Parks Canada calls national parks a “colonial injustice”
Critics say Canadians have every reason to be proud of them.
Author: Alex Dhaliwal
Parks Canada is facing criticism after an internal report described national parks as a “colonial injustice,” with critics arguing Canadians should instead be proud of them.
“For millennia Indigenous people have cultivated reciprocal relationships with land, water and ice guided by cultural practices, values and knowledge systems,” said the report Evaluation Of The Indigenous Guardians Initiative Internal Review.
The 2024 Parks Canada document says national parks displaced Indigenous people and barred them from traditional lands. It was quietly released Jun. 22, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
Management admitted to withholding the unsigned report for two years. Parks Canada did not respond to a Juno News request for comment.
The controversial document says the creation of Banff National Park in 1887 barred the Stoney Nakoda from using their traditional lands, causing “historic and ongoing harm” and eroding Indigenous systems.
The agency, founded as the Dominion Parks Branch in 1911, now acknowledges its “harmful historical legacy” and its impact on Indigenous language, culture, laws and governance.
The report outlined $61.7 million over four years for up to 34 Indigenous-led park programs, including a Tsuut’ina bison harvest in Banff.
This is not the first time Parks Canada has criticized Canada’s founding history.
Released emails show Parks Canada staff privately questioned claims of 215 “probable unmarked graves” at Kamloops, later concluding the wording was inaccurate.
A 2019 cabinet framework directed federal commemorations to address the legacies of “colonialism, patriarchy and racism” across Canada.
“Nothing can be immune from review,” a Parks Canada agency, the National Historic Sites and Monuments Board, wrote in a 2019 report Careful Review Of Existing Designations. “Every designation can be re-evaluated.”
One example includes the 2024 rewrite of the Green Gables Heritage Place management plan, which called for greater representation of Acadian, Black, Indigenous and other communities at the former home of novelist Lucy Maud Montgomery, a red-haired orphan.
The agency also revised the Motherwell Homestead plan to highlight Prairie “inequities,” including the mistreatment of Indigenous people.
A True North exclusive previously revealed Parks Canada sought to “decolonize” Bellevue House with tours framing Sir John A. Macdonald’s home around racism, sexism and colonial guilt.
Conservative heritage critic Rachael Thomas called the designation “insane” in a post on X Thursday.
“Instead of celebrating Canada’s natural beauty and history, Parks Canada is reviewing heritage sites through an ideological lens,” Thomas said, adding that Canadians are “proud” of the country’s national parks and historic sites.
“They should be protected, preserved, and celebrated, not treated as something to be ashamed of.”