Daphne Bramham: O Canada: This year, a lament and a hope for our nation

This July 1, O Canada seems more lament than love song.

But rather than cancel culture, let’s mark the official “birth” day of our homeland by doing something positive: Let’s commit to learning and teaching our own history, warts and all.

For a long time, we have celebrated the “and all” parts of our history — the stuff primarily written by white men. We can start by acknowledging the myth that, except for two “founding peoples”, Canada wouldn’t exist.

It’s not even a stretch to figure that out. The name Canada, for heaven sakes, isn’t English or French. It’s a bastardization of the Huron-Iroquois word “kanata,” meaning “village” or “settlement”. Our country’s name comes from a misunderstanding.

Long before Europeans arrived, this was no terra incognita. People had figured out how to survive some of the most brutally cold places on the planet, while others were living in some of the lushest and most beautiful.

This is not to suggest that by upending the two founding peoples’ notion that we complicate the already fraught language wars that continue to dog this country. We don’t need hundreds of official languages.

But would it hurt any of us to learn to say a few words in the Indigenous language of the region we live in? Out of respect, most of us who travel abroad try to pick up a few words like yes, no, please and thank you before we go.

Lt.-Gov. Janet Austin has set an example for British Columbians. Since her appointment in 2019, she has been learning SENĆOŦEN with the blessing and help of the W̱SÁNEĆ people (Saanich) from southern Vancouver Island. While she is being tutored, lessons are available online.