Settler thoughts for Canada day. Turtles. Work-work milestone. Did we really cave on digital services tax? Worried about my folks in Los Angeles and San Diego.
In life: No complaints. Worked a LOT this week as we froze development on the big project for the move onto the production server. Health is so-so. Over gardened. It’s strawberry season and we ate the first cherries last night. Fucking yum. Sorry California, you ain’t go nothing on Ontario berries. Sipping my coffee and planning a run to Canadian Tire for landscaping supplies and other adulting type errands.
We “celebrated” Canada Day this week. It marks the 1867 confederation of provinces aka the birth of a nation. It was a lovely mid-week day off to over-do gardening and make my back groan. I am not a fan of national jingoism. I also spent the day thinking about what it means to be a settler. It’s snapping turtle season. Reminds me of California desert tortoise protection work dear friends do. Reminds me that Indigenous Peoples call North America Turtle Island. Reminds me of Truth & Reconciliation work.
Folks here seem offended to be called settlers if they’re not part of the First Nations, Métis, or Innuit Peoples. I don’t think that way about it. It’s a kindness actually not a slur. It connotes being born here (not our fault!) and speaks to being willing to do the work of healing the damage of genocide. It indicates good will and a commitment to moving forward from Indigenous Peoples. It is grace. Sadly many people here feel like it’s “shoved down my throat” and that provincial curriculum is “it’s your fault, feel guilty” “on repeat so I ignore it.”
Without that willingness from settlers, without any progress, we’re merely next gen colonialists. I continue doing my part as a large bit of my paid job. Removing offensive language from information systems, ensuring that diacritics for Indigenous languages are available, collecting materials from Indigenous publishers, educating myself further about the full history of Canada, protesting treaty violations and bad government policy towards our responsibilities to sovereign Peoples within our borders. There are 90 or so recommendations in the national commission on Truth & Reconciliation many of which are related to ways of knowing and evolving practices in libraries and archives. One individual can’t to everything. One can, however, do what one can.
In politics: The feds snuck in a moratorium on collecting the digital services tax late last Sunday night. It may be ill-advised capitulation to gangsters shaking down our economy. Or, it may be a gambit in a long term game. What did Canada gain by this at the negotiating table. I’m offended by the optics of it but want to believe Carney has the bigger picture in mind. He’s an economist. He’s run the numbers and made a call.
I continue being horrified by the stochastic terrorism in the authoritarian state south of the border. Stop calling it Alligator Alcatraz. It is a concentration camp. Full stop. American Dachau. Words matter. Call it what it is.
Friends in L.A. and San Diego continue reporting on the very real impacts of the kidnappings of BIPOC. They say people are sparse in areas formerly crowded. Fear rules and brown folks are staying locked down as badly as high Covid-19 times.
I hate writing that over and over with each update.
All of us will do what we can. Millions of little acts of resistance add up. Love and courage my friends!