Canada prides itself in being a progressive, multicultural, democratic nation. For this reason, it may come as a surprise to those unfamiliar with Canadian history that we do have, to quote former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, “sad chapter[s] in our history,” including violent assimilation and white supremacy. For over a century, more than 150,000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children were stolen from their homes and forcibly taken to residential schools, designed to “kill the Indian in the child”. While the last residential school closed in 1996, the trauma resulting from these schools is still prevalent to this day.

Following the closure of the last residential school, it took the government 12 years to release an apology regarding the mistreatment of Indigenous children in these schools. On June 11, 2008, then-Prime Minister Harper stood in front of the House of Commons to deliver a formal apology to Indigenous people. Harper acknowledged that the “policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country”. The apology, while sincere on the surface, exemplifies the inclusion exclusion tension in a modern democracy. Despite Canada’s boasting of being an inclusive democracy, the country’s history of colonization says otherwise. It is a history of dominance by white male settlers purposefully excluding Indigenous people from Canadian culture, development, and democracy that has yet to be fully reconciled. Large sections of the demos remain deeply excluded from the democratic process.