Telling the Stories
By Ishmael Van Der Rassel
Telling the stories that have been siloed: Hon Jody Wilson Raybould releases her new book Reconciling History.
On November 16th, Canadian Indigenous author and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Jody Wilson-Raybould launched her new book called Reconciling History at the Rotman School of Management. This the fourth book written by Jody following the series of her books – From Where I Stand: Rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a Stronger Canada, Indian in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power and True Reconciliation: How to be a Force for Change.
Reconciling History focuses on telling the history of Canada, and particularly the relationship between Canada, Indigenous People and Non-Indigenous People. The book shares about the reality that the stories of Indigenous people that have been shared in a traditional manner have not been a common or shared enterprise nor told truthfully due to colonization and misinformation.
Also, Reconciling History talks about how the history of Indigenous people have been excluded and siloed by colonial governments and haven’t fully included Indigenous people who are the real knowledge keepers. As Indigenous people make up most of our country, the experiences, voices and history of Indigenous communities have been far too often dominated by colonial policies of government and non-indigenous voices.
In November 2023, the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould came to Canadore College to do a talk about her third book called “True Reconciliation: How to be a Force for Change” and Jody spent time sharing her perspective with everyone how we can be real allies for True Reconciliation and Indigenous people. True Reconciliation focuses on how to break down silos between Indigenous people and non-indigenous people that has created barriers to making meaningful change. Also, bringing everyone together to achieve transformation change for Indigenous people and doing the “Inbetweener” work, where someone is trying to learn from and understand others and then act in new ways to eliminate divisions between people.
Jody talks about how wearing orange t-shirt day, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and lowering flags are more performative reconciliation efforts by governments. Instead, she mentions that the inbetweeners can unite people, help Indigenous people rewrite Canada’s history, help Indigenous communities move forward and ending the cycle of Indigenous people feeling that they are invisible and that their contributions are overlooked or devalued.