FORSETH – I said to the Narwhal: ‘This isn’t so-called Canada – it IS Canada’

A SEPTEMBER 30 NEWSLETTER in The Narwhal had a piece, from Karin Saxena, entitled “Holding space for both grief and resilience“.

The piece began with the following:Ten years ago, Secwepemc author Phyllis Jack Webstad founded Orange Shirt Day in so-called Canada. Webstad wore an orange shirt in memory of the one taken away from her when she first arrived at a B.C. residential school at the age of six. Today, for many Indigenous people, the orange shirt symbolizes the lands, language and culture they were stripped of — and also the healing that comes from reclaiming what was lost.

In an email to the Narwhal I remarked, “This ISN’T “so-called Canada” — it IS Canada!

I’m just wondering why you felt the need to deliberately anger many of this who are / will be reading this piece.

This piece is NOT journalism, it’s ‘yellow journalism‘.”

Given my rather sharp retort, executive director Carol Linnitt was very respectful in her response to me.

Hi Alan,

I love your sense of bewilderment — maybe even shock — at Karan’s use of “so-called Canada.” That feeling of confusion you were left with is precisely the point!

After all, what could be more legitimate than the term Canada, a term, as you point out, that’s on coins and stamps and the government’s own website! But by putting the little words so-called in front of the word Canada, that entire presumed legitimacy is (rhetorically) upended.

That upending creates space for a flood of reflections that call into question the very nature of Canada as a term and a concept and even a nation state. After all, when did Canada become Canada? And who named Canada Canada? And what was Canada called before it was called Canada?

And if we probe a little deeper: who had the power and authority to create Canada? At what cost was that power and authority wielded? And what was lost or stolen in the process?

These questions obviously bring to mind the history of colonization in this country, a history that is violent, genocidal and entirely obscured by the everyday assumptions we carry about the legitimacy of the term Canada.

It is no surprise that for many people, and in particular for Indigenous people, the subversive act of saying “so-called Canada” is a powerful gesture, a refusal to let that often-obscured history remain unacknowledged. So much of our conceptual and political orientation to our history and to one another is undergirded by language, so while this gesture may seem small, the uprooting of colonial assumptions built into our everyday language can also be seen as radical.

Karan’s newsletter was sent out to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a day when the importance of acknowledging Canada’s history of colonization is more pointed than ever.

The term so-called Canada is in fairly common use from universities, to books on climate justice, to magazines, to Indigenous organizers, to journal articles on mental health.

There are some great resources on the use of this term and the context around it, if you want to read more about its purpose:

I enjoyed this essay by Dani Lindamood on Medium that identifies many of the gaps that open up when someone uses the term so-called Canada, especially that between the Canadian government and the many Indigenous governments that are denied legitimacy everyday across the country.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 92 Calls to Action is illuminating. For some additional context around recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and governments and also efforts to eliminate commonplace terminology that upholds ideas of European exceptionalism, see the section on the royal proclamation. Also of note is the section dedicated to media and reconciliation, including a call to action for journalists to “provide dedicated news coverage and online public information resources on issues of concern to Aboriginal peoples and all Canadians, including the history and legacy of residential schools and the reconciliation process”.

This Indigenous terminology guide from Queen’s University is also enlightening. For example, it notes that many Indigenous people in Canada do not consider themselves Canadian: “They are part of their own sovereign nations and do not consider themselves part of one that has actively worked to assimilate their people.”

Here’s a backgrounder (from a canada.ca website no less!) on the origin of the name Canada and how it was a misinterpretation of the Huron-Iroquois word kanata.

At any rate, thanks for writing in and inquiring about this term.

While I do not necessarily agree with the entirety of comments, made to me by executive director Carol Linnitt, I will admit they are held by many people across (so-called) Canada, and very much worthy of consideration … including by myself.

So … Thank You, Carol.

In Kamloops, I’m Alan Forseth. What say you?

Alan Forseth is a Kamloops resident. For 40 years he has been active, in a number of capacities, in local, provincial and federal politics, including running as a candidate for the BC Reform Party in the 1996 provincial election. He more recently was involved in the BC Liberal leadership campaign.