Governor General’s History Symposium: Fostering Understanding and Empathy Through Inclusive History

November 20, 2024

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Good morning everyone.

We have the honour of gathering today on Treaty 1 Territory and the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and the homeland of the Red River Métis Nation.

I make this acknowledgement out of respect for those who have cared for these lands for thousands of years.

I also make this land acknowledgement to honour the rich and diverse history of Indigenous peoples.

I am grateful to be here with you to talk about the history that most Canadians were never taught.

As a child in Nunavik, in Northern Quebec, I didn't learn about Inuit History in school.

Fortunately, my grandmother Jeannie and my mother were amazing oral history teachers.

My grandmother knew about other Inuit in Greenland and elsewhere in the High Arctic, and why they lived there. She told us about her two sisters, who were forcibly taken by ship, at a very young age, to a military base now known as Coral Harbour, in Nunavut. She told us about the relocation that took place in the 1950s, where families were put on a ship and relocated from Nunavik to Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord.

This is one of the ways I learned about the dark history of how Inuit were forced to relocate.

Through the memories of my mother and grandmother, I also learned about the tragic slaughter of sled dogs in the '50s and '60s, which led to severe famine for so many Inuit communities.

Their memories, their knowledge and our culture taught me a wealth of history that you couldn't find in textbooks.

I am glad that as a nation, we are beginning to recognize alternative perspectives like theirs as part of our national history.

More and more, we are uncovering parts of Canada's Indigenous History. Women's History. LGBTQ History. Black History. Asian History.

More and more, we are recognizing the contributions of communities that have been ignored for too long.

We are recognizing how harmful denialism has been to those communities. It is still happening to this day.

We are working to honour the past and address its impacts so we might build a better, more inclusive society for the future.

Your work, as historians, as teachers and as students, is an important part of it.

If young Canadians today can learn about our rich and diverse national history, they will be more sensitive to different cultures. They will grow to become a generation of empathetic, understanding leaders and citizens.

And thanks to your work, we can continue learning about history as adults, through museum exhibitions, readings, documentaries and other innovative projects.

It is never too late to discover our rich and diverse national history.

Inclusive approaches to history education and research play a crucial role in our progress as a nation.

So, I want to thank all of you for your important work, and for enabling conversations like today's.

I look forward to hearing the panelists.

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