Tim Knight writes the regular media column, Watching the Watchdog, for HuffPost Canada.
In the middle of the Ottawa River there is an island called Victoria, named by the white settlers to honour their queen across the water.
On Victoria Island is a tepee. And in the tepee on this freezing cold first day of winter sits Theresa Spence who is Chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation and holds an eagle feather in her hand.
For nearly two weeks now she's been on a hunger strike to try to force Canada's government to rescue the peoples of our First Nations.
"I am willing to die for my people," she says "because the pain is too much and it's time for the government to realize what it's doing to us."
Ironically, from the chief's tepee on Victoria Island, which is Algonquin territory, you can see the splendid Canadian Parliament where our laws are made, and the Supreme Court of Canada, where our laws are enforced.
Chief Spence is not alone in her anger. Across the country, First Nations people are meeting and planning resistance and already some are closing highways. And from coast to coast, the movement Idle No More grows to protest against generations of traditional Canadian government indifference toward endemic First Nations poverty, desperation and despair.
How has it come to this?
Simple. It's what inevitably happens eventually when colonial powers invade aboriginal land.
The newcomers carry big guns and speak grand words about the glory of their civilization and the power of their mighty god. And they justify the invasion by trying to destroy native culture, "civilize" the people and turn them into lesser versions of the colonizers.
In recent history it's almost always been paler people doing this to darker people.
It's called racism.
But what, you ask, has this to do with Canada? Our two colonial invaders, France and Great Britain, certainly didn't behave as badly toward the indigenous people as some other colonial powers.
Colonialists "behaving badly" though, is just a matter of degree. And no colonial power is ever ready to admit -- and voluntarily right -- its wrongs.
For instance, during Algeria's eight year war of liberation from France, perhaps 1-millon people were killed. But it took until last week before France admitted that its colonization of Algeria included both torture and massacres.
That's when new French president Francois Hollande told the Algerian parliament: "For 132 years, Algeria was subjected to a brutal and unfair system -- colonization. I acknowledge the suffering it caused."
As for the British, for years Kenyans have accused them of covering up systemic atrocities during the Mau Mau rebellion against colonialism back in the fifties.
Now, a British High Court has ruled that the government can be sued for those atrocities.
Gitu wa Kahengeri, of the Mau Mau War Veterans Association, says they're asking for reparations and a formal apology from the British. "We are looking for compensation for all of the people whose lives they have destroyed.""We are also looking for them to come out and apologize to the people of Kenya and, of course, to the people of the world because what they did here is completely inhuman."
It's believed some 20,000 Mau Mau fighters were killed by the British during the rebellion, thousands were tortured and more than 1,000 arbitrarily executed.
Guardian Journalist David Anderson writes: "At no other time or place in the British empire was capital punishment dispensed so liberally -- the total is more than double the number executed by the French in Algeria."
Claims of abuse -- and coverup of abuse -- under British colonial rule have been made in other former British colonies all the way from Cyprus to Guyana.
Anderson writes that it's time for Britain to examine its colonial past: "Squaring up to the seamier side of our empire is long overdue. However benevolent empires aim to be, they are invariably built on political, economic and military domination. Empires are by their very nature exploitative."
Now, Canada can't be accused of such heinous colonial crimes as the French admit to committing in Algeria and the British likely committed in Kenya. Then again, armed revolts against colonial rule here have been small and sporadic.
But Canada can rightly and accurately be accused of one of the most elemental sins of colonialism -- trying to destroy aboriginal culture and assimilate aboriginal people, then abandoning them when they refuse to become ersatz whites.
Which brings us all the way back to Chief Theresa Spence of the Attawapiskat First Nation people who sits fasting in the tepee on Victoria Island, which is Algonquin territory, holding the eagle feather and looking out at Canada's Parliament and Supreme Court.
And the Idle No More protest movement.
And a forecast -- that this time the anger of our first peoples won't be placated with an apology in parliament or more easy, unfulfilled promises of reform sometime in the future.
This time, I believe, the revolt is for real.
We ignore it at our peril.
Follow Tim Knight on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKnight6
Misleading. Bill C45 spurred this revolt. Destroying all Canadian's water and civil protections is a threat to everyone. This is why Idle No More is a Global movement. I hope them all the best. It may be our last chance at saving our country.
Yeah, native Canadians get some tax breaks. Yeah, a few of your tax dollars go to supporting some 'other' people. People who have been systematically held outside our nation's economic system. People who have a hard time getting even low-paying service industry jobs due to racism. People whose families were treated like chattel by the federal government for generations. Native Canadians aren't crying out for handouts, they're crying out for healing and true equality. It's the British North America Act and the Indian Act that gave aboriginal Canadians their political power in terms of their traditional lands.
I too, am a first generation Canadian, my folks immigrated following the second world war, and indeed, some others were run out of Germany earlier in the century. And yes, some of them faced discrimination whilst assimilating in their new society. But they were white. And that made their experiences in our country different. To pretend otherwise is to ignore history.
Does anyone really doubt that the government would have moved generously and swiftly it were white settlers and their descendants who endured such treatment and now have to live with its results?
Does anyone really doubt that a civilized nation would long since have vastly improved the pathetic indigenous people’s education system and cleaned up its rural slums?
Does anyone really doubt that Canada’s First Nations are in the right now they say enough, no more patience, no more promises, and demand immediate action to save their people?
Anyone?
My grandparents were killed in the holocaust, my mother and father miraculously survived. After they were liberated they were homeless, penniless and refugees for nealy 2 years before they were allowed to immigrate to Canada. No resititution or reparations were ever offered or payed by any country. Simply and matter of fact, they had to live with these results and move forward or wither and die. Patience, promises and demands were not an option.
My parents were raised with the attitude that you need to work hard, go to school, get a job have self respect and personal accountabilty. This culture of accountabilty and hardwork has been passed on to me and now to my children and is a recipe for success. Waiting for someone to feel sorry for you and give you something you think you are entitled is an exercise in futility.
Oh yeah, and the majority of Canadians kissed off aboriginal Canadians generations ago. That's pretty much where your general attitude to your fellow countryfolk arises from. I bet your dad told that same rant back in the seventies...