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By: Lloyd Brown-John
Next Friday, June 21, Canadians shall be requested to have fun or acknowledge National Indigenous Peoples Day.
Originally referred to as National Aboriginal Day in 1996, it has been a day of each reflection and efforts at reconciliation ever since. It can also be a day whereby one may reflect upon the historical past of remedy and abuse of Indigenous peoples on this lovely nation of Canada.
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I do have household in British Columbia who’re of combined heritage, each Indigenous and non-Indigenous. Personally, I’m very proud that inside my prolonged household there are members who qualify proudly as Indigenous peoples.
However, this National Indigenous Peoples Day I’d like to honour the reminiscence of a former colleague in Canada’s international service and an individual, considerably like myself, who emerged and succeeded regardless of each restricted financial background and, in my colleague’s case, regardless of racial discrimination.
James Okay. Bartleman handed away in London, Ont., final August. For a short interval James and I crossed paths serving Canada in our diplomatic service. James caught with it and developed a distinguished profession.
I fled the international service and retreated to the cloistered world of making an attempt to educate on the University of Windsor. Bartleman would finally grow to be Ontario Lieutenant-Governor, from 2002 to 2007.
But earlier than that he was a proud member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation. He grew up impoverished in a shack close to the rubbish dump street in Port Carling within the Muskokas. He was a prolific creator and in his first e book in 2002 — ‘Out of Muskoka’ — he recounts not solely his world of youth however his expertise as a visual minority.
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Interspersed all through the e book are accounts of his experiences as a Canadian diplomat, together with a number of ambassadorships and a few incidents.
Among the latter was a horrible beating in his lodge room in Cape Town, South Africa. He had arrived as Canadian High Commissioner (equal to an envoy) to attend Nelson Mandela’s closing speech in South Africa’s legislature. He was robbed and crushed virtually to loss of life by a neighborhood thug.
Wishing to overlook South Africa and the trauma he endured (he by no means was ready to shake the reminiscence), he was provided the High Commissioner place in Australia by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
Thereafter, Bartleman turned particular international coverage advisor to Chrétien. He served in lots of international coverage roles, by no means forgetting, nevertheless, the difficulties of rising up poor and rising up as a mixed-race Canadian.
Earlier in life, he labored as groundskeeper for a rich American, Robert Clause of Pennsylvania who had a summer season dwelling on a Lake Muskoka island. The Clause household coated his prices to full highschool after which attend college in London, Ont.
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Bartleman then deliberate to educate however took a yr to wander Europe, working and surviving alongside the way in which.
Later, on a diplomatic posting to Brussels, he met Marie-Jeanne Rosillon. The couple married in 1975 and had three kids. Along the way in which and all through his profession, Bartleman by no means misplaced contact together with his First Nation roots.
As he famous: “I spent most of my life abroad, living in a time warp, stuck psychologically in post-war small-town Ontario, with discrimination and exclusion fresh in my memory, I had long since identified myself with the Indian rather than the white part of my being.”
Bartleman authored 9 books. In 2004 he launched the primary Lieutenant Governor’s Book Drive which collected 1.2 million good used books for First Nations faculties and Native Friendship Centres all through Ontario.
He obtained a National Aboriginal Achievement Award amongst different honorary levels and awards.
From my perspective, Bartleman was a most distinguished Canadian. He additionally was a most honourable individual regardless of so many early poverty handicaps and regardless of a world the place racism was — and stays — so prevalent.
Racists are with us at present, attacking mosques and synagogues. Indigenous Canadians are nonetheless endeavouring to make circumstances for his or her distinctive contributions to Canada.
It was a privilege to have recognized the Hon. James Okay. Bartleman, an individual for whom I had the best respect.
Lloyd Brown-John is a University of Windsor professor emeritus of political science and director of Canterbury ElderCollege. He might be reached at lbj@uwindsor.ca.
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