Indigenous Veterans’ Day

The Lakehead University Agora is featuring an exhibit to commemorate northwestern Ontario’s Indigenous veterans.

The Indigenous Veterans of Treaty #3 exhibit is open to the public for the rest of the week.

The exhibit’s launch coincides with Indigenous Veterans’ Day, which is observed separately from Remembrance Day.

“There’s a purpose behind that,” retired Lieutenant Colonel Darla Oja explains, “Making it on the tenth of November brings deeper understanding to, ‘hey, we missed this part of our history.’ Now we’re trying to correct it.”

Oja spent 31 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, including a tour of duty in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006.

In the ceremony at Lakehead to introduce the exhibit, Oja spoke to the long history of Indigenous military service in Canadian history.

In the time of the World Wars, thousands of Indigenous soldiers enlisted despite not being considered Canadian citizens and lacking many rights, including voting rights.

Indigenous soldiers who enlisted were often forced to give up their Indian Status, but were not granted Canadian citizenship in return, leaving them in legal limbo when they returned home from the war.

For decades, Indigenous veterans struggled to receive their veterans’ benefits.

In the ceremony, Oja outlined why Indigenous peoples volunteered to fight for a country that didn’t recognize them:

“For many Indigenous veterans, service meant not only fighting for freedom abroad, but also for recognition and equality at home.”

Gillian Balfour is Provost and Vice President, Academic for Lakehead University. She sees the display as an opportunity for the public to educate themselves on an oft-forgotten chapter of Canadian history.

“It’s so visual, and it’s so personal to see the names of the veterans and where they served, and where they died for this country,” she says.

“Let us remember that their service was not only about defending borders,” Oja said as she concluded her speech.

“They fought and continue to fight for a kind of freedom that reaches beyond the battlefield: a freedom that lives in classrooms, in communities, and in the choices we make to stand beside each other every day.”