Mi'kmaw advocate, leader and elder Calvin White to receive Order of Canada
White has spent 50 years fighting for Indigenous recognition in N.L.
One of the leaders in the fight to create the Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation is receiving one of the country's highest honours Friday, as elder Calvin White of Flat Bay is appointed to the Order of Canada.
White has spent 50 years advocating for Indigenous recognition and rights in Newfoundland and Labrador, along the way helping organize the Federation of Newfoundland Indians, the Bay St. George Mi'kmaq Cultural Revival Committee, and establishing Qalipu.
His Order of Canada citation credits his "steadfast conviction and determination" in leading the legal fight of the latter, and notes as "an elder and cultural mentor to his community and to Mi'kmaq across the province, he strives to preserve and celebrate their unique identity."
But White himself sees the honour as less a personal one, and more about the cause so close to his heart.
"I look at it as a sanctioning of the work that took place. While I'm the recipient, it's the cause that's actually being celebrated and recognized. solidifying the fact that it's a reality, that there was Aboriginal people in Newfoundland in 1949 when we joined Confederation, and due justice hadn't been done," he told CBC in the hours before the ceremony.
"It's a struggle that needed to take place, and will need to continue, because all of the wrongs have not yet been corrected."
'I would do it all over again'
White, a former chief of the Flat Bay band, is the first member of the Qalipu First Nation to be inducted into the Order of Canada, at a ceremony in Ottawa on Friday.
The band itself is Canada's newest to be federally recognized, established in 2011 amid a fraught enrolment process that still drags on today.
"I am saddened about the end result. The end result is not what we started out for," said White, adding another tinge of sadness is the length of time it took to be recognized, with some of his fellow first advocates not living long enough to see the end result.
However, White has no regrets or hesitations about his life's work.
"I would do it all over again. Because I believed in what I was doing, and still believe in it today. It was an opportunity to correct a wrong," he said.
White joins a short list of other Indigenous leaders and advocates from Newfoundland and Labrador in the Order of Canada; others include Chief Mi'sel Joe of the Miawpukek First Nation, and Inuit artist Michael Massie.
Last year, White was inducted into the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador.
With files from Newfoundland Morning