ABSTRACT

This article proposes that the understanding of Canada as a non-colonial power articulated by federal leaders representing Canada to the world is based on a myth. Foundational to contemporary understandings of the state, this myth is founded on a reproduction of a specific form of historical amnesia. When taken at face value, this myth-making both enables and promotes a false image of Canada, one which erases the persistent reinforcement of a domesticated settler colonialism. To begin deconstructing this myth we sketch out its parameters and permutations. In doing so we consider the implications of this myth promotion, and link this analysis to a specific framing of domestic sovereignty. Through this, we argue that this myth-making enables the continued dispossession of Indigenous nations by erasing the colonial relations of power through which their relationships with the state operate today. Drawing on the discourse articulated by the Harper government, recent emphasis on Nation-to-Nation relationships by the Trudeau government, and the work of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Inquiry, this analysis offers a window into how these national myths and imaginaries made and remake a settler coloniality.

摘要

本文提出，由代表加拿大向世界展示的联邦领导人将加拿大理解为非殖民主义强国的理解是基于一个神话。这个神话是当代对国家的理解的基础，其基础是对特定形式的历史性健忘症的复制。当从表面上看时，这种神话既造就了加拿大的虚假形象，又加剧了这种虚假形象，从而消除了对定居殖民者殖民主义的持续强化。为了解构这个神话，我们绘制了它的参数和排列。在这样做的过程中，我们考虑了这种神话传播的含义，并将这种分析与国内主权的特定框架联系起来。通过这个，我们认为，这种神话造就了土著民族的继续剥夺，其方式是消除了殖民权力关系，而今天，殖民权力关系通过它们与国家之间的关系来运作。借鉴哈珀政府表达的话语，特鲁多政府最近强调的民族与民族关系以及失踪和被谋杀的土著妇女和女童问题调查的工作，该分析为了解这些民族神话和假想提供了一个窗口并重新塑造了定居者的殖民地。