Canada prides itself

Canada prides itself on being a progressive, multicultural society that champions human rights and gender equality. Canadian law enshrines protections for women's rights, and the national discourse often emphasizes the importance of safety, equity, and justice for all genders.

It is crucial to acknowledge that laws have been used across cultures and time periods to justify oppression and violence. Slavery, apartheid, and segregation were all legally sanctioned for extended periods, despite being morally reprehensible. In Canada, residential schools, which sought to "assimilate" Indigenous children into white culture, were legally sanctioned until the late 20th century. These schools were part of a broader legal framework aimed at destroying Indigenous cultures and identities.

Until relatively recently, women in many countries were legally barred from voting, owning property, or participating fully in public life. This shows how laws, far from being objective or progressive tools, often reflect and reinforce the power structures of the time.

However, despite Canadas strong reputation, the country still struggles with violence against women, especially among Indigenous communities. The ongoing issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) has been a national scandal.

Gender-Based Violence

According to a 2021 report by Statistics Canada, 1 in 3 Canadian women experience some form of violence in their lifetime. While this is in line with global averages, Indigenous women face disproportionately higher rates, being 3 times more likely to experience violence than non-Indigenous women.

Many laws aimed at curbing gender-based violence are often more symbolic than effective. For example, while Canada has robust legal protections on paper, such as the Criminal Code provisions against sexual assault and domestic violence, enforcement is inconsistent. Victims of gender-based violence, especially in marginalized communities, often find that the law does little to protect them.

The Indian Act (1876) was designed specifically to control Indigenous populations by restricting their freedom, land rights, and cultural practices. However, the systemic approach to subjugation that this law represents reflects a broader colonial mindset that extends beyond Indigenous communities to any marginalized group, including Acadians and others.

The history of the Acadians is one of profound resilience, survival, and cultural endurance in the face of unimaginable adversity. The Great Expulsion (Le Grand Dérangement) in 1755, when British colonial authorities forcibly removed Acadians from their lands in present-day Nova Scotia, is often compared to other colonial atrocities, as it left Acadians with a brutal choice: flee or die. Many Acadians, like my ancestors, were forced into a life of exile, leading to the spread of Acadian culture across the Americas, from the Maritime provinces of Canada to the Louisiana bayous.

Many Acadians who were displaced to places like Louisiana fused their French Catholic heritage with African and Caribbean spiritual practices, which contributed to the development of Louisiana’s version of Voodoo. Those who survived the expulsion were scattered, but a significant number found refuge in places like Louisiana, where their descendants are now known as Cajuns. In Louisiana, Acadian refugees encountered enslaved Africans and Caribbean immigrants who practiced Vodou, an African diasporic religion with strong ties to spiritual traditions from West Africa. This cultural syncretism was a testament to the Acadian ability to adapt, survive, and preserve their identity in foreign and often hostile environments. But I am getting lost here. And lets lean into that:

No names, just whispers in the trees—they carry the weight of everyone who came before us, the ones who burned, who drowned, who loved too fiercely and were broken by it.

We walk among their shadows, bare feet on cold earth, breathing the same wind that once filled their lungs,
but we know nothing of their silence.

We offer our hearts to the fire, believing in love like the sun believes in the dawn—never questioning its return.
But the truth—the truth is buried in the roots, deep beneath the soil where no light reaches, where bones rest heavy, waiting to be forgotten.

They say the ancestors listen—but do they? Or do they weep for us, knowing we will never understand the cost of all this?

The sky knows nothing of the storm that breaks beneath it, and we, like the sky, know nothing of the grief that forms in our own blood.

You loved me once, or maybe I loved you— it doesn't matter anymore, does it?

All that’s left is the wind between us, moving without mercy, carrying away the words we never said, the hands we can never hold again.

The cost of love is everything—it takes and takes until you're empty, and still, you offer it, hoping that maybe this time, the ancestors will guide your hands through the darkness.

But there’s no guiding light, no soft voice from the trees.

Just the weight of survival—of waking up each day with less of yourself, until even your name is a ghost, floating in the same wind that took theirs.

So we kneel before the earth, press our hands to the ground, and beg for their forgiveness.

For the love we failed to hold, for the lives we couldn’t save, for the knowing that all we’ve ever truly owned is the space between breaths, the stillness before the fall.

The cost of survival is loss.

The cost of love is more. And when it finally leaves us, all that remains is the sound of the wind, calling us home.

Rural vs. Urban Divide: Gender-based violence is more prevalent in rural and northern regions, where law enforcement response times are slower, and services for women are limited.

Canada has enacted several laws to protect women, including the Criminal Code of Canada, which covers domestic violence, sexual assault, and harassment. In 2015, the Canadian Human Rights Act was updated to include protections against gender-based discrimination, and more recently, Canada has been focusing on addressing systemic inequalities faced by Indigenous women.

A 2020 report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls concluded that the violence against Indigenous women in Canada constitutes a "genocide" rooted in colonialism and systemic racism. The inquiry called for sweeping changes in the criminal justice system and public policy.

We offer flowers to the dead, but it is the energy of their memory that carries their souls. It is the river that cradles their grief, and the soil that drinks their tears long after the world forgets their faces. We have no words for love, because love has no sound—only the silence that comes when it slips away, unnoticed, leaving only the hollow it carved in our chest. What is love, but a fire fed by all we lose?

We burn for it, knowing the flames will leave us empty, but still we reach, hands blistered from holding too tightly.

And the ancestors—they watch, silent as stones.

They know the cost of survival, how it strips us bare, how it turns love into dust that settles on our skin, too fine to wipe away.

In the end, there is no knowing.

The wind calls our names, but we do not answer. We are already gone, walking among the ancestors, hands full of everything we’ve lost.