It is exciting to reflect that the Allison surname
in my ancestral family tree arrived in Canada long before it was known as a Dominion. Of course, they were here millennia after the
First Nations, who are in every corner of this great country. While our ancestors were considered
“settlers” at the time, they really weren’t.
Being a settler implies that no one was already there, that you are
breaking new ground, that you are exploring a wilderness where no person had
yet learned how to survive.
This was a fiction perpetuated by the
Europeans who declared much of North America terra nullius, and therefore able to be settled without
consideration for the existing inhabitants.
It was the same attitude that the British had when setting out to
conquer Ireland, considering the inhabitants savages and therefore needing a
British influence.
The first of our ancestors to arrive in
what is now Canada were of Scottish ancestry – living under the yoke of the
British, farming British land taken from the Irish in Londonderry. Tiring of toiling the land without the
benefits of ownership, our Allison ancestors took a ship to this new land to
try their hand at settlement. This was
1769, almost 100 years before men representing the colonies met in
Charlottetown to create the Dominion of Canada and begin the process of
peacefully freeing ourselves from British command. Our family followed British settlement from
Scotland, to Ireland, then to Nova Scotia, and stopped here on the east coast
of a country that would, 98 years later, become part of a vast Dominion.
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| A picture of my great-grandparents house, from my grand- parents, on Allison Drive in Rothesay, NB, looking over the Kennebecasis River |
The family spread across the country,
eventually settling in various provinces.
By the time of the 100th anniversary of the founding of
Canada, I found myself, an ancestor of those early immigrants, celebrating at
Expo ’67 in Montreal, where we were then living. I was a very little and remember only seeing
legs – lots of legs – mostly in mini skirts.
And here we are 150 years after the birth
of Canada, 198 years after the landing of our ancestors on the shores of Nova
Scotia, reflecting on this land. We have
had a history that in its current incarnation has learned the value of
diversity and respect, but in its earliest history was about taking advantage
of the First Nations and their territories, disrespecting the Metis, their
heritage and their rights to rule their own land, treating Chinese immigrants
as cheap labour and forcing them to live apart, imprisoning Japanese Canadians
because of their heritage at a time of war, denying women the vote and rights
to own property, and in very recent history finding increasingly cruel ways of
separating our First Nations, aboriginal and Metis peoples from their families,
their history, their language and their culture.
In many ways, the survival of all of these
peoples whom Canada treated with such disdain, is the story of Canada:
perseverance, strength, resilience and pride.
With the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Canadians are starting to
see the damage that was caused by us to the First Nations. We are coming to terms with it and trying to
find ways to correct it. We are
realistically generations away from finding our way from this past to our common future,
but talking about that history, reconciling with it, correcting the damage and
then building a new future is our path forward, hand in hand with the First
Nations, Aboriginal people and Metis. This is what really sets Canada apart. We have apologized formally for the head tax imposed on Chinese immigrants, for the racist refusal of entry to Canada of the Punjabis on the Komagatu Maru, to Japanese Canadians for their imprisonment on a false pretext based on racism, and most recently to Indigenous Canadians for the heinous policies that led to residential schools and the violence perpetrated on their families, the traumatic effect of which continues today. As Canadians, we no longer see our past with rose coloured glasses, but with a desire to forge a future that truly celebrates diversity - and enshrines it in our Constitution.
I am celebrating this Canada Day by
contemplating the strength and resilience of my ancestors, how they found their
way to virtually every corner of this great country, and the strength and resilience
of the First Nations who came long before us and understood how the land
contributed to their wealth and culture, and how their communities thrived.
Images:
Photo of New Brunswick by myself, circa 1984, taken with a Kodak Instamatic
Photos of Expo 1967 from my father
1885 photo of Robert Harris' 1884 painting, Conference at Quebec in 1864, to settle the basics of a union of the British North American Provinces, also known as The Fathers of Confederation. The original painting was destroyed in the 1916 Parliament Buildings Centre Block fire. The scene is an amalgamation of the Charlottetown and Quebec City conference sites and attendees. Photographer: James AshfieldThis image is available from Library and Archives Canada under the reproduction reference number C-001855 and under the MIKAN ID number 3194982
