Counterpoint: Canada has a duty to make up for the historical dispossession of Indigenous people |
Kelly LaRocca: Canada was not taken in a single act but through cumulative policies that we now have the responsibility to correct
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If Canadians want to understand why our country faces persistent tensions on questions of Indigenous rights and belonging, we must move beyond the oversimplified narrative espoused by Tom Flanagan and Mark Milke in the National Post that everyone is a settler and therefore no one has obligations to First Nations.
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The term “settler” does not describe race or moral worth. As political theorist James Tully explains, it is a descriptive term for those whose ancestors arrived and established political authority without the consent of existing Indigenous nations. It is neither an accusation nor an insult. It is a recognition of historical relationships that over time came to lack equality, fairness or reciprocity.
Land acknowledgements emerged not to shame the descendants of settler populations, but to correct a long history of erasing Indigenous presence from public life. They were intended as first steps in........