Debunking the Myth of Canada as a Non-Colonial Power

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.