How Do We
Learn To
Live Together?

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I Used To Believe

The partial disinformation echoed in classes. They were educated statements, well meaning statements, and they weren’t fully untrue but they weren’t the full truth. I had learned mostly about the past. We should repent for the past, I was told, and I believed that once apologies were made, reconciliation would somehow be complete. I accepted the narrative. The narrative that Canada had acknowledged its wrongdoings and had moved on, that the story was over.
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I USED TO BELIEVE

I USED TO BELIEVE

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Questions

As we moved through Indigenous literature, testimony, and analysis, I began to see the current reality, not just the past trauma. I learned that many Indigenous communities in Canada, including ones in Ontario just hours away, still don’t have access to clean drinking water. It shocked me. I had assumed these injustices were ancient history—mishaps that ended decades ago, under policies I had thought changed but are still affecting Indigenous communities to this very day.

Docufilms like “Water Walkers” about amazing people like Autumn Peltier, and the hundreds of stories following the principles of UNDRIP, taught me that there are still people suffering.

People who have to boil their water, people whose boiled water they can’t drink, people without homes, people without beds... people close to me suffering injustices I had believed only existed elsewhere. I had sat here donating to other causes, when one of the biggest was practically my neighbor.

THE INDIGENOUS OF CANADA NEED WATER

Narratives

Storytelling played a huge role in reshaping my perspective. Through Indigenous authors and storytellers, I encountered narratives that centered Indigenous voices, not as victims, but as people with knowledge, resilience, and visions for the future. People like Daniel Heath Justice, with beautiful literature to ask the important questions. People like Chippewar, with art that brings to light the injustices of the world. People like Alootook Ipellie, whose poetry talks about the things they need that we have failed to give.

A New Foundation

Now, I believe that learning to live together means refusing to see reconciliation as a box we check off.

It means confronting the structures that continue to harm Indigenous peoples and recognizing our role in challenging those systems.

It also means centering Indigenous knowledge, listening to Indigenous leadership, and understanding that “living together” doesn’t mean assimilation.

It means coexistence with respect, equity, and justice.

In the end, I’ve come to see that the question is not a rhetorical one. It’s a challenge—a moral, political, and deeply personal one. And my answer is still in progress, because living together is not a destination.

It’s a lifelong commitment.