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From the shame of residential schools to the pride of the Summit series: What every Canadian should know about this country

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Canada’s 151st birthday doesn’t come with the hype of last year’s sesquicentennial. But anniversaries, no matter the increment, are always a chance to look back and reflect.

Ahead of Sunday’s July 1 celebrations, Postmedia asked a dozen Edmonton leaders and thinkers to share a moment in Canadian history they think everyone should know about.

A ship turned back by prejudice

Amarjeet Sohi, federal minister of infrastructure and MP for Edmonton-Mill Woods

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The Komagata Maru was a passenger ship that entered Vancouver harbour in 1914 carrying approximately 350 passengers of South Asian origin. Canada rejected its entry, motivated by racial prejudice. Passengers were forced to return to India where 19 were killed and others arrested and imprisoned.

Sohi sees the moment as a marker for progress in the last 100 years.

“When I reflect on Komagata Maru I always reflect on our ability as a country to learn from the past and move forward, to build a better country,” he said. “It’s a great reminder about the potential that Canada has as a country to be one of the best countries in the world.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an official apology for the event in 2016.

Sikhs on board the Komagata Maru in Vancouver’s English Bay in 1914, which was turned away in an act of discrimination that Canada officially apologized for in 2016.
Sikhs on board the Komagata Maru in Vancouver’s English Bay in 1914, which was turned away in an act of discrimination that Canada officially apologized for in 2016. Photo by Library and Archives Canada/Natural Resources Canada fonds/a034014 /Edmonton

A principled stand

Bashir Mohamed, activist

Lulu Anderson was a black woman forcibly ejected from a Jasper Avenue theatre in 1922. In a publicized case, Anderson took the theatre to court but eventually lost.

“Black residents, residents that were from marginalized communities faced a lot of challenges and we don’t really learn about that in our history,” said Mohamed, a Somali-Edmontonian with Black Lives Matter Edmonton. “By understanding the past we can understand how things are now and how Edmonton was built.”

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Mohamed often passes the spot at 102nd Street and Jasper Avenue where the theatre once stood.

“Knowing that history, it really gives me a closer connection to Edmonton because I look there and I know in 1922 someone who looked like me stood up for their rights.”

Bashir Mohamed stands across from the former location of the Metropolitan Theatre, the venue that Lulu Anderson was kicked out of because she was black.
Bashir Mohamed stands across from the former location of the Metropolitan Theatre, the venue that Lulu Anderson was kicked out of because she was black. Photo by Greg Southam /Postmedia

A new Group of Seven rises

Tanya Harnett, artist and art historian

In 1973, seven Indigenous artists joined together as a professional association. The move opened the door for First Nations art to enter the mainstream, said Harnett, an academic and Indigenous artist.

“It changed everything,” Harnett said. “(Indigenous art) started to be included. It gave colour to Canada.”

Artist Daphne Odjig connected with fellow Indigenous artists Alex Janvier, Jackson Beardy, Eddy Cobiness, Norval Morrisseau, Carl Ray, and Joseph Sanchez (artist Bill Reid was considered an eighth member).

“I would say those first members in the Indian Group of Seven are my grandparents,” Harnett said. “I exist because of them.”

Mere years before the group’s incorporation, Indigenous Canadians weren’t permitted to vote without losing their treaty status — that changed in 1960.

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By 1986, the National Gallery of Canada made its first official purchase of contemporary Aboriginal art — prior to this, the work of contemporary Aboriginal art was considered traditional, or ethnographic.

Tanya Harnett, an artist and art professor at the University of Alberta, says the collaboration of seven Indigenous artists in the 1970s was a critical moment in Canada’s art scene and for the country as a whole.


The Famous Five’s fight

Leslie Latta, executive director of the Alberta Provincial Archives

In 1929, the Famous Five — Albertans Emily Murphy, Irene Parlby, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Henrietta Muir Edwards — succeeded in their unyielding fight to have Canadian women declared “persons.”

It meant reinterpreting the British North America Act’s definition of persons, which previously had been seen as only referring to men, barring women from positions in the Canadian Senate.

The five women petitioned Canada’s Supreme Court to request a reading that would allow for a woman’s appointment to the Senate. They lost, but then looked across the Atlantic to the British Privy Council’s office. On Oct. 18, 1929, Lord Sankey declared women were, indeed, persons.

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It sent the message across Canada that women should be able to “fully participate in all aspects of society,” said Latta, though some women continued to be excluded.

“It was noted that all women were declared persons, but really all women didn’t mean all women,” Latta said. Most women of colour weren’t allowed to vote provincially or federally until the 1940s and Indigenous women couldn’t vote in federal elections until 1960.

Alberta women helped redefine the definition of “persons” in the Famous Five case, highlighted by provincial archivist Leslie Latta.
Alberta women helped redefine the definition of “persons” in the Famous Five case, highlighted by provincial archivist Leslie Latta. Photo by Greg Southam /Postmedia

The devastation of residential schools

Don Iveson, Edmonton mayor

Canadians should know the “legacy of residential schooling and other assimilationist practices as documented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada,” Iveson said in response to the question about Canadian history that is need-to-know.

Established under then-prime minister John A. MacDonald, residential schools tore generations of Indigenous children from their parents to be educated in government-sponsored facilities where abuse was widely documented. The practice was part of a strategy by successive Canadian governments to destroy Indigenous culture and assimilate its peoples.

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The last residential school closed in 1996.

“It’s important people know because we are all impacted by that damaging legacy of assimilationist policies even today,” said Iveson, who was an honorary witness during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Edmonton hearings in 2014.

An Edmonton Indian Residential school pictured in 1924.
An Edmonton Indian Residential school pictured in 1924. Photo by McDermid Studio/Glenbow Archives

A landmark decision for LGBTQ rights

Julia Petrov, curator of western Canadian history at the Royal Alberta Museum

Standing in an under-construction exhibit in the new Royal Alberta Museum, Petrov pointed to a collage of items related to the landmark Vriend decision and the fight for LGBTQ rights in Canada.

Delwin Vriend was fired from his teaching position at King’s College, a private Christian post-secondary institution, when officials learned he was gay. He challenged his 1991 dismissal in court and ended up fighting the Alberta government all the way to the Supreme Court.

The court’s 1998 ruling in Vriend v. Alberta proclaimed that gay and lesbian Canadians were entitled to equal protection under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“This year is the 20th anniversary of that judgment coming down,” said Petrov. “It’s important to remind people the things we have taken for granted were not taken for granted even as early as 20 years ago.”

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Julia Petrov, curator of western Canadian history at the Royal Alberta Museum stands near an exhibit in the soon-to-be-open gallery dedicated to the Delvin Vriend case.
Julia Petrov, curator of western Canadian history at the Royal Alberta Museum stands near an exhibit in the soon-to-be-open gallery dedicated to the Delvin Vriend case. Photo by Greg Southam /Postmedia

Focus on the fur trade

Sarah Hamilton, Ward 5 councillor

The walls of Hamilton’s city hall office display historic photos of her west Edmonton ward. To understand Western Canada today, she said, it’s important to have some grounding in the history of the fur trade.

Edmonton’s connections to that period are part of the history interpreted at Fort Edmonton.

The 200-plus year period is key to understanding English-French relations, the global marketplace, and the complex relationships that developed with Indigenous Peoples, she said.

“I think a lot of it gets lost in the mythologizing of Canadian history but when you start to go back and look at the history of our country and especially the history of Western Canada, you find a lot of those mythologies don’t stand up to what actually happened or what records show,” said Hamilton.

Fort Edmonton, pictured in an undated photo.
Fort Edmonton, pictured in an undated photo. Photo by Library and Archives Canada/Sandford Fleming

A Canadian woman dies in combat

Brig.-Gen. William Fletcher, commander of 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group

Capt. Nichola Goddard was killed in a 2006 firefight in Afghanistan while serving with C Company, 1 Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. She was the first Canadian woman to be killed in action while serving in a combat role.

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“Nic’s example as a female leader in a combat unit inspired not only future Canadians but a generation of young Afghans as well,” Fletcher said in an email.

“I was privileged to serve with her in Afghanistan and believe every Canadian should be aware of her sacrifice, as well as that of thousands of other brave Canadian men and women who have selflessly fallen in the service of Canada at home and abroad.”

Capt. Nichola Goddard during an operation in Afghanistan between February and March, 2006.
Capt. Nichola Goddard during an operation in Afghanistan between February and March, 2006. CANWEST NEWS SERVICE

Pride in the streets

Michael Phair, University of Alberta board of governors chairman and adjunct professor, U of A’s Institute for Sexual Minority Studies 

Edmonton’s Pride festival marked its 38th anniversary in June and Phair thinks the early years of the Pride marches are worth remembering.

Its initial parades were more focused on changing legislation to include gay rights and protections against discrimination, said Phair, a former city councillor who was Alberta’s first openly gay politician. He remembers helping organize some events focused around Gazebo Park and wondering who would be there. Some participants hid their identities, worried about the backlash.

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“This year, we have thousands of people in the parade, watching the parade, coming around the corner of Whyte Avenue, the shouting and the waving flags brought it all back to me again about how significant it is today,” Phair said. “It reminded me that Canada is such an amazing place to live and how much things have changed for people who are part of the gay and lesbian community. Those changes have been more beneficial and there certainly is more work to be done, but it’s a very different place than back in 1991.”

Michael Phair recalls Edmonton’s early Pride parades.
Michael Phair recalls Edmonton’s early Pride parades. Photo by Shaughn Butts /Postmedia

A voice at the ballot box

Marlena Wyman, Edmonton’s historian laureate

It was 1916 when women of the Prairie provinces won the right to vote in their provincial elections. And it was 1917 when Alberta women were the first to exercise that franchise.

“Even though it was not for all women, it was the beginning,” said Wyman.

The movement was unique to the Prairies, where homesteading women worked in the fields and managed livestock alongside the men. They were aware of their necessity, and used that to demand suffrage.

Most provinces followed suit in the next six years and allowed their women to vote, though it wasn’t until 1949 and 1960 when Asian and Indigenous Canadians gained federal voting rights.

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“(The vote) was quite restricted at the time,” Wyman said. “But (the Prairie women’s vote) allowed that movement to begin.”

History is one of visual artist Marlena Wyman’s passions. The City of Edmonton’s historian laureate previously worked as an audio-visual archivist for the provincial archives.
History is one of visual artist Marlena Wyman’s passions. The City of Edmonton’s historian laureate previously worked as an audio-visual archivist for the provincial archives. Photo by Shaughn Butts /Postmedia

A high stakes hockey game

Verna Yiu, CEO of Alberta Health Services

Yiu remembers watching the final game of the 1972 Canada vs. Soviet hockey Summit Series on a little black-and-white TV. It was the first time she remembers feeling truly Canadian, her family having just moved to Edmonton from Hong Kong in 1968.

Canada was tied 5-5 in the third period of the final game, but the team scored a winning goal with 34 seconds remaining.The victory gave Yiu “pride that I really never experienced.”

“The schools shut down, everybody watched it,” she said. “We were just cheering. That camaraderie, as a 10-year-old new to the country, it’s just something you’d never forget.”

Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services, remembers the intense 1972 Canada-Soviet Summit Series as a moment she took pride in her Canadian identity.
Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services, remembers the intense 1972 Canada-Soviet Summit Series as a moment she took pride in her Canadian identity. Photo by Larry Wong /POSTMEDIA NETWORK

A history of sharing

Beverly Lemire, material culture historian

Canadian history is interwoven with stories about sharing, said Lemire.

One early 20th-century homesteading family Lemire learned of in her research, for example, always kept extra quilts at home in case a neighbouring homestead was burned out. The mother and daughter made quilts with any material they could get so they would always have extras on hand.

“That story really struck a chord with me about the way in which people share,” she said.

Lemire has experienced the same generosity as a gardener a few years ago, when she was gifted seeds grown at the Saddle Lake Cree First Nation by her fellow historical board member, Judy Half.

“We all know of people who have received seeds or given seeds to others, and this is also material culture,” she said. “These baskets of vegetables are also part of the Canadian fabric of society.”

History professor Beverly Lemire says many little stories add up to make very meaningful statements about Canadian history.
History professor Beverly Lemire says many little stories add up to make very meaningful statements about Canadian history. Photo by Shaughn Butts /Postmedia

stcook@postmedia.com

jsarkonak@postmedia.com

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