This reflection comes from Brittany Brander, Manager of Brand & Communications at the Business Council of Alberta and one of Forum Community Relations’ cultural agility coaching clients. To learn more about one-on-one or small group cultural agility coaching, please visit this page.
Whether it’s the simple retelling of the events of our weekend or the grand ideals we build as a nation, stories are how we make sense of the world, how we understand our past, and how we shape our future. In them, and through them, we find meaning, purpose, and value.
And the stories we tell—and the ones we do not—matter.
But who decides who has the right or power to choose which ones end up in our history books and which ones do not?
Since time immemorial, it has overwhelmingly been the “winners” who have held the power of the pen—the power to determine how history will unfold in the books and minds of our children and grandchildren and influence their view of the world.
The narratives we have constructed of Canadian history, economy, and society are centuries old. And we have folded these narratives into legislation and policy which have led to the systemic displacement, dispossession, and discrimination of Indigenous Peoples. This legislation still defines many aspects of the Indigenous experience today.
For years, these narratives shaped my own settler view of Canada, a view that I began to challenge when I started working for a museum that was critically challenging its own telling of Calgary’s history. During my time at this organization, I was given opportunities to look at history from another perspective, to understand on a deeper level the consequences of telling an incomplete story.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission and their 94 Calls to Action launched an important journey for Canada and for Canadians—to question and challenge the stories we are told about Indigenous Peoples and the DNA of Canada’s social, economic, and political fabric. And we are slowly and painfully deconstructing the harmful narratives that have kept the First Peoples of these lands from creating and participating in prosperity.
But we have a long way to go.
And by confronting and challenging the narratives we create and build, we can rewrite a centuries-old story and advance reconciliation.
The task is not easy. But we can do it. And we must. For our future.