What is National Indigenous Peoples Day for us at the Alliance for Healthier Communities? What is it for Canada and its institutions, and for each of us living on these lands, Indigenous and non-Indigenous?
First, we celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day with all First Nations, Inuit and Métis people and communities across Turtle Island. For those able to do so, we hope your celebrations and gatherings are filled with joy, humour, healing and love. We know the Solstice, bringing its period of long days and short nights, has deep significance across many nations, and we humbly offer our celebratory and joyful voices alongside yours, for all we’re given from these lands for our lives and health.
Second, for non-Indigenous people, we see today as an opportunity and chance to learn, to reflect, and to evaluate where we are as individuals, communities, and a country, in our journeys to truth and reconciliation. Have we made progress in the last 12 months? What have we learned or unlearned, and what’s worth highlighting for others on the path near us? What’s been standing in the way of us doing more? How are we creating harm in the past and present for Indigenous people near us, and what can we do to change that? Indigenous people are still putting themselves in harm’s way to educate us about this; are we listening?
Over the last year, as we face the truths of the atrocities committed against Indigenous children at Indian Residential Schools, the harms against Indigenous communities, we still see a gap – an important one – where Canada and Canadians are still not facing the truth of Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples – in the past or now. Today is a time for truths, including and especially the hardest to face.
It’s also a time to question our leaders, at the municipal, provincial and federal levels of government. We know we’re not alone in expecting more action – on clean water in Indigenous communities, on reclaiming lost children buried at or near residential school sites, on support for Indigenous health and governance in Indigenous hands, on support for Indigenous children and families impacted by racism in colonial structures like foster care and other government structures.
National Indigenous Peoples Day is a time of celebration, for and of Indigenous life, communities and culture. It’s also a time to commit and recommit to decolonization, to the work to improve Indigenous health and wellbeing, and an important moment to measure where we are, which truths remain hidden or obscured that need to be told, and what actions we can take – as individuals, as families, as communities, and as voters and citizens, to ensure Canada continues on the road towards decolonization and reconciliation, with haste.
At the Alliance’s Annual General Meeting on June 7, Alliance members committed to a call to action to governments in support of Indigenous primary healthcare organizations, calling for recognition of and funding for Indigenous Traditional Healers as an important health service provider in primary health care delivery, and for the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council to be consulted and invited to provide leadership on these actions.
Alliance members also renewed their commitment to Indigenous Cultural Safety through a resolution in support of funding for health and social service organizations and public sector employees to participate in the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council’s Indigenous Cultural Safety education program, while members also recommitted to that same work in their organizations.
Indigenous health in Indigenous hands cannot just be a phrase. It takes meaningful change that originates in all aspects of life on these lands – from all levels of government, from communities and organizations, and from individuals making change and learning in their own lives and professions.