This year the Stratford Festival has commissioned a play by Colleen Murphy, The Breathing Hole, to mark Canada 150 celebrations.
Inuk director Reneltta Arluk is helming the production, with a solid core of half a dozen Indigenous actors including Gordon Patrick White and Jani Lauzon.
There may be more Indigenous actors onstage in this single production than in all past Stratford productions combined. White told me this play is paying the rent for a lot of Native performers this season. For many, it’s a good thing.
Some might understandably call this play and others like it being produced for Canada’s sesquicentennial, tokenism and argue that all the effort to tell Native stories will quite probably disappear once Canada 150 festivities are over. Hopefully, places like Stratford will keep the door open for Indigenous artists. Sometimes you have to shake things up before they settle down properly.
But for many First Nations peoples, Canada 150 is not turning out to be the unifying force the federal government thought it would be.
As they did in the Meech Lake Accord fiasco all those years ago, Indigenous people are once again making it hard for politicians to high-five each other on a job well done.
A number of high profile Aboriginals, like comedian Ryan McMahon and artist Christi Belcourt, have been vocal that First Nations, Métis and Inuit have absolutely no reason to celebrate this birthday.
Others feel that any discussion of Canada’s history would be incomplete without including Indigenous contributions. Canada, by any other name, would and could not be anything without Indigenous people.
For one thing, Canada was not born 150 years ago. It existed way before then and will exist long after calendars become obsolete. I have a document that says I took possession of a house in 2012, but I know for a fact it was built long before then. Many treaties were signed going back to Time Immemorial, as we like to call time before Tim Hortons.
Archeological sites prove Indigenous people were frolicking through the Canadian bulrushes 15,000 years ago. But then again, who hasn’t shaved a few years off their age? Perhaps Canada is just being coy about all that happened before Confederation.
The history of Canada’s treatment of its Indigenous population is reminiscent of that whack-a-mole game in amusement parks: it’s been a series of non-stop hits, from residential schools, the 60s Scoop and potlatch ban prohibiting Native ceremonies, to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. The list just grows and grows. It’s hard to party when you’re dealing with the continuing effects of post-contact stress disorder.
As with any dysfunctional relationship, it takes more than a few apologies and a Royal Commission here or there to bury the hatchet. (I mean that in a non-violent and proactive manner.)
But some Native people are interested in taking a positive whack at the Canada 150 piñata. Aboriginal participation is occurring in many different parts of the country.
I was commissioned to write a play for the National Arts Centre about Sir John A. Macdonald from an Aboriginal perspective. It’s no secret that Sir Jam (as I like to call him) does not have a fan club in most Native communities. Many would argue the whole kit and caboodle of systematic racism in Canada started with him. He was the first prime minister and the first minister of Indian affairs. He was the father of Confederation, as well as a lot of Native misery.
In my play, I got the opportunity to explore this man, what he did and his rationale for doing it. Very few people wake up in the morning saying, “Today I will do evil things.” That is where the drama lies with John A. and other Canadian historical figures – in the grey area.
I welcomed the opportunity to explore this man and present, through comedy, the origins and effects of his policies. I might not have gotten that opportunity without Canada 150. As one artist told me recently, “If you want to give me a bunch of money and then hand me a microphone to tell you what’s wrong… well, stand back.” Sometimes it’s more effective to yell from the inside out than from the outside in.
People ask me what I will be doing July 1. There is a fair amount of irony in that question. You see, that’s actually my birthday. I always thought I was the perfect Canadian, born on the first of July, half Native and half settler. But I hope there’s less controversy on my 150th.
Drew Hayden Taylor is an award-winning playwright and novelist from Curve Lake First Nation near Peterborough.
news@nowtoronto.com | @nowtoronto
