'A New Day' is No Canada Day
It's not a colonial holiday, it's a national holiday
This is a post by regular contributor Michael Melanson.
One of Winnipeg's premier tourist destinations, The Forks, is changing its Canada Day celebrations this year.
"We are reimagining a Canada Day, a new day, that includes a reflective, inclusive and fun day for everyone to come together."
In case you missed it and in keeping with the conglomerate of banal gentrification that is The Forks, the day formerly known as Canada Day will now be referred to as "A New Day."
It fell upon the CEO of The Forks to explain why they cancelled Canada Day this year and possibly for years to come: "This time last year … all of the news of the discoveries of unmarked graves just made us really think about what celebrating a colonial milestone means to so many people in our community," said Sara Stasiuk1
Evidently reacting in the wake of last year's news about unmarked graves and the imputation that these were graves of young genocide victims, The Forks Development Corporation convened a number of meetings to decide what should be done about this year's Canada Day. In previous years, Canada Day was the biggest single draw to The Forks with a spectacular fireworks display for a grand finale.
No more of that.
"While searches of residential school grounds continue across the country, Stasiuk says it still feels inappropriate to celebrate the colonial holiday."
It's not a colonial holiday, it's a national holiday. Reducing Canada to a regret grossly ignores what Canada has come to mean to most Canadians, a place of freedom and opportunity.
"'News just keeps on coming about the atrocities that occurred under that flag. And so having a celebration without recognizing the breadth of our community, and the impact that can have, just didn't feel responsible,' she said."
It's difficult to interpret what Stasiuk means by the 'breadth of our community' but clearly she is wary of how a post-unmarked graves Canada Day might 'impact' some people. In trying to spare some people from the terrible impact of a day of flag waving, smiling faces and fireworks, Canada Day had to be cancelled as such. And if one does consider that the atrocities warrant ditching our national birthday, is canceling Canada Day enough to balance that ledger?
In the boilerplate fashion typical of corporate boardrooms trying to reckon with the onslaught of Woke agitation, The Forks enlisted the usual stakeholders: "Months of Indigenous-led roundtable discussions with community members, newcomers and youth led to their decision to reshape what Canada Day could look like at the national historic site."
I don't know who the indigenous people are who led these roundtable discussions but chances are they were predisposed to the idea of canceling Canada Day. Local activist-academic Niigaan Sinclair, however, is already a consultant for The Forks. Why did these discussions have to be indigenous-led? Was it ever an option at these discussions to preserve Canada Day?
Features and events for A New Day will now lean towards highlighting aboriginal people:
"Family-friendly activities, including soccer and basketball tournaments, pow-wow dancing, drumming, craft stations and performances by theatre groups and musicians, will be held all day. Dedicated Indigenous-led spaces for ceremonies and healing will be held at Oodena and The Gathering Space at Niizhoziibean. "
In other words, A New Day will look very much like the National Indigenous Day that just passed. There will be 'multicultural entertainment' but the only other culture even remotely identified in the itinerary is the 'Manitoba African Cup of Nations,' a soccer tournament. It's clear in the The Forks event planner that Canada itself has no place in A New Day.
Canada is not just the sum of its worst deeds and it is a disservice to us all if the success of Canada as an experiment in civic nationalism is dismissed. It is no small thing in the course of human history that Canada is a place where the world's peoples can come and get along. It's hard to believe that the leaders of the roundtable discussions could find newcomers (when and who attached any stigma to being an 'immigrant' anyway) who actually thought Canada Day should be canceled. Multiculturalism is a human inevitability and Canada embraced this idea early on but revising the past and reimagining the present with a mind to delegitimate Canada also undermines the policy of multiculturalism.
The pre-eminence of aboriginal culture at A New Day indicates who is first and foremost in Woke Canada.
"We'll open the day at 8AM with a morning ceremony led by Elders Wanbdi Wakita and Pahan Pte San Win in Oodena, with additional pipe ceremonies held throughout the day. Both Oodena and The Gathering Space at Niizhoziibean will be maintained as quiet spaces for healing, with Indigenous-led music, dance, and sacred fires. The last ceremony will be held at supper time."
No other group can expect day-long religious services at this public site. The deference shown to aboriginal people in the context of what grievous harm Canada has done to aboriginal people indicates that A New Day is sunniest for that sacralized collective.
Is saying Canada doesn't deserve its own birthday really saying 'it would have been better had we never been born'?
How about calling it, "National Menticide Day" to actually capture the mental illness syndrome currently gripping Canada. One word effectively captures my sentiment to the news in your article.
"VOMITUS" As a baby boomer value programmed by the post war period of National Patriotism and historical primacy, I am more than saddened to see the values of a good country dragged down the rabbit hole of Wokeness by vacuous individuals desperate to garner approval for their political correctness.
In the words of Thomas Paine, "WHEN MEN YIELD UP THE PRIVELEGE OF THINKING, THE LAST SHADOW OF LIBERTY QUITS THE HORIZON."
A very good article, thanks for sharing.
Good points on the religion angle and multiculturalism. This type of Canada Day is part of a trend, and it is getting more and more extreme. I would quote George Harrison here "All Things Must Pass," this will pass too... in Victoria, they are not even going to sing O Canada, just have aboriginal drumming on Canada Day, but over in Langford, a suburb, there's kind of a rebellion going on with a very traditional Canada Day.. I think Langford represents a change in the tide. The tide will turn as evidence will continue to show there was no intentional genocide in Canada. Ideologues do not care about evidence, but they will become a smaller and smaller number as their claims become more and more absurd and people tire of being hectored on the basis of their race and referred to constantly as "settlers" implying second class citizenship, even though they were born in Canada, etc.