POINT OF VIEW | Canada’s history with Indigenous people is cruel and unfair, but we need to own up to it | CBC News

On May 28, my daughter asked me a question that has taken me a month to answer. 

“How can someone hate someone just because of the colour of their skin?”

Like many parents, I would have preferred she had not seen video of a police officer killing George Floyd, but she did.

Any other time, I would have brushed her off with a simple answer like, “people are dumb.”

This time, things were different.

“I don’t know baby,” I said, as I hugged her tightly.

I wanted badly to protect her and make everything OK again, but I felt a responsibility to do something more.

Damaged by oppression but not broken

Canada Day is different this year, and not just because of the pandemic. 

Conversations of systemic racism are happening not only in the United States, but here in Canada. 

It all started on May 25, when the world watched George Floyd die while a police officer kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes. Floyd had been accused of trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. It was captured on video and posted online. 

The public outcry was swift.

Support for the Black Lives Matter movement spread quickly throughout North America and the rest of the world. 

In the U.S. and Canada, Indigenous people were quick to join. 

The fact is that I, as an Indigenous person in Canada, have more in common with Black people from the U.S. than I do with non-Indigenous Canadians, born in this land. We have paid a heavy price due to colonization. 

We have been damaged by generations of oppression, but we also have not been broken. 

It was something I wanted my children to know. 

Education on Canada’s ‘hidden’ history

June happened to be National Indigenous History Month. I decided the best way to combat ignorance was with education. For the entire month, I