Hill Times Letter: It’s time to move forward with decolonization, dismantle offensive ties to our colonial way of thinking

Letter to the Hill Times Editor published September 28, 2020

On Sept. 23, on unceded Anishinabe Algonquin territory, a British colonial ceremony was held. With Parliament only retaining British tradition, we were reminded by a “Speech From the Throne” that to this day the settler-state doesn’t fully recognize the two peoples who make up Canada: European colonialists/settlers and the peoples who had already been here for thousands of years.

The Government of Barbados has announced it will remove the British Queen as its head of state and become a republic by next year. As part of truth and reconciliation here in Canada, we need to recognize the cultural genocide inflicted on one of the peoples who make up Canada by the other, and to dismantle offensive ties to that colonial way of thinking. Parliamentary sessions can be easily opened in other ways, and in other locations, as long as when the government lays out its agenda, it is attended by both an Indigenous council (July 27, 2020, letter) and the Members of the House of Commons. It is time to move past the box checking off land acknowledgements, and move forward with decolonization. I am a European descendant born in Canada, currently residing in Ottawa on unceded Algonquin territory.

Russell McOrmond
Internet Consultant
Ottawa, Ont.