Canadian Politics Today

I think it’s worse than that…. You’re white-washing how the country was founded, and stolen, from natives who were seen as subhuman.

It’s not as simple as saying that the founding of Canada was great but he also did bad things.

The founding of Canada was done in a terrible and atrocious manner.  Until Canadians can reconcile that fact, I think good relations with indigenous communities will likely not be possible.

Confederation was done primarily as a security pact between a bunch of the colonies at the time to fend off the manifest destiny of the US, who at the time had a massive standing army in the north and nothing do with it following the end of the US civil war a couple of years prior, and only decades prior annexed Texas etc from Mexico via warfare.  The US bought Alaska from Russia in 1867...coincidence?  Macdonald and co. saved much of Canada, including natives, from US invasion.  Yes we should consider that an achievement.

You're also simplifying how Canada was colonized.  Parts of it were stolen, parts of it were treatied away, the vast majority of it never had a native step foot on it because pre-Columbus they traveled by waterway and never had horses to explore inland.  Given the competitive nature of European empires at the time who were scrambling against each other for wealth and land power because they were scared to death due to being constantly at war with each other, colonization of Canada was inevitable in some form or another.  If not by France and Britain, then Russia, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Japan, or China etc.

This isn't any different than many of the different native groups themselves pre-Columbus who formed alliances with each other and were constantly at war with each other, raping and pillaging and stealing each other's land and some (Aztecs, Incas) forming their own empires.

Hundreds of years ago it was a war of all against all for survival.  The powerful took from the weak.  Many, many horrible things happened.

I think to heal everybody needs to acknowledge and accept what happened, bad and good and everything between, give everyone what they need to thrive, be it land or money or infrastructure or rights, or whatever, and move forward together.