How Does The Canadian Government Keep So Many Secrets?
They Don’t Talk About Them, And They Promote The Idea of Lazy Journalism
People love to call Canada the country with the “nice,” people. We don’t have super famous white supremacists with massive platforms filled with an audience of millions or more.
We don’t covet celebrities the way that our American neighbours do, we keep our secrets to ourselves, and we don’t talk about the things that happen in the shadows of the night before, and when we do talk about the horrible awful things that happen in this country, people are usually shocked. Like genuinely shocked.
“That stuff happens in Canada too?” Yes, it does, we’ve just become experts at pretending that it does not.
Problems in Canada include everything from extreme poverty and homelessness to food inequity and mental health issues. In some places in Canada, it costs $18.00 for a single head of lettuce.
“Excuse me?”
Yes, you heard that correctly. There are still people that live in some of the poorest, coldest places in the country, and they live in shacks because their homes are so remote they can’t get access to the proper equipment to build proper housing.
There are children who wake up being abused every single night.
There are adult women who get pregnant just so that they a) won’t be alone and b) can collect a welfare check so they can keep a roof over their heads, it’s called Survival Breeding, but we don’t talk about these things, because they are “unseemly.”
We have removed ourselves from the English Crown in our every day life, and yet whenever the Crown deigns to visit our great nation, we bow like well-trained dogs, ready and willing to do the bidding of whatever celebrity royal dares share their face in our lands.
We are the perfectly behaved children who do whatever we want as long as the world isn’t watching, and then go out of our way to ignore the bad press when we get it.
We are only noticed by the rest of the world when we are a joke — when Colbert has decided he’s found something entertaining enough to make fun of us for, OR alternatively when there’s a weed joke available. That’s the only time you hear about us.
And even our famous people have left the country, because it’s easier to work in the states if you live there but let’s be honest, it’s also kind of embarrassing coming from places like British Columbia, isn’t it? I know I’m greatly and deeply affected by the white supremacy I’ve faced here, so I can’t imagine that leaving this province and telling others where I am from, would be an easy feat for me if I were over the top famous.
I don’t say this lightly, I say it because living here is really hard, and the constant societal desire to hide the problems is only adding to the issues that we as a community are dealing with in this country.
I’ve spoken before about mental health issues, trauma due to childhood sexual abuse, gang life, single life as a woman in Canada, single life as a Black woman in Canada, on and on and on.
Recently during the convoy “protests,” a bunch of white people started to follow me because I was joining Twitter Spaces with the intent to hear from the convoy protesters — I genuinely wanted to hear what they were saying and what their complaints were, because you can’t really make fun of people if you aren’t hearing what it is they are concerned about.
Instead I found a bunch of white people who claim to be liberals making homophobic jokes at the expense of the protesters instead of listening to valid concerns about immigration reform, the never ending housing crisis and absolute cripling poverty.
These are universal issues, but when people — specifically white folk — try to talk about them many others disengage because well you’re white so what’s your problem? That mentality isn’t going to get us very far.
Yes, white people have extreme privilege that the rest of us do not have access to, will never have access to, but that doesn’t mean that their fears and concerns are less valid.
Do the people in the convoy know a disturbing minuscule amount about immigration reform and how it SHOULD be done for the countries involved and the people immigrating equally? Absolutely, that’s why it’s the job of those who stay informed to educate those who do not know how to educate themselves.
Is it exhausting work? Utterly, is it fucking thankless? Without question, is it completely fucking frustrating to repeat ourselves over and over and over and over again when we are told that OUR stories don’t matter? Without definition it absolutely completely is.
And yet we continue to do the work, we continue to write these articles to remind the world that Canada is not perfect and that we need to stop pretending that it’s a Utopia.
I actually envy the way the American’s handle the news cycle, from one traumatic event to another many of you keep going, you keep protesting, you keep fighting for a better world, and you do so with vigor that I only dream I had the energy to wish for.
HOWEVER.
Some of y’all need to actually do the work yourselves. We recommend books and you buy them because so and so said that you should read them, but then you don’t actually understand the work it took to bring that book to a reality.
You hear me say “well it only took a week to write,” that’s because it took a lifetime to gather all the energy we need to write our books, so when we say that Canada isn't perfect, all you hear is “yeah it has it’s problems too.”
The medical industry — and it is an industry now — is more about getting patients in the door and medicated then it is about making sure those patients have the quality of life they deserve.
Our teachers are overwhelmed, literally bone to the soul exhausted from dealing with children and youth that have problems these adult teachers are not trained to deal with. No teacher in the world is prepared for a kid whose so traumatized by life they are willing to pick up a gun to make a point.
No healer in the world is prepared for a pandemic, I don’t care how many stories you’ve read.
We all have problems, but the major issue that I have with Canada is our refusal to admit that we could be doing better — on a public stage — until it’s far too late.
Over 10,000 Indigenous children found buried under the bones of residential schools for more than 50 years and “that’s something that we’re working on,” is not fucking good enough.
Black folk being all but ignored as if we don’t exist in this country, is not okay. From Hogan’s Alley to the waters of Newfoundland Black folk have been leaders in how we do so many things in this country and yet our Black History education is almost non-existant. When I was growing up the only Black history we learned about was American.
It’s only this year in 2022, that the Canadian Federal Government promised to overhaul the education system to include Black Canadian history and as we all know how slow things are in this world, that could take at least five-six years to implement, do today’s youth have that kind of time to waste?
No, they don’t. They need to know their history and they need it to be taught by those who don’t just pick up a syllabus and read from the text, but from those who actually sat down with Black, Indigenous, Asian, Jewish, Elders, and heard our stories from their mouths. They need to see our pain as our stories are told so they can pass that pain, joy, sorrow, love, laughter, on to their students.
Today of all days I was offered the opportunity to potentially participate in a program geared towards Black youth — I am over the moon with joy at the possibility of stepping my toes into the world of teaching young Black people how to do something — HOWEVER I’m also terrified.
The Loud Mouth Brown Girl mantra is: “Be The Loud Mouth Brown_____ You Needed Growing Up,” because I didn’t have anyone like me when I was growing up, but because I am unprepared to teach others I’m afraid I may never get the opportunity to do so.
That’s a whole other conversation however. The point is that if Canada want’s to change, if Canada wants to be insulated from the rest of the world it can do that, but if Canada wants to thrive on the world stage we have to get honest about the shit that makes us who we are.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
