Shame On You Canada
By: Digging Roots
Tags: Canadian Politics, Residential School, Indigenous

Kwe-kwe/Shé:kon to my sisters, my brothers, my children, my

family, my relatives, my friends, and my true accomplices.

“Shame on you Canada” was a sentence my Grandma used to

say. We called her ‘Ma’, everyone I knew called her by that name;

she was everyone’s Ma. She was Mohawk, a Clan-Mother in the

Longhouse and was an advocate for justice, respect, kindness, compassion, peace; and a warrior of love. She stocked non-

perishable goods everywhere in her attic because of the constant infringement on our territory. She knew that one day there would

be another crisis, another act of oppression, that the hammer of

genocide would continue to strike. I remember one of her biggest teachings, was to question everything. I believe that I have held true to this in my search for justice.

The Kamloops Indian Residential School was run by the Catholic

Church for 79 years where a mass unmarked grave holds the

remains of 215 Indigenous children. The remains of 215

Indigenous children are buried there. The remains of 215

Indigenous children, in an unmarked mass grave. Those

repeating thoughts have become a multiplied emotional vortex

that now leads me to ground this truth in writing. What a

shameful piece of your history Canada. This is a national crime

scene. Where is the humanity? There is no pharmaceutical pill

one can swallow to fix this atrocity.

I am sending love and condolences to my Sisters and Brothers of

Tk’emlúps te Secwépemic First Nation. You have been silenced in

this history and memories of your missing children for far too

long. You have my highest respect, honour, and again my endless

condolences. I will place down seema (tobacco) on the earth and

prayers up for you, your children and your Nation.

In the early 90’s, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples

(RCAP) was doing research which culminated into the 1996 final

report that we all know today. Much of the RCAP research was

led by Indigenous peoples but everything had to be approved by

the Canadian commissioners first and only a portion of that truth

ever saw the light of day.

In all of our Indigenous communities we have the stories, where

the little ones never came back from those retched schools.

RCAP, the Healing Foundation and later the Truth and

Reconciliation Commission (TRC) were painful times for our

Elders and they courageously shared their truth, often reliving

their trauma, telling their first hand stories; exposing the truth.

Many were scarred, scared and afraid to talk about their personal

histories. It was a rough time, there were many healing circles for

reopened old wounds; for many it was the first time they spoke

about it. They represent bravery in its truest sense. They were

true warriors of the people.

It is deeply unjust that their truth did not see the full spectrum of

day in those reports. The details of heavy trauma and the

unimaginable, those stories account for the lost and the missing,

the enforced malnourishment, the beatings for speaking our

languages, the separation of siblings, the molestation, the

electric chair and cattle prod torture, the pregnancies by clergy

people, the rape, the killings, — making children bury children in

the basements and in the fields. This is where the Canadian

commissioners stepped in to sugar coat the report for Canadian

consumption. On October 06, 2017, the highest court of the land

unanimously ruled that these collected documents be destroyed.

This colonial attempt to permanently suppress these documents

also came with Canada ironically calling for reconciliation. Oh

Canada, our home and Native Land.

As a child, Christianity was forced on me, on my entire

community, I grew up in a Christian Rez. Factions of Christian churches would come to my community and fight for who would

save our souls. It was sinful to burn sweetgrass or play the

tewegan (drum); too many times I was told that “I would go to

hell”. So the guitar became my drum, just like my mentor, the

late great renaissance man Willie Dunn. To this day the Catholic

Church still refuses to apologize for the wrong doings committed

at their Residential Schools.

I am writing because this is a heartbreaking devastation. Now,

Canadians are hearing about the Kamloops Indian Residential

School but there are more of these unearthed stories. Perhaps

equally devastating is the fact that this continues today. Yes, this

is happening right now. There are presently three times more

Indigenous children documented in various Canadian ‘care

systems’ than there were children taken at the height of

Residential Schools in the 1940’s. Ongoing research is being

compiled and it is estimated the actual numbers are five times

that amount. When in this ‘care’ an Indigenous child dies every

three days. This is Canadian future history in the making. This is

the continuing legacy of Canada’s genocidal policies.

In 1990, and in the name of Canada, hollow-tipped ‘mushroom’

bullets were fired against Mohawk children, women and men.

4,500 soldiers and 2,000 police were financed by Canadian

taxpayers, all because Club de Golf d’Oka was to expand its 9

hole golf course to 18 holes which in the process would bulldoze

down a Mohawk burial ground. Back then as a teenager I was

absolutely shattered to see what was happening, what was

Canada thinking, were they thinking?

At that time, I also had the profound experience of being

surrounded by Canadian soldiers and officers from Sûreté du

Quebec who (again) held taxpayer financed semi-automatic

weapons to our temples. I was with my family, all six of us had

those guns pointed to our heads because of who we were. My

youngest sibling was just six years old. Terrified, I remember

thinking in two blocks. The first was to stay calm and not show

any emotion, to hold my power. That block was chained to

another block of internal questioning, who does this kind of

thing, where is the justice, the compassion? In that moment, I

had the comfort of my Ma’s teachings from the Longhouse, her

instructions were indeed passed to the next generation. During

that time in Kahnawà:ke I remember when the government

stopped our food and water supply to the whole community and

the police were ramming our boats and tipping them as we tried

to renew supplies and food from across the rapids of the great St

Lawrence River in Montréal. My Grandma’s attic came in handy

and families were appreciative. These memories of Canada’s

colonialism continues to this day and we will not be silenced.

Imagine for a minute that all the children of a small Canadian

town were taken away, and parents who rebelled against this law

(which was enforced by an actual legal Act) could be thrown into

prison? What would the world do? I can guarantee that for me, if

these Residential Schools were still in operation I’d be sending

prison love notes on postcards to my two sons.

Instead, I hold my sons close and I am filled with gratitude. My

Ancestors did not have this human right, it was taken away. I

make music to deal with the racism, oppression, genocide, and

the shameful histories, the lies and deceit, and colonialism. I fight

and grieve and I love through nigamowin (my music). I have the

tewegan again and my guitar, I burn sweetgrass freely, my hair is

long. Music is my mishkiki (medicine) and it affords me the

opportunity to transform the pain into a celebration of being

alive, that we are still here, that I am what our Ancestors dreamt

about. I am a Onkwehón:we Mohawk and Anishinabe Algonquin

person, I create and play music so people can Round Dance, to

keep the circle strong, so that life can be experienced as a

ceremony.

The Canadian funded Kamloops Indian Residential School is

bringing up trauma. I am getting calls from my cousins saying

they are heartbroken. I was kicked around by a police officer on

my northern reserve at four years of age. Why does this happen?

I see that this country is ill informed with inaccurate colonial

history, and living freely without any knowledge about present

Indigenous issues. Personally this is not a convenient privilege

that I would ever want to live in; then again, I’m not Canadian — I

am classified as an Indian under the Indian Act. The harsh truth is

that the education system breeds uneducated minds that

become polarized which consequently spawns racist and bigoted

mindsets. Canada, shake off your slumber and rise up to the rich

cultures that surround you. Before any settlers arrived on this land

we took our jobs seriously. We have always been the caretakers of ecology, the waters, the land, the air, and now, the missing and the murdered.

I currently live in a 100 year old house where my basement is

more like a cold storage, I keep it stocked with non-perishable

goods just like my Ma did; because unspeakable things do

happen. I still think about my Ma nearly everyday. She came from

a life that lived and died to give me what I have today; which is

my identity and culture, a fierce warrior’s heart, the ability to carry

on with my bloodline, and the ability to hear the beautiful

heartbeat of Turtle Island. I carry her teachings and her stories. I

hear her powerful Clan-Mother voice as I say “Shame on you

Canada.” It endlessly rings in my ears like a Les Paul plugged into a

full stack modded Marshall amplifier that is cranked up to 11.

We are the Stronghold.

Raven Kanatakta Polson-Lahache

Onkwehón:we Mohawk acitc Anishinabe Algonquin

Wakeniáhton acitc Makwa dodem

Digging Roots