More than just change in skin colour at helm of Canada’s Indigenous affairs policy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/07/2023 (864 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a long-expected and wide-ranging cabinet shuffle.

In one of his most surprising moves, Crown-Indigenous Relations minister Marc Miller was moved to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Scarborough-Rouge Park MP Gary Anandasangaree took over Miller’s portfolio in his first cabinet appointment.

With due respect to Minister of Indigenous Services Patty Hajdu and Minister of Northern Relations Dan Vandal — both of whom stayed put — Anandasangaree is now the face of Indigenous policy in Canada and handling one of the major portfolios that will determine Trudeau’s political legacy.

You’ve probably never heard of Anandasangaree. I hadn’t.

He’s a former real estate broker and human-rights lawyer who was elected to Parliament in 2015. He has been appointed parliamentary secretary several times in a few offices (most notably for Carolyn Bennett, former minister of Indigenous-Crown relations, from 2019-2021). He also served six years on the House Indigenous and northern affairs committee.

Anandasangaree is also a popular Liberal face in the greater Toronto area — a crucial battleground area Trudeau and the Liberals know they must win in any future federal election.

While Miller was popular in Indigenous circles, the appointment of Anandasangaree makes sense. While a bit of a political wild card as a cabinet rookie, he’s loyal, smart and could use exposure to maintain his electoral popularity.

I’m interested in Anandasangaree for a different reason, however.

I spent four months in 1997 and 1998 working as an agricultural researcher in Sri Lanka, where Anandasangaree was born and raised.

At the time, Sri Lanka was in the midst of a two-decade civil war in the northern part of the island between the ruling Sinhalese-dominated government and a revolutionary group called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (or the “Tamil Tigers”).

The conflict between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil populations in the country began after British imperial forces invaded and took over what they called “Ceylon” in the late 18th century.

Simply put, the British favoured the minority Tamil population — giving them jobs, wealth, and power — over the Sinhalese. After the British withdrew from the country in 1948 and it declared independence, many Sinhalese took control of the government and privileged their own peoples, cultures and languages while limiting (in some cases banning) and controlling parts of Tamil life.

This inspired the revolutionary, separatist movement eventually called the Tamil Tigers, which received financial and military backing from fellow Tamils in nearby India.

In July 1983, after a battle between Sinhalese soldiers and the Tigers, government-sponsored mobs of Sinhalese attacked and murdered thousands of Tamil citizens across the country while burning and looting their homes and businesses.

During what became known as “Black July,” many Tamils fled the country. Others joined the Tigers and, soon, there was a war.

Anandasangaree’s father is Veerasingham Anandasangaree, a famous Tamil politician forced to flee Sri Lanka after Black July. While not a Tiger — he famously condemned both Sinhalese and Tamil violence over the years — he returned to Sri Lanka in 1987 and advocated for peace between the two sides (winning a United Nations peace award in 2006).

His son also fled in 1983, immigrating to Canada and growing up in Toronto.

During my brief time as a researcher in Sri Lanka in the late ’90s, I witnessed a country in crisis. No matter where I went, from rural areas to the city, every part of the country was engaged emotionally and physically in the war (an example: there were no men on the farms I researched because all were forcibly enlisted in the army).

I had a front row to civil war every day I was there. I saw and heard anti-Tamil demonstrations and events. I found a Tamil boy being teased and abused by his Sinhalese classmates. I read state-operated newspapers spreading propaganda about the war. I spent time with many Tamils, most of whom lived in fear of when the next Black July might take place.

The war ended in 2009 when the Sinhalese government declared victory. Almost none of the issues that led to, maintained and continued the fighting for 26 years were solved, however. Many Tamil citizens in Sri Lanka continue to complain of violence from police, legal and educational oppression, and a country they feel wants to assimilate them.

Sound familiar?

For the first time, a person of colour is at the helm of Indigenous affairs in Canada. But Anandasangaree isn’t just that; he’s a person who has experienced colonialism first-hand and witnessed how it divides and destroys people and communities.

In his first ministerial speech to reporters, Anandasangaree said his experience as a Sri Lankan Tamil, displaced from his home, will be crucial to informing his work.

“What I bring here is that lived experience of what survival means, what going through oppression and colonialism means,” he announced.

Let’s hope he brings this — and not just party loyalty — to his new job.

niigaan.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca