Towards a Détente with History: Confronting Canada's Colonial Legacy

Author's Abstract, Page 85:

"This paper suggests that Canada is an evolving colonial entity created by imperial and colonial interests for the express purpose of extending and consolidating those interests at the expense of the indigenous peoples and their contemporary descendants. The state has established colonial relationships of a racist, exploitative and coercive nature, which are interpreted by the dominant settler population who styles the dominated as Other. A synergy of cultural myth, partial historical narratives, and judicial and political institutions proclaim and defend this mythology-cloaked unhyphenated colonialism. The example of the perpetual federal policy of extinguishment of Aboriginal and treaty rights demonstrates the continuing operation of the processes alleged above, in the legitimation of land theft and indigenous oppression. Finally, the paper argues that Canada can only move to post-coloniality through explicit acknowledgement of its origins and through constitutional and political consequences that will flow from acknowledging such responsibility." (85).