By Benjamin Hoy
Little Bear’s Band as they await deportation to Canada in 1896
“Little Bear, Cree, Rocky Boy Reservation, Montana,” Montana University State-Northern, FM-1-134, Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains Digital Collection
Refugees create complicated political and social climates. Federal decisions to admit or reject individuals, families, and communities fleeing from hardships intertwine humanitarian concerns, political profiteering, immigration policy, domestic security, and racial perceptions into an often-ugly mess. Refugees force countries to consider their moral obligations to those less fortunate and to examine the possibility of their own complicity in the international crisis that sparked movement. As Calgary’s mayor Naheed Nenshi’s recent comments regarding the Syrian refugee crisis suggest, Canada’s treatment of refugees is a matter of national pride and identity. A country’s failure to live up to domestic and international expectations opens it up to disdain and derision at home and abroad.
Although much of the recent media frenzy surrounding immigration and refugees has focused on Canada’s obligation to reacquire or defend its reputation as a sanctuary for those fleeing violence, Canada’s historical relationship to movement under stress is quite a bit more complicated. There is no simple binary between countries that produce refugees, and those that care for them. Most countries, considered historically, are involved on both sides of the equation. The exodus of the Cree after the 1885 Rebellion offers a Canadian example. The Cree’s experience serves not only as a reminder of our uncomfortable past, but also reveals some of the limitations in the model we continue to use to conceive of refugees and our obligations to them. Continue reading
I never knew Harold Geddes, although I saw him now and then fifteen years ago when I first starting working at Mount Allison. Geddes died in 2004 after a long life that is now marked — literally — on the town of Sackville, New Brunswick. He was one of those characters that people in small towns love or wonder about, the kind of person who is described as quirky, eccentric, or weird depending on one’s perspective. He is best known for a singular (and long-standing) act: street cleaning, a point clearly made by the plaque that commemorates his life. In it, we see an aging but still vital man, hat tilted, who stares firmly, unapologetically, and directly at the observer. The effect is to present Geddes as a self-confident man who did not flinch from someone else’s gaze. To one side are the tools of his trade: a broom and shovel. The Geddes memorial is situated across the street from the Sackville, NB “art wall,” that commemorates better-known local and national figures, including the poet Douglas Lochhead. Exactly why Geddes became celebrated part of local history is telling. He represents, I want to suggest, an interesting alternative engagement with the past and what should be celebrated in it.