Amending the Citizenship Oath – A First Step to Bringing Newcomers and Indigenous Communities Together

On June 8, 2021 Senator Omidvar spoke to Bill C-8, which amends the Citizenship Act to include, in the Oath or Affirmation of Citizenship, a solemn promise to respect the Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, in order to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s call to action number 94. Watch her speech:

Senator Omidvar: Honourable senators, I rise to speak on Bill C-8, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act, which reflects Call to Action 94 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

Honourable senators, you have heard me note before that there are only two segments of our Canadian population that are growing: one is the Indigenous peoples of Canada through a growth in their birth rate; the other is the immigrant population through the sustained arrival of immigrant communities. Yet, and you have heard me say this before, the space between these two communities is huge in every sense of the word — emotionally, culturally, socially and spatially. As a result, immigrants and Indigenous peoples of Canada do not talk to each other, or at least not as much as they should.

Sadly, there is too much that keeps us apart. I have always known that Canada has different histories. It is a complex nation made up of many constituent and sometimes moving parts. This history is told back to us differently — the first peoples’ history, the history of colonization, the history of the coming together of Canada and the history of the immigrant peoples of Canada. But nowhere do all of these histories come together. They especially do not come together in the history classrooms in our schools.

There are other factors: the way we have constructed our nation as being anglophone, francophone, Indigenous and multicultural all existing in different silos, in different policy frameworks, with different apparatuses of government attached to them. This has prevented us from finding common ground through natural or even engineered linkages.

Further, immigrants — which must include the early colonists as well as recent immigrants, refugees and others — view Canada as a land of opportunity, a safe haven, without acknowledging that the land already belonged to others. I am therefore not entirely off the mark when I sense an air of distance between newcomers and Indigenous communities, regardless of when they came, because they have remained sorely unaware of Indigenous history, rights and contributions to our country’s development.

Canada’s newest people fail to understand why and how Canada’s First Peoples — who should by all rights be the ones with the greatest power and most central to the nation’s identity because they were here first — are often missing from the national picture. When we become citizens and we swear our loyalty to the Queen — and that is a subject for a whole different discussion — we fail to understand that Canada’s history with the Indigenous peoples becomes our history too. As former governor general Adrienne Clarkson put it so well:

When you become a member of a family, you become a member of all parts of that family, not select parts of it.

New Canadians cannot simply say that this did not happen on our watch, so we are absolved of responsibility.

Add to this the fact that, notwithstanding the initial challenges faced by immigrants and the challenges of displacement and dislocation, by and large, over time, they do well. This is celebrated in Canada in many ways, and much is made of it. In comparison, the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in prison and the conditions on reserves, where we haven’t even dealt with all the boil-water advisories, show that so much more work is needed. All this, I believe, contributes to the divisions between us; a kind of awkwardness. Being in the same room, but perhaps preferring to stand in different corners of it.

Yet I know that there is a lot that binds us. The Indigenous peoples are the first people of Canada whereas we are the newest, but there are similarities in the exclusion that we may well have faced. There is a shared history of displacement. There is possibly a shared history of experiencing colonialism, institutional racism, and surviving and living outside the mainstream. The history of the Japanese internment, the head tax levied on the Chinese railroad workers, the casualness of the inquiry into the Air India tragedy; they found their counterparts in the history of Indigenous peoples, too.

To build a common future, we must close this emotional, cultural, socio-economic and spacial space. Passing this bill and actualizing the TRC’s Call to Action 94 is just one action, but it is an important first step. When Bill C-8 passes, every new citizen will be exposed to Indigenous history and confirm in the oath the words of recognition of Indigenous rights and treaties. That is a really important step.

I believe more is needed than simply an added phrase to the oath, which may be said once and then forgotten. We must be more fulsome and more creative in weaving the history of the Indigenous peoples of Canada into the first stages of arrival, settlement and citizenship ceremonies, so that our two fastest-growing populations do not stay in separate corners.

We also need, as Senator Anderson has pointed out, a new and more muscular citizenship guide, which we know the Minister of Immigration is working on. This new guide should have much more information on Indigenous peoples, their rights and their history so that newcomers can bring more understanding and more knowledge before they are sworn in as citizens. This will lead to more connections, more appreciation and, hopefully, shared action to right the wrongs of the past, the present and the future.

I also believe that learning about Canada’s Indigenous history should not start at citizenship time, which is normally anywhere between three or four years. The first time that I came face to face with the history of the First Peoples of Canada was when I took my citizenship exam in 1985, a full five years after my arrival. That was at a time when there were real life, in-person citizenship classes. Even then, it was a superficial engagement at best, and I believe that this truth is still prevalent today.

Citizenship time is far too late. The education should start when immigrants land in the language classes, and the settlement programs which stitch together integration. Integration itself must have a new definition, not just about economic and social inclusion, but about understanding and learning about history and about the horrific past in the residential schools. I believe that citizenship ceremonies themselves must become an opportunity, not to hear from the elites of Canada — which is what I think currently happens — but from residential school survivors. Nothing will bring this horror closer to immigrants than the horrors inflicted on the children of Indigenous peoples.

Finally, I believe we have a responsibility to be each other’s champions. We are all reconciliation actors. We are all integration actors. We need to do more. The health of our nation, the health of our communities and the health and welfare of Indigenous peoples depend on it. I welcome this change to the oath and look forward to its swift passage into law, but I believe we need to go beyond mere symbolism to real understanding, so that we can finally talk to each other, cook with each other, sing and dance with each other and tell each other our stories. Thank you.