If you haven't read it, there's a poignant column by Scott Gilmore in Maclean's this week: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-canada-most-people-dont-see/. It was an eye-opener for me, a resident of "Canada, the Good and Just": the one that ranks consistently high in social well-being indicators, the one most of us live and take pride in. In fact, it's so good that we forget there's another Canada, one largely belonging to our indigenous population.
This "other Canada" creeps into our discussions every once in a while, like when there's a special commission such as the missing and murdered indigenous women inquiry. Or when there's a violent clash as there was with the death of Colten Boushie in Saskatchewan last year.
For the most part, however, this Canada tends to remain hidden; concealed in unproductive land at the end of undrivable roads or buried in the crime-ridden inner core of our cities.
This Canada more glaringly appears in the statistics. High school graduation rates are abysmal, crime rates far exceed the average and, as Gilmore notes, the unemployment rate is worse than Sudan and the infant mortality rate is worse than Russia.
Most appalling, Gilmore suggests, is the secondary treatment that takes place in our justice system. He sites two examples of mistreatment by police and a judge – instances that are so far removed from our understanding of what justice should look like in a developed country that we may have trouble believing they actually took place.
I can think of one more example, that being the tragic death of Colten Boushie, a 22-year-old from Red Pheasant Cree Nation. While he and his friends may certainly have been causing mischief, the farmer's decision to use a firearm raises questions about vigilante justice in "Canada, the Good and Just": a country that prides itself in peace, order and good government. Yes, there may have been an issue of self-defense – we don't know if the farmer or is family were physically threatened – but it doesn't change the fact that as a society, we don't adhere to America's second amendment to bear arms. Rifles are for hunting alone, for the same reason we're not allowed to carry hand guns. We recognize that, intentional or not, more deaths will occur.
The Boushie family's encounter with police after his death is equally troubling. According to a Globe and Mail report, RCMP officers were less than sympathetic as they searched the Boushie home after callously announcing that their son and brother "was deceased." When his mother refused to believe her son was dead, one officer asked if she had been drinking and then smelled her breath. A dozen police officers searched the home without explanation.
The family was right to wonder whether this would happen in a white middle-class home. In fact, we all know it wouldn't happen. It's a wonder there wasn't more backlash. But given the surrounding community's views, where many felt "they had it coming," I guess we shouldn't be surprised at the public's indignation. As one Aboriginal women claimed, this is the "Mississippi of the north."
Our indigenous population deals with many challenges that the rest of Canada turns a blind eye to until it spills over into our personal space.
It's easy to place the blame on "them," but anyone raised in the same conditions would be similarly troubled. There's a reason why the suicide rate among Aboriginal youth is up to seven times higher than that of non-Aboriginals. In the north, it's 11 times higher.
If you find such statistics appalling, you're human. And if you quietly forget about them as soon as you've heard them, you're normal. Unless you've lived the life, been born into it, you'll never know what it's like.
Gilmore sums it up best: "Imagine if that was your Canada. Imagine your rage if your children lived there. Imagine if we cared."
