have imposed their value systems. Make sure you can sustain your commitment to working together.
• Be a performative ally, meaning your acts are purely for your benefit, to improve your profile and earn kudos from others.
• Stereotype Indigenous peoples. Similar to other communities, their members include architects, painters, lawyers, writers, physicians, and a Governor-General.
Indigenous peoples and all Canadians are part of the larger Canadian family. To make sure that the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was not in vain, we need to understand, empathize, reach out, provide a helping hand and undo many injustices suffered by Indigenous peoples.
As Justice Sinclair wrote in his report. “... reconciliation is not an Indigenous problem, it is for all of Canada.”
Let us rise to the challenge!
IS IT POSSIBLE TO FLIGHT UNCONSCIOUS BIAS?
Dr Chandrakant Shah with his wife Sudha and sons Sunil and Rajiv in their early years in Canada.
By DR CHANDRAKANT SHAH
Unconscious bias refers to a bias that we are unaware of, something outside of our control.
It is one that happens automatically and is triggered by our brain making quick judgments and assessments of people and situations, influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences.
Without being aware of it, we all have such implicit or unconscious bias towards our fellow citizens because they are black or Indigenous; belong to Muslim or Jewish faith; are gay, lesbian or transgender; or homeless.
At a societal level, unconscious bias leads to systemic racism and discrimination leading to inequity in resource distribution, excessive incarceration, early deaths and disabilities or apathy toward their situations.
How do we know that we have such bias and what can we do about it? There are several ways one can change one’s behaviour. Below, I share two examples of just how prevalent unconscious bias is.
As a professor at the Public Health Sciences faculty at the University of Toronto and a researcher and service provider to Indigenous Peoples, I was often invited by different health and social sciences faculties – such as pharmacy, nursing, dentistry, medicine, anthropology and social work – to give classroom lectures on Indigenous health to large groups of students.
I made it a point to begin each lecture with a simple activity that I felt gauged the level of understanding that students had about Indigenous Peoples.
I would ask, “What adjectives come to your mind when you think about Indigenous Peoples?” They were given the freedom to say whatever came to mind, no matter how it might be construed.
Before they answered, I always turned my back to them, facing the blackboard, to afford them a greater sense of personal safety. Students were generally honest in their verbal responses, and I wrote down their responses on the blackboard.
Following that, I would repeat the activity for a different ethnic group such as Chinese, German, or French.
After writing down their responses, I would face my class and ask everyone who knew any Indigenous person to raise their hand.
Hardly about ten hands would be raised. I would then ask how many students in the class had been to lunch with an Indigenous person they knew.
At this point, another four to five hands, at the most, would be raised. Finally, I asked if any of them had been to an Indigenous person’s house.
Almost without fail, there would be no hands in the air.
At this point, I would review their adjectives describing Indigenous Peoples. Almost 80 per cent of their responses about the aboriginal people were stereotypically negative, in stark contrast with the other ethnic groups, where almost 80 per cent of responses were positive.
I knew that the students in my class were not necessarily racist, and they could see the error in their assumptions at this point.
To attempt to understand how such a educated group of people could succumb to such a crude perspective of an entire race, I would ask them how they accounted for the negative aboriginal stereotypes they believed to be true.
In students’ eyes, the biggest culprit was the media, as they portrayed negative images of aboriginal peoples.
While I could understand this perception, I was still constantly taken aback and would always remind my audience that the purpose of higher education is the development of critical thinking skills – I refused to let them off the hook because I knew they had the tools to combat the negativity of the media.
The second example also relates to how systemic racism creeps into our society without us ever knowing that it exists.
In 1999, I became aware of a lack of diversity within faculty members at the University of Toronto.
At the time, almost fifty per cent of the students belonged to a visible minority, whereas only 8.6 per cent of faculty members were the same, despite the promise made by its president in 1990 to have faculty members reflect the community; over 40 per cent of Toronto population at that time were visible minorities but only 9.4 per cent faculty members were from visible minorities.
During his tenure of almost ten years, instead of improvement there was a decline!
I was able to demonstrate by a mathematical model that if from that point on, 15 per cent of all newly hired professors were a visible minority, it would take the university fifty-two years to get to a point where 15 per cent of its faculty were visible minority.
We live in a multicultural, multidimensional society. We need to be self-reflective before voicing our adverse opinion about our fellow citizens. Get to know the group you despise. Read about them, their history, get to know individuals of the group, have lunch, invite them to your house, attend their cultural programs.
The next step in the journey is to be their ally or advocate. A quote from Roxane Gay in Black Life Matters aptly describes the type of actions needed:
“Black people do not need allies. We need people to stand up and take on the problems borne of oppression as their own, without removal or distance. We need people to do this even if they cannot fully understand what it’s like to be oppressed for their race or ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability, class, religion, or other markers of identity. We need people to use common sense to figure out how to participate in social justice.”
How did I tackle the issues described above?
In the first scenario, I realized a widespread unconscious bias and developed a three-week program inviting Indigenous Peoples on the campus to talk about their own lived experiences in classrooms, hospitals, professional organizations and held an event at Toronto City Hall.
The program was so popular that donations/contributions kept flowing, leading to the development of an Endowed Chair in Indigenous Health and Wellbeing, the first of its kind in Canada.
In the second instance, I was able to build a widespread coalition of professors, learners, community organizations and leaders which advocated for employment equity and proactive recruitment for the visible minorities as professors.
I am happy to report that it took just 15 years – not 52 – to achieve the target of 15 per cent.
If you are concerned about discrimination or systemic racism, do not wait for someone else to act, do not be a bystander!
No doubt, it is a long and arduous process to bring social change, but once accomplished, it is great for one’s soul and humanity.
AM I CANADIAN?
Dr Chandrakant Shah with his wife, sons and their families.
By DR CHANDRAKANT SHAH
I immigrated to Canada in 1965 and am now 85. I have lived all my adult life in Canada, worked here, paid taxes, tried to be a model citizen by participating in various civic activities, taught and fought for Canadian values and have scars and medals to show for it.
Why, then, am I still asking this question in my twilight years?
Well, actually, it is not me who is asking; but I do still get that question, albeit infrequently now.
When I came to Canada, I was known as “Indian”. However, once society learned that “Indian” was a constitutionally-designated term for the First Nations Peoples, I became “East Indian”. As time went by, Census Canada classified me as “South Asian”, then as “visible minority” and now a “person of colour” or “Canadian of South Asian descent”.
What a metamorphosis in one life! No wonder I suffer from a case of identity crisis!
Let me cite a few examples to illustrate my point:
In the early 1970s, with the influx of South Asian immigrants, racism raised its ugly head and we all experienced covert or overt discrimination; were called ‘Paki’. While driving with my two young sons in the car, I was driven off the road by a white driver and someone planted a small explosive on my front lawn in the mainly white middle class neighbourhood where I lived. Fast forward to the mid-1980s. My sons were to be admitted to Upper Canada College and as part of the process, my wife and I had an interview with the principal. During our conversation, the principal said, “In your country you do this, but in Canada we do things differently”. “Your country” very clearly, meant India. I politely corrected him. Canada was my country as much as his, even though I was not born here.
I was travelling in the US in the 1990s by car and stopped at an information booth on the highway with a question. During our conversation, the officer asked me who I was. I told him I was Canadian. A few seconds later he asked the same question again and my response was the same. When he asked me the same question the third time in a roundabout manner, I politely replied, ‘Sir, for your information, nowadays Canadians come in all sizes, shapes and colours”. He fell silent.
I am at a loss. If you bleed me, my blood is as red as anyone else’s. What do I have to do to prove that I am no less Canadian than my white brethren? I also believe in the cherished vision of our former prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s dream of Canada as a Gothic cathedral: I want the marble to remain the marble, the granite to remain the granite, the oak to remain the oak – and out of all these elements, I would build a nation great among the nations of the world.
My view of Canada as a multicultural mosaic was shaped by Laurier’s dream. In my heart, I too wanted to see in a predominantly white culture the black people retain their black heritage, the East Asians retain their East Asian heritage; the South Asians retain their South Asian heritage; and the Indigenous Peoples retain Indigenous heritage. I want to see Canada become a shining example of diversity and inclusion.
But I wanted us all to be identified as Canadian first.
This is still my dream.