Watching these images, I became painfully aware of how very little I knew about Canada, my “home and native land,” and its relationship with indigenous peoples of North America. Up to that moment, in my second year of anthropology and cultural studies, I had been largely interested in indigenous peoples of other countries. I realized that before I could study the relations between different cultures elsewhere in the world, I needed to take a critical look at North America. So I decided to declare my major in indigenous studies. There was, of course, one significant problem: there was no Indigenous Studies program at McGill University.

In my third year, I began taking courses – essentially native studies courses – such as ANTH 436: North American Native Peoples and CANS 403: Canadian Material Culture First Peoples. It became obvious to me that almost 10 other students were creating their concentration in native studies.

Around this time, Dick Pound was criticized for using a politically contentious term for native peoples of Canada in an interview, during the preparations for the 2010 Olympics. Although this was distasteful, the incident brought about an incredible stroke of luck.

On a political forum discussing the controversial articles Margaret Wente wrote following Pound’s remarks, I came into contact with an editor of the last edition of the Canadian Journal of Native Studies. This is where things really fell into place for the creation of KANATA, McGill’s indigenous studies community. In April 2009, the first edition of McGill’s Undergraduate Journal on Indigenous Peoples’ of North America was launched in the hopes of creating a ripple effect within and outside of McGill.

The founding members of KANATA began working on a proposal for a minor program in indigenous studies at McGill with a focus on North American focused studies. For months, we contacted graduate students, faculty members, and teamed up with a representative on the Society for Equity and Diversity in Education-Joint Senate Board on First Peoples. Working on this proposal revealed some of the barriers facing the creation of a program, and somewhat explained the lack of a program.

There is, in fact, administrative support for such a program as well as strong faculty support for indigenous studies. The problem lies more in academia’s reception of interdisciplinary programs, and the relatively recent emergence of indigenous studies as it is understood in the academic tradition.

The demographics of Quebec also play a role. The overall focus on native issues in Quebec and Ontario, for instance, is rather different than it might be in Alberta and Manitoba, where there is a greater population of self-identified native persons.

It is precisely because indigenous people are often “invisible” in Quebec that indigenous studies is needed. In economical, political, cultural, environmental, humanitarian, developmental, and international sectors, knowledge of indigenous peoples is crucial. The presence of indigenous studies at a prominent university is crucial for how people will understand and create relations between native people and newcomers.

In 2010, it is the twentieth anniversary of the Oka Crisis – and in the span of less than one year, things are changing at McGill for the better in terms of indigenous studies. KANATA is now established with a clear mandate: to act as a community for students interested in indigenous studies and advocate for the creation of a minor in indigenous studies at McGill, which we believe is part of creating and promoting equity and diversity in education. At the moment, KANATA is working on its second and third volume of the journal as well as preparing for next year’s peer-to-peer conference. As well, KANATA is holding two events to commemorate the events of the Oka Crisis of 1990. KANATA is working on networking with important partners here in Montreal as well as nationally and internationally to open up learning experiences at McGill for students and the community.

Other signs of positive change are visible in the recent Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence, and Community Engagement which took submissions on reaching out to aboriginal communities. A group of medical students have begun the aboriginal health interest group, which is holding a film series on the social determinants of aboriginal health.

There is also the aboriginal working group, an indigenous studies seminar series held by post-doc scholar Kate Muller, and an undergraduate symposium on indigenous cultures planned for next semester, to be put on by Professor Michael Doxtater and Professor Michael Loft. An indigenous student network as well as an Aboriginal Law Association are growing.

There is still ground to be gained for Indigenous Studies at McGill. If we can keep up with the growing interest and build on public and academic recognition of the excellent work done by students, it’ll become clear that it’s in McGill’s interest to follow their lead.

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Taking place on October 18th at Metropolis, the show is part of the band’s upcoming Canadian tour with Winnipeg band Inward Eye, in support of Flogging Molly’s latest album “Float” (2008). When asked how he would describe Flogging Molly, Schmidt answered “Basically, I would just describe it as a soul band. I think we are more known as a Celtic rock band. But, you know, mostly we just do what we do and try to make it make sense.”

Schmidt was among the first wave of musicians assembled by lead vocalist Dave King in 1996 to form what would eventually become Flogging Molly. Schmidt found himself attracted to the nascent band’s songwriting aesthetic, anchored by King’s confessional writing style. “Dave’s songs are always about his life, his perspective and things that have have happened to him,” Schmidt explained. “Where his gift comes in is that he can take a song that is written in a very personal and specific way and yet you can relate to it. Anybody who has lived life can relate to the aspects that he is talking about because he is pretty general about his themes but will tell a very specific story about his father dying and yet anybody who has a father or has had a father die or anything like that can relate to that story, and I think it is a very unique talent, and you don’t see it often in the world.”

Commenting on their recent touring activity, Schmidt said, “I think that our fan base – which has always been very diverse – is continuing to diversify. You know, we’ve been pretty lucky because we’ve been able to play to soul crowds, punk crowds, and rock crowds. Old people and young people. We’ve been lucky that way that we’ve been embraced by a lot of different groups of people. There are songs on it that the punk kids love, songs on it that the folkies love, songs on it that your grandpa loves.”
Flogging Molly don’t just rock, they roll, by supporting various causes such as Save Darfur, Democracy Now, and Goal USA. Schmidt explained the band’s commitment to using its fame toward good ends: “You know we try to do as much as we can. These are just ones in particular that we’ve met people in the organization who we’ve been able to directly connect with and then learn intimately about what is going on. […] Anytime you can bring attention to something that horrific it is irresponsible not to do it regardless of whether you are in a band or not. Save Darfur was a no brainer. With Goal [USA] they help the poorest people on the planet and they do it with a lot of integrity and soul. That’s what got us involved. With democracy we feel like it’s not our place to tell you what to think […] Our place is to tell you to think. You don’t have to believe in what we believe in and we don’t care what you believe in but you have to be involved and you have think for yourself and formulate an opinion and make it count.”

On October 14th, the members of Flogging Molly will be kicking off their first cross-Canadian tour in Halifax. And though it is but one of their 14 tour stops, Schmidt spoke fondly of coming to play in Montreal. “Montreal has always been a really good time. The last couple times we played at the Metropolis were fantastic. Such a beautiful venue and such an energetic great crowd… we’ve always enjoyed it.”

Flogging Molly plays Metropolis ( 59 St. Catherine E.) on October 18.

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Les Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois was created in 1982 with the mandate of promoting Quebec cinema in Canada and abroad. From the RVCQ itself to La Tournée du cinéma québécois, and Les Tête-a-tête du cinéma québécois, opportunities for dialogue between filmmakers, the film industry, and the public are provided.

The 350 films shown at the RVCQ were varied in genre and type: box office hits, feature fictions, documentaries, student films, and animation, to name a few. At the RVCQ, the audience had the opportunity to see a vast array of films not otherwise easily accessible on the big screen and on DVD. There were many premiers during the festival, including Cadavres by Erik Canuel, the director of La loi du cochon (2001) and Bon Cop, Bad Cop (2006).

But RVCQ goes beyond simply screening films. This year there were a multitude of art expositions including “Admission-Point de Vue” by Jocelyn Michel, “Les Invincibles: Au Coeur de New Big City” by Jean-Sébastien Duberger, and “Lèche-Vitrine” by Thomas Vamos. These expositions, some still ongoing, demonstrate the artistic interaction between photography, images, and cinema.

The RVCQ also offered professional seminars with “Les Ateliers Cinema et Jeu Video.” In collaboration with UBISOFT, these seminars relate cinema and video games, and the way in which both creations employ similar processes. Furthermore, the RVCQ held workshops on music in film with Jean-Michèl Bernard (The Science of Sleep, 2006), screenwriting with Bernard Émond (20 h, rue Darling, 2000 and Ce qu’il faut pour vivre, 2008), and film production with Christine Vachon (Killer Films productions; Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine and Far From Heaven, Altman’s The Company).

RVCQ offers the opportunity for future and present filmmakers, film theorists, film critics, screenwriters, actors, and just plain ol’ film buffs to immerse themselves in all things cinema.

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Like many McGill students, I balance my love of music with my academic commitments. Or at least I try to. On February 11, Canadian folk singer-songwriter Craig Cardiff performed at Thomson House to a full crowd in an intimate setting, and I was very glad to take part in the cosy experience. The venue was well suited to Cardiff’s musical style: he’s known for playing in living rooms, churches, and basements. Indeed, Cardiff invited the audience into a collaborative musical process, welcoming them to sing along. The performance was also recorded live, and the tracks made downloadable to all of those whose voices, curiously well-pitched, came together that night.

The show at McGill’s Graduate House was produced in part by Hello Darlin’ Productions and as part of Cardiff’s tour for his 2009 album Goodnight (Go Home), his 11th effort in ten years. The album’s tracks include “When People Go,” which was written to teach his young daughter about death, and “Smallest Wings,” a song inspired by the organization Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, which helps parents of terminally ill newborn children deal with the loss of their infants.

Cardiff’s songwriting, the development of his career, and his approach to musical performances are particularly interesting to me because of the model that they offer for aspiring singer-songwriters who have little desire to be a part of the music industry. When I strum my guitar and I think about the words I write, one of Cardiff’s songs reminds me of the kind of music I strive to create. “Dance Me Outside,” which tells the story of young girl dying of exposure to the cold, is a jewel of a song that is both disarmingly heartbreaking and genuine. Cardiff explains that the song’s title comes from Canadian writer W.P. Kinsella’s collection of short stories about life in an Albertan First Nations community. “We have third-world pockets in Canada that people in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax don’t know about,” he says. “It’s embarrassing. Horrible things pop up in the media…and then everyone just forgets about it. There are so many songs out there that are not saying anything. The idea for [my] songs is to have some meaning.”

That evening, another voice made a strong impression on the audience. Twenty-four-year-old Allison Lickley, the opening act for Cardiff, was adorable, her music and rapport with the audience sweet and inviting. Since her recent move to Montreal, Lickley has released her first full length album, You Might Find Me Here. “I’m really happy and excited,” she explains. “In a lot of ways, deciding to follow music as a career was a lot like starting my own business. I’m still figuring out what kind of life I want, but as I go I’m discovering how different artists are doing this, and I’m learning from these experiences.”

Due to an error on the part of our editors, the original version of this article stated that the song “when people go” was written about the death of Cardiff’s young daughter; In fact, the song was written to teach his daughter about death. Cardiff’s daughter is alive.

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While the federal government’s policy now permits both men and women to preserve their status regardless of whom they marry, the residue of past legislation remains in native communities. The film focuses on the Kahnawake band, which denies membership to both men and women who marry out of the community. Interspersed with the four main storylines are interviews with several Kahnawake residents, on the topic of belonging and the consequences of marrying outside of the community.

At the screening at McGill earlier this month, filmmaker Tracey Deer joined cast members Waneek Horn-Miller – also the director of McGill’s First People’s House – and her husband, Keith Morgan, to answer questions from the audience. Horn-Miller, an Olympian and an icon of the Oka Crisis in 1990, faced scrutiny from her community after marrying a non-native. Here, a member of the audience reports on the panel’s responses.

How was the film received by the community of Kahnawake, and how does the community agree with and respond to the vision of the film?

Tracey Deer: There was poor attendance and overall apathy. Discussion was minimal. I think, on the whole, the community doesn’t want to think about this. I think there is so much fear in our community of becoming a target for scrutiny by your own lineage.

As a filmmaker, how was it different working on a project within your own community? How was it putting together these stories, that are from people in your community, without feeling that you were distorting their message?

TD: This isn’t the first film I made about my community; the first film was Mohawk Girls. It was crazy. I thought it would be so easy, that it would be a breeze. Actually, I think it was the hardest film I’ve ever made. I was afraid about who would be upset because I made it – about my parents’ reaction, and the repercussions for those I love if people didn’t like my film.

In Mohawk Girls, we looked at sexual abuse and alcoholism. This wasn’t a glorious portrait of my great community. But I feel these are issues we need to talk about in order to get to a better place. Making Club Native, I didn’t have any fear for myself, because I think this is greater than me. But I did fear for the people in the film and that was crippling for me at some points….

What did you hope to achieve with the making of Club Native?

TD: Well I want it to spark reflection, thought, and conversation in our communities. [People think that] as long as we find the right blood quantum and have our kids with the right amount of [native] blood, then we don’t have to think about anything else: we’re “surviving.”

I feel that if we continue on this path, we may have native people with the right amount of blood in them, but what are we going to have in terms of culture, language, and pride to hang on to? I feel we are really at a crossroads right now, and I am hoping that this film brings up these questions, gets people talking, and hopefully opens up their hearts.

Waneek Horn-Miller: Our communities – Kahnawake is not the only one – are so focused on this idea of purity and image. We need to start thinking about community building. Our leaders…are stuck with this mentality that they should be like [they were]…hundreds of years ago when we were all really dark and really “native.”

[It’s] a terrible thing to tell a young woman: “You know what? Just marry the right colour. It doesn’t matter how he treats you or what he’s like.” I think we should ask: “what is he willing to do for his community? How is he going to treat you? Is he willing to learn your culture?” Those should be the questions, not “Marry out, get out,” which is [the case] right now.

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Throw Slam Collective is dedicated to creating a stronger spoken word community in Montreal. Members range from “groups of poets, spoken word artists, multidisciplinary artists, volunteers, dreamers, and lovers of linguistic phenomenon,” as stated on the group’s web site. I first heard of the collective in October when a friend told me about a group he’d gotten involved in, where people worked on and performed their poems. I was initiated into the world of the Throw Slam Collective the following November at Casa Del Popolo. There, the Throw Slam Collective Best of 2008 album was recorded live; members of Throw, with special guests Moe Clark and Kaie Kellough along with members of Capital Slam, spoke of politics, racism, love, faith, toilet paper, and fleeting time. That night, I returned home energized and intellectually riveted, and immediately imported some slam poetry onto my iTunes.

For many years, I complained that I was one of those lonely people who thought too much, destined to end my days writing delirious tracts on a boat amongst salty water and tears. I no longer think this, now that I know there are people out there who can render their thoughts musical and whimsical no matter the topic, and that speakers and listeners can come together to stimulate thought in a vibrant, laid-back setting.

Along with performance venues, the Throw Slam Collective offers workshops for poetry and an organic jam session called The Vibe, where people can create sounds, movements, and poetry of all sorts. Last November, four of the Throw Slam Collective members went to the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word’s National Slam in Alberta. Rob Hoover, Jay Alexander Brown, Jason Freure, and Chris Masson performed pieces collectively and individually among some of Canada’s best. To hear some of the pieces they performed at the festival, go to the Collective’s founder and podcaster Michelle Dabrowski’s blog and look for Episode 15 of her podcast of Throw Radio. The Throw Slam Collective is always looking for new members and will be putting on more events for those who want to participate by snapping their fingers, performing, and listening.

For details on the album and shows, check out throwcollective.com. You can also hear podcasts at michelledabrowkski.blogspot.com, or sign up for Throw Radio on iTunes.

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2009 was christened with the shocking news of a murder-suicide in the Saguenay, a region five hours north of Montreal, seemingly reflecting Tout Est Parfait’s graphic images. On January 1, 2009, a 9-1-1 call was made by a woman leading police officers to her home in Chicoutimi, Quebec where her husband and the couple’s three young children were found dead. According to the police, the deaths were a result of a pact between the couple to commit suicide for the new year.

Tout Est Parfait, an award-winning film written by Guillaume Vigneault and directed by Fournier, unfolds a plot which chillingly echoes these recent events, as well as those of a 1993 suicide pact, when six children in the community of Davis Inlet, Labrador attempted to commit suicide on the anniversary of the deaths of their friends who had earlier died in a house fire.

Mainly concerned with the aftermaths of youth suicide in a typical industrial town, the film focuses on the emptiness and silence that befalls the community and on the space in between choosing life or choosing death. The film sees Josh (Maxime Dumontier) struggling with the deaths of his friends Alex, Simon, Thomas, and Sacha. Through his interactions with Sacha’s ex-girlfriend and Thomas’ father, Josh tries to come to terms with how to live “normally.” Although the group of boys at the centre of the storyline are not often depicted alive, for the brief moments that these characters are on the screen, they leave an intense imprint, which remains even after the credits have rolled.

Music drives the emotional tension in the film; music and silences serve to demonstrate the difficulty of speaking about the emotions tied to suicide and turmoil that follows such a dramatic event in the lives of those left to mourn a friend’s suicide. Notably, singer-songwriter Cat Power sets the mood for two climactic moments of the film with her song “Maybe Not” and her cover of “Troubled Waters.” Reflecting on the events that began 2009 in the community of Saguenay Lac-St-Jean is easily likened to the emotion found in the songs of Cat Power, which was masterfully chosen by the film’s music researcher Phil Electric. The original score, composed by Patrick Lavoie, is also an important factor in the way that the film manages to establish its setting and mood so expertly.

Tout Est Parfait addresses the difficult subject of suicide in Quebec in an engaging and artistic way. Its importance for those who have lived or know those who have lived similar circumstances cannot be overstated.

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The student-run course brings together undergraduates taking independent research reading courses to collaborate and discuss themes relating to their topics.

Joel Pedneault, the current coordinator of Indyclass, said the class allows people to study topics usually not discussed at McGill.

“The idea of this Indyclass is to act not just as an academic forum for discussion, but also as a more open type of seminar,” said Pedneault. “Indyclass gives an opportunity to break out of that mould.”

The course intends to bring together the different perspectives of students performing similar work, though in different faculties. This semester’s theme will focus on student politics and more effective activism.

“[Indyclass gives] a new spin on how student politics and education are done at McGill,” said Pedneault. “[It] will hopefully lead to more focused activism.”

Indyclass founder and U3 Sociology and International Development Studies student Cleve Higgins, heard about a program at the University of California, Berkeley called Democratic Education at CAL (DECAL), which consists of approximately 100 student-run courses.

Higgins found that there was a large overlap between the work done by students for social movements both in and out of McGill.

“[I thought] about the different research and knowledge production that people here at McGill do outside of school for activist groups,” he said. “There was a need for creating more space for people to be able to pursue those type of activities, like academic research and knowledge activities that they are interested in…that are relevant to them within a space at school and within the academic context.”

When asked about the success of the first Indyclass – prisons – Higgins said that although part of its mandate relates to the redistribution of the research back toward activists and organizations working on prison justice, it was difficult to achieve.

“The main advantage, the biggest success we had with Indyclass, was having a class that was only students and therefore that could really end up coinciding with our needs, our interests, and what we wanted to do,” said Higgins.

Professor of Sociology Marcos Ancelovici, who supervised five of the students last semester, thought the class was a useful resource for students.

“I think it’s great if students have the initiative to come up with an idea, and if they can organize, get together, and select a topic they are all interested in,” Ancelovici said. “It’s a great initiative.”

Ancelovici addded that the project would help develop independent thinking.

“I think it’s good in terms of fostering autonomy, allowing students to study something they are really interested in, and fostering self-management as a way to empower students to have more control over the educational process, as opposed to just doing what the professor tells them to do,” he said.

The professor found the project interesting, but it was somewhat difficult to reconcile his responsibility as advisor with the students’ freedom. He added that professors might be reluctant to take on students in another Indyclass due to the increased workload, but he hoped they would.

Higgins agreed.

“I would encourage people to start their own Indyclass. Find something that’s interesting to them and/or people they know and/or an organization they are working with and start one,” Higgins said. “It’s not something that requires any special knowledge. None of us knew about prisons before we did the prison edition.”

Indyclass is also open to students who are not undertaking an independent study course. For more information consult indyclass.wordpress.com.

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The film, entitled Tête du tuque, offers some insight into racism and the problem of being considered an outsider in one’s place of birth. Overall, however, it comes off contrived, in ways that carry some troubling implications.

The documentary opens with the Quebecois song “Mes Aïeux” and a typically Quebecois scene: a horse sled in a rustic town. The people aboard the sled are not typical Quebecois, but rather high school kids whose parents immigrated from Tunisia, Haiti, China, and Vietnam. The teenagers, however, were born in Quebec. As the child of an English-Canadian mother from the Yukon Territory and a pure laine (“dyed in the wool”) Quebecker from Saguenay, certain elements of this film caused a visceral objection in me.

The filmmakers undo what they seek to create. Throughout the documentary there is a latent attack on what constitutes a Quebecker. Fundamentally, there is a difference between a person who is from the province of Quebec and a person who is considered and considers themselves a Quebecois pure laine. On the subject of pure laine, the filmmakers assert that this concept is ridiculous and of no real value, employing comments in narration and the spiel of one professor to this effect. However, I completely and fundamentally disagree. The insightful points brought forth by the high school kids who discuss the hardships of dual identities and a métissage of values are buried deep beneath the intentions of the filmmakers and their disrespect of pure laine Quebecois.

First of all, the filmmakers did not, as I have done in this article, admit their biases. This is inherently problematic to me and especially alienating in the closing sequence. In this scene, the filmmakers take the teenagers to a cabin in the woods and have them put up a Christmas tree and do typically Quebecois things. At the end of the sequence, the narrator’s voice asks the viewer: “Are these children not our future?” Seemingly, in a rudimentary documentary with contrived sequences, the filmmakers try to tell the audience that a culture isn’t important because all people are alike. This is a utopian and misleading way of thinking. Attacking the integrity of a group of people in order to claim that all peoples have equal access to a label is just frustrating. People have equal access to fundamental human rights, but not to claims on a particular history.

Perhaps the filmmakers are trying to define the term “culture.” Perhaps they have some great insight on what “cultures” are and their validity. If so, I’d like to see some credentials and several published volumes. What a “culture” is has been the subject of intellectual inquiries for centuries. Interestingly enough, the teenagers the filmmakers follow seem to have a better understanding of what is relevant than the filmmakers themselves.

I would argue that it is precisely this kind of ignorance that causes increasing racism when it comes to immigration. What is the point of attacking one culture’s right to exist because other, different cultures are coming into contact with it? Racism and cultural divides crop up when cultural identities are threatened, and this documentary adds lighter fluid to the fire. Just as it would be unfair to declare that suddenly all immigrants’ cultures are irrelevant once they are Canadian citizens, it is unfair to argue, even if subtly, that pure laine culture is irrelevant.

Reasonable accommodation has been a divisive issue in Quebec recently, invariably fraught with racism from both sides. However, a middle ground does establish itself. New groups form around the shared experiences of people who at once belong to two different groups – such as the Métis – and are liminal to both. Just as the pure laine were once both part of France and not part of the country, the second, third, and fourth-generation children of parents who immigrated to Quebec will perhaps consider themselves Quebeckers – where the term Quebecker will be understood as something else than synonymous with pure laine Quebecois (the terms are not synonymous and have not been for decades). Perhaps these groups will have a different way of creating cultural identity. Cultures cannot be made open to all and there are valid functional, structural, psychological, and historical reasons for this.

The only valuable part of the film for me was the youth recounting their experience of growing up between the culture of their parents and that of their surroundings. These teenagers are bound together by commonalities, like having to obey certain rules of conduct that may not make “sense” to the culture of their Quebecois friends. In a way, they are proof of how cultures are created: through shared experiences. The beauty of the captured images lies in the stories from the mouths of babes, not of filmmakers.

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Marquise Lepage and Productions Virage’s Martha qui vient du froid gives a firsthand account of the High Arctic relocation of Inuit families in the 1950s. The film revolves around Martha and her family, their experience of the relocation, and its continuing effects on their lives. In the 1950s, the Canadian government brought families of Inuit peoples to the High Arctic with promises of plentiful game and better living conditions, as a means of establishing sovereignty over these islands – thus misleading them into accepting the “temporary” and “voluntary” relocation without being informed of the political stakes. The families were moved to locations supposedly chosen by “experts of the North.” Once in the High Arctic, however, these families were subjected to horrible living conditions, worsened by laws on the prohibition of hunting, and the government’s striking lack of understanding for the Inuit way of life.

Martha qui vient du froid follows Martha as she journeys back to the places of her youth, the sites of extreme hardship that shaped her childhood and adolescence. Using footage of Martha’s journey as well as black and white reenactments of her youth, the documentary achieves a personal feel and quickly brings a face and a name to a story too few Canadian citizens have heard. Archival footage and photographs are used to quickly establish a link between the past and the present that underlines the vast and lasting impact of the events discussed in the documentary. Throughout the film, scenes from Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922) are spliced in alongside the words of Martha’s family and friends, using irony to relate the extent of the Government’s mistreatment of the Inuit.

While Martha qui vient du froid deals with suffering and injustice, it is at once a personable, enjoyable, and important film to watch. The documentary both sheds light on a legacy of subjugation and demonstrates the effects of this subjugation on a personal and familial level. It speaks powerfully to the general public who does not know nearly enough about the human rights infringements committed by and still happening in a country that celebrates its Great North, a land over which Canada claimed sovereignty from the sweat and blood of families like Martha’s.

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