Reflections on growing up Indigenous in Quebec
Posted June 21, 2021 5:55 pm.
Last Updated June 21, 2021 6:24 pm.
Montreal (CityNews) — On National Indigenous Peoples Day, two young people in Quebec reflect on what it means to be Indigenous in 2021, as many continue to push the province to acknowledge systemic racism.
Nicole Janice Qavavauq-Bibeau and Ocean Lewis are Indigenous youth living in Quebec, but both have different interpretations of what exactly that means.
On Indigenous identity
Qavavauq-Bibeau: “I was ashamed to be Inuk when I was younger, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m actually very proud today. I realized that I can be myself and I can be Indigenous.
“You can’t change who you are. You can’t put an apple seed in the soil and hope it turns into a lilac tree.”
On being Indigenous in Quebec
Lewis: “What it means to be Indigenous here is to really understand how much the system is against me.”
“The healthcare system doesn’t exactly appreciate us. Being in hospital a few times, not being taken seriously, or just being examined on the physical stuff, being neglected on my mental health treatment, since I do have diagnoses for mental health disorders. As well as the education, I find there is a serious lack of awareness on the history of this land.”
On Premier Legault’s refusal to adopt the term ‘systemic racism’
Qavavauq-Bibeau: “If you talk to an Indigenous person, they probably know someone who died of suicide, was murdered or they’re missing someone in their family. And it’s not a normal thing growing up.”
Lewis: “The premier of Quebec who actually denies that there’s systemic racism, I think that just is telling of denial of the issues that go on in Quebec, how the problems with the homeless population, the medical care, with education, it’s all because of that denial.”
On residential schools
Qavavauq-Bibeau: “When a ship goes missing or a plane goes missing, we’re going to no doubt look for the plane or the ship, we’re going to try to learn and see what happened and try to not reproduce the same thing. Why is it that when Indigenous people are involved, it becomes like a luxury instead of a necessity?”
Lewis: “Hopefully this sparks from settler allies from non-Indigenous people that we have all been lied to, that residential schools were a tool in genocide by the Canadian government and that there’s so many more that have yet to be talked about.”
