« Settler colonialism as crime fiction: Cyanne So-lo-li Topaum, ‘Violence and Vigilantism in Native American Crime Fiction: Settler Criminality in the Novels of LaFavor, Rendon, and Boulley’, Crime Fiction Studies, 6, 1, 2025
Settler structures and their resilient organisation: Sandiso Bazana, ‘Revisiting the Marikana massacre through anti-blackness: An Afropessimism perspective’, Organization, 32, 2, pp. 247-275 »

Canada Day, settler night: Daisy Raphael, Christine Funk, ‘Reconciling Canada Day? Canada Day Cancellation Statements in 2021’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 2025

24Feb25

Abstract: This article examines statements issued by municipal governments, local organizations, and Indigenous communities that cancelled Canada Day celebrations in 2021, following news confirming physical evidence of unmarked graves at former residential schools. We argue that the statements reflect political logics of the past, present, and future, including dominant national narratives of liberal multiculturalism, residual logics of white nationalism, and emergent, transformative projects of Indigenous-defined reconciliation and resurgence. Through dominant narratives, the policy of cancelling Canada Day is presented as an expression of Canadian values, while settler-colonialism is obscured. Meanwhile, the residual white nationalism of the post-Confederation movement surfaces as statements tend to speak to an imagined normative Canadian subject who—only temporarily—suspends their celebration of the nation-state. Finally, the statements evidence emergent political forces, including Indigenous articulations of transformative reconciliation, resistance to settler-colonialism, and expressions of sovereignty, which signal the potential for major shifts in practices of national celebration in Canada.


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