This First Person article is the experience of Andrea Landry, who resides on Treaty Six Territory on Poundmaker Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
I was 13 when my mom taught me an important lesson: I am not Canadian — I am Anishinaabe, and it’s the reason I will not participate in a colonial political system or vote in this year’s federal election.
We were sitting on the crowded bleachers of my school gymnasium when silence fell and a familiar song followed.
“Oh Canada…” – voices began to sing along – “our home and native land….”
I stood up with my peers when I felt a tug on my sleeve.
“Sit down,” my mom said.
I looked down at her — the only person not standing in the whole gymnasium.
“What are you doing?” I bent over and whispered, through clenched teeth.
“We aren’t Canadian!” She said it loudly so everyone in our vicinity could hear her. “We are Anishinaabe. We don’t stand for a song that isn’t ours.”
Some of the people stared at us as the song continued.
I sat down, rubbing the fabric on my jeans to avoid eye contact with those around us, especially the kids who bullied me for being brown.
My mom bumped her elbow against me. I looked at her, my face and body still feeling hot with shame. Her smile washed it away and she began laughing.
“Your mom’s a warrior,” she whispered.
“Me too,” I said gently as I took her hand, and felt pride.
“We stand on guard for thee…”
I smiled and sat up tall, making eye contact with anyone who was looking our way.
‘I am Anishinaabe,’ I thought, proudly.
My mother reminded me often that I was Anishinaabe as I grew up.
“They will try to make you feel less than, but we have to stand in our power,” she said, nodding her head at me, and smiling. “We don’t need to vote in Canadian elections if we aren’t Canadian.”
I’d repeat my truth in classrooms to high school teachers, writing out the facts of Canada’s genocidal past in history papers, often receiving low marks.
As I grew older, I became louder in who I was and my nationhood, following in the steps of my family members and many of those from my home community of Pays Plat First Nation, in what is known as Ontario.
In university classrooms, political meetings with Members of Parliament, and even in meeting former Prime Minister Stephen Harper in my early 20s, I always positioned myself by my nation, first and foremost.
It didn’t mean that it made political meetings or conversations easy. In fact, it made it more challenging. Standing firm in my sovereignty as an Anishinaabe young person at the time meant being sure and steadfast in not complying to colonial systems, even as people constantly told me things like: “You are going to do great things for your people. You should aim to be the next prime minister!”
That was the last thing I wanted in life. I simply was striving for basic human rights for my people. I was advocating for rights like clean drinking water, proper social solutions for suicide epidemics and community-based programming that nurtured kinship-based living.
I was striving to continue to assert my sovereignty as an Indigenous person and advocating for spaces to thrive, rather than survive. And I wasn’t afraid to state it.
Then came the barrage of questions.
“If you’re not Canadian, do you pay taxes?”
“Do you have a Canadian passport?”
“Why do you pay taxes and take services from a federal government if you believe in Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty?”
Sometimes people were just curious about the answers. Others showed through their frowns and scowls that they simply wanted to undermine and criticize many Indigenous people’s stance about who we are and where we come from.
I only pay taxes if my work takes place off-reserve, as on-reserve work is tax-free for our people, under treaty agreements. I have a Canadian passport, because it is the only passport that Canada has allowed to be used on these lands. I vote, but only in my band elections back home.
Lastly, living on reserve, the services from paying taxes from the federal government like paved roads, bridges, and even emergency services are dismal. Every other benefit or service I use exists for my people due to treaty. Education for my children is due to the power of the pen under treaty; access to health care is due to the medicine chest clause under treaty; housing is due to treaty and land is due to treaty.
Does this mean that I am any less sovereign because I live under the rules and confines of the Canadian taxation policies and the Indian Act? I would argue no.
Read more from our CBC First Person election series here:
When treaties were signed between the Crown and Indigenous peoples, we as Indigenous peoples granted the Crown permission to govern its own people — not us. Indigenous peoples, and our sovereign nations were — and are — the ones who gave that permission for “Canada” to be what it is today.
The only reason why non-Indigenous peoples live on these lands today, is because Indigenous peoples allowed them to with the signing of treaties.
That’s why I believe that we as Indigenous peoples of our own sovereign nations do not need to become members within another nation’s political system. Other Indigenous people may choose to vote, and I don’t attempt to change their minds, as everyone is entitled to their own principles. However when the future generations ask, I will be confident in telling them that I never gave in to colonial attempts of assimilation through voting.
My late mom was right.
“They want us to be Canadian so they can continue to take our land and our rights. But we won’t let them,” she told me the last few years of her life. “Canada will continue to try to oppress us, but look at us.”
My mother would call me after my meetings with political leaders in Canada, crying with pride. I held signs with her on highways for protests against Canadian legislation and bills that attempted to undermine our rights, our sovereignty, our nationhood and our lands.
She held my hand in the bitter cold as drivers either honked in support of us or yelled foul words as they passed by.
In my late 20s, I held her hand as she took her last breaths. From that point on, her words remained so deeply instilled in me as a lesson I pass on to my own daughters: “You are not Canadian. You are Anishinaabe.”
What’s the one issue that matters the most to you in this federal election? CBC News will publish a range of perspectives from voters who share the personal experience shaping their choice at the ballot box. Read more First Person columns related to the election here.
