It’s easy to talk abstractly about cancelling Canada Day—to share tweets and hashtags and Instagram graphics—but more useful to actually take action. The large-scale conversations we’re having about the holiday’s relationship with colonial violence are long overdue: many Indigenous people have been spearheading them for years, and it shouldn’t have taken the discovery of so […]
Canada Day
Posted inArts + Music
Why Canada Day should be cancelled: your guide to music, film and writing of the truth
This year, there will be no fireworks slashing the sky above Halifax Harbour. There will be no spots on the Common where concert crowds have trampled the grass to death. While the city’s official website says that COVID-19’s third wave in Nova Scotia is what stopped HRM from planning Canada Day programming, many of us […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Why I *still* choose not to celebrate Canada Day
Barbara Kentner. Colten Boushie. Tina Fontaine. Joyce Echaquan. Rodney Levi. Chantel Moore. These are the names of only a fraction of the Indigenous people who Canada and its systems have let down since 2015, when my first article about July 1 came out in The Coast. The magnitude of each of their names should weigh […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Join the struggle for a better Canada on Canada Day
With most July 1 events cancelled due to COVID-19, lots of people will be spending Canada Day at home. But what better time to learn about colonialism and racism than Canada Day? You can do just that with the click of a link, thanks to a public webinar presented by the Migrant Rights Network: “Canada Day […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Where are the fireworks to this weekend
Canada Day weekend means a few things: Summer is finally in full swing, you’re about to get a much-needed long weekend and there’s so. many. fireworks. While last year’s Canada 150 celebrations saw the mother of all firework shows take over the Halifax Common, year 151 leaves a little more room for your schedule (or […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Canada’s myth of multiculturalism
Canada is a concept. A concept that’s been formed on the basis of many myths. The myth of discovery by European settlers and the myth of confederation are two that come to mind. However, there’s another myth that Canadians shy away from discussing; the myth of multiculturalism and how it came to be the centrepiece […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Over 150 years of absolute bullshit
Happy birthday, Canada, you tired old fart! Tomorrow television anchors, bored mayors and jingoistic revellers from coast-to-coast will enrobe themselves in scarlet and bathe in maple syrup like a deleted scene from Riverdale. The country’s 150th celebration will be a party unlike any other—a national celebration befitting of Canadian heroes like Bono and the cast […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
I ended up celebrating: My first year as a Canadian
People stood in the doorway, the hallways and, of course, the kitchen. Dozens of eyes and smiles greeted my sister and I with warmth and a touch of understanding. It was a party to celebrate our one-year anniversary in Canada. More than two dozen refugee sponsors were there—people who had been working hard to help […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
A Creation Story
Today I’m going to tell you a creation story. Many of you have heard them before, or at the very least have heard of them. We tell stories to pass on our knowledge, teach lessons and morals. This story is going to be a bit different than any story you might have heard before. It’s […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Truth, then reconciliation
Acknowledging we are on Mi’kmaw territory is planting the seed of reconciliation in Nova Scotia. Last week the Halifax Regional School Board voted to include an acknowledgement during morning announcements that schools sit on Mi’kmaw land, and in October the department of Education and Early Childhood Development will introduce treaty history into Nova Scotia’s education […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
A trans-Canada tale
Forty years after the Canadian Human Rights Act was passed by parliament, transgender individuals are finally protected by the document. At least three different incarnations of a Canadian trans rights bill have been drafted in the last 12 years, and now the most recent one has passed. Bill C-16 will amend the Human Rights Act, […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Our people refuse to be broken
When I was a kid, I used to play “Indian.” I would put a feather in my hair, wear whatever fringed leather jacket my mother had kicking around from the ’80s and I would run around war-whooping outside. When I was a teenager, I dressed up as Pocahontas for Halloween. When I was in my […]