awahš

i’m anihšināpē-nêhiyaw-siksika & a member of Muscowpetung First Nation. i wouldn’t be alive today if my great-grandparents, grandparents, and father did not survive residential school. and i believe the statue needs to be destroyed... not moved. insinuating that there’s merit in macdonalds actions, that his image deserves visibility, that he’s a ‘founder’ instead of a colonizer who pursued “Aryan character”, is embracing the effects of his (ongoing) genocide & his ambition to annihilate Indigenous people. there’s nothing celebratory about Canada’s history, nor Regina’s, as settlement occurred without consent, under duress of sickness introduced through the fur trade & intentional slaughter of the buffalo to dispossess us. it’s also wrong to suggest that settlers and Indigenous people have a ‘collective history’, as this sentiment removes accountability from settlers and shames Indigenous people for wanting to assert our sovereignty without assimilation or compromise. but understand that treaty land is not ceded land, and it never will be. since macdonald failed to silence us, so will everyone else.