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Review: The Hoax

“We know ourselves only through stories,” writes Professor Daniel Heath Justice of the University of British Columbia. Canadians define themselves through stories of pipelines or Catholicism or the fisheries or our grandparents’ ethnicity. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter tells a poignant story of discovering his Cherokee roots through a 1976 bestseller The Education Of Little Tree by Forrest Carter, the biography of an Indigenous boy raised by Tennessee mountaineers.

“I read it every year,” writes Justice. “I suggested it to others. It told me a story that was so familiar; it became part of my story of self. But it wasn’t until I was an undergraduate that I learned the shattering truth.”

The Education Of Little Tree was a literary hoax. The author was Asa Carter, a Ku Klux Klan organizer and former speechwriter for Alabama Governor George Wallace who turned a quick buck with a false account of “simplistic, noble savages,” writes  Professor Justice.

“Many of the stories about Indigenous peoples are toxic,” he says, from the romantic German novels of Karl May to Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves and Disney’s Pocahontas. Faux Indigenous literature is so popular it’s corporatized, and as corrosive as depictions of Chinese culture in a Charlie Chan movie.

Why Indigenous  Literatures Matter examines popular culture. It is devastating. Professor Justice depicts it as an act of vandalism. “Without those ancestors, without their stories, there is nothing to carry forward,” he writes. “There is nothing to bring to future generations. Fortunately, our storykeepers are also our storytellers, and the possibilities for restory-ing those connections are limited only by our imaginations and the futures we envision.”

Even legitimate Indigenous literature is scrubbed to the point of misrepresentation, writes Justice. Mohawk poet Pauline Johnston in 2017 was shortlisted by the Bank of Canada for depiction on a banknote. Johnson’s nature poems were a staple of high school English courses for generations. Lesser known, the author notes, are the “scathing lines” of Johnson’s The Cattle Thief that tells of the hanging of an Indigenous man:

  • “You have cursed and called him a Cattle Thief, though you
  •    Robbed him first of bread –
  • Robbed him and robbed my people – look here at that shrunken
  •    face.
  • Starved with a hollow hunger, we owe to you and your race.”

Why Indigenous Literatures Matter is more than an eloquent protest. It is a damnation of the subtle propaganda that turned First Nations, Inuit and Métis into literary caricatures.

“Today’s Indigenous people in North America are the descendants of those who survived the colonizing apocalypse that started in 1492 and continues today,” writes Justice. “We are more than just ‘of descent’ from those initial survivors, however – we’re survivors, too, every one of us.”

By Holly Doan

Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, by Daniel Heath Justice; Wilfrid Laurier University Press; 260 pages; ISBN 9781-77112-1767; $19.99

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Deficit’s Near Breaking Point

Shocking levels of federal borrowing are pushing the nation to a point where “something is going to break,” Interim Budget Officer Jason Jacques yesterday warned the Commons government operations commitee. His remarks came hours after Jacques tabled documents indicating cabinet skipped this year’s deficit target by 62 percent: “That’s what is shocking.”

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Wasn’t My Job, Testifies CEO

It is not CMHC’s job to solve the housing crisis, the federal insurer’s $551,000-a year CEO yesterday told the Commons public accounts committee. Coleen Volk omitted all mention of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s earlier promise to ensure “everyone in Canada has a home they can afford” by 2030.

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Surprise Cuts Prompt Strike

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers last evening launched a national strike hours after cabinet abruptly announced sweeping cuts to mail delivery. Service cuts were similar to measures detailed in a 2013 Action Plan shelved by Liberals a decade ago: “We cannot accept this attack.”

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China Deal Called Double Hit

Taxpayers will take a double hit on federal financing for Chinese shipyard jobs, union executives yesterday told the Commons transport committee. Costs of the subsidized loan are on top of waivers of tariffs intended to protect Canadian jobs, they said: “If we are using taxpayers’ money to fund projects, surely to God we can put people to work.”

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Bill Names, Shames Scofflaws

Corporate tax delinquents would see their names and debts published on a federal website under a private bill introduced in the Commons by Conservative MP Adam Chambers (Simcoe North, Ont.). The Commons six years ago defeated a similar bill sponsored by a Liberal-appointed senator: “It is in the public interest.”

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Aid For Universities In China

Taxpayers have been billed hundreds of thousands for aid to universities in China, records show. The Department of Foreign Affairs would not detail Chinese grants that exceeded foreign aid paid to postsecondary schools in some of the world’s poorest countries: “The Chinese have always been looking for a respectful relationship.”

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Billable Hours Topped $21M

Lawyers with the Department of Justice charged more than $21 million in billable hours on civil litigation targeting the Freedom Convoy, records show. The charge to taxpayers was more than double the compensation paid to Ottawa businesses that claimed lost income as a result of the 2022 protest: “What are the total legal costs incurred to date?”

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Had To “Limit The Damage”

Cabinet aides in internal emails schemed to “limit the damage” from public disclosures that Canadian taxpayers financed Chinese shipyard jobs, records show. “Distance ourselves from this as much as possible,” wrote one aide as then-Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland denied personal knowledge of the $1 billion BC Ferries deal: “It is our attempt to make the best of the worst.”

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Program To Save 44 Lib Seats

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree yesterday launched cabinet’s long-delayed buy-back of “assault style” firearms under a national program he privately dismissed as a political ploy to save 44 Liberal seats in Québec. Opposition MPs demanded his resignation: “Why did you say it was about Québec?”

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Two-Day Meeting Cost $329K

The Department of Industry billed taxpayers nearly a third of a million to host a two-day conference of green technology companies seeking federal subsidies, records show. “Now is the time for ambitious climate action,” then-Minister François-Philippe Champagne said at the time.

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