award-winning media by on Canada Project

OCP founder Samanta Krishnapillai's acceptance speech, was given on on Dec 1, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario.

I want to say thank you to the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, and shout out all the fellow recipients! I also want to thank my parents and ancestors - for the values, resilience, and wisdom that allow me to be the person, writer, leader and activist that I am. I also think it’s important to note that I'm the daughter of two Tamil refugees (who fled their intentionally destabilized by colonial powers homeland). This means that every opportunity and privilege that I have here in Canada, comes at the unacceptable, unjust and inhumane cost of historic and ongoing colonization and colonial violence of the Indigenous peoples of this land.

In this room, I see dedicated, tireless advocates with several decades of work in advocacy, action and experience between us. We don’t all know each other, but we’ve been working on this project together — a project for a more equitable and fairer Canada.

Yet despite decades of work, what has been abundantly clear over the last few weeks is that we haven’t ‘solved’ or ‘fixed’ white supremacy and other systems of oppression yet - have we?

To be clear, that’s not a reflection of the combined work of the powerhouses in this room; it’s a reflection of the beast before us — and its tentacles that reach deep into our systems, structures, culture and norms.

Which is why despite founding On Canada Project in early 2020 as a temporary passion project, I chose to take this passion project and scale it into a social enterprise — part media arm, part consulting studio (Good Trouble Studios) and entirely focused on a pragmatic pursuit of collective liberation.

Over three short years, OCP has organically gone from 0 to nearly 200000 followers; we reach over a million Canadians every single month and have shared over 1,000 pieces of original content (completely free) that unpack complex issues inviting new people into the conversations about the future of our country.

A lot of people think I’m angry at Canada, and that’s why I write so much, but that’s not true; it’s not diss tracks I’m writing; it’s love letters.

I write because I love Canada and the people living in this country, and I’m also the eldest daughter of two Tamil refugees — which means I wasn’t raised to be satisfied with a C+ or B- grade on a project. I want an A+, and the truth is that Canada is too riddled with inequities to get an A+.

I write about it because making Canada worthy of an A+ isn’t an individual assignment — it’s a group project — and right now, only some of us in Canada are working on it when it should be all of us. What OCP does is create delicious invitations into the group project.

After all, everyone knows that group projects get the best marks when everyone contributes their unique superpowers and — this part's important — works together.

Today [Dec 1], Israel resumed bombing of the Gaza Strip, backed by the USA, with Canada – our Canada – as a bystander to that violence. The decisions of our morally bankrupt leaders are making all of us - even those of us fighting for a better Canada - complicit in the genocide of Palestinians.

I have spent a lot of time over the last two months reflecting on how I shouldn't be surprised that Canada's leaders are choosing to be complicit in (another) genocide. Because, in many ways, it was likely the only move for a country with tentacles of white supremacy, grounded in our own history of settler colonialism that has never been truly reconciled.

The ugly truth is if Canada was a country that ensured that the human rights of all people living within its colonial borders were upheld - in particular, Black and Indigenous peoples' - then we wouldn't be complicit in the Palestinian genocide. That Canada would have the moral fortitude to demand a ceasefire that protects human rights - taking a principled stance instead of a political one.

But there is a second crisis unfolding.

The one racialized people whisper about amongst each other. The one many of us have felt was an issue but are now truly seeing how painfully real it is.

The one where we see Canada — the Canada we love, call home, contribute to and have as much (or more) right to as white people — working as designed but not as promised against its own citizens.

I am talking about indisputable proof of white supremacy in our systems, with its tentacles of violence spread across sectors, industries and paygrades - which has resulted in the racist and discriminatory censoring, silencing, and punishing of anyone — but especially bipoc — who is daring to risk their livelihood to speak up in solidarity with Palestinians (in a stance that is in alignment with international human rights organizations).

Have you been censored? Tell Your Story Anonymously Here.

We are watching our politicians dehumanize Canadian citizens (acting like Palestinian-Canadians are terrorists just because they share the same cultural background? If those are the rules we’re playing with, then perhaps we should start with the KKK?)

We’re seeing and hearing of how media, schools, hospitals, nonprofits, corporations, and government -take bias and white supremacy stances, showing their true colours and creating unsafe environments for their BIPOC staff, students and community all in one go.

It’s abundantly clear that the “commitment to diversity” statements are lip service and that one DEI session after the murder of George Floyd wasn’t enough to fix white supremacy and its tentacles, as we are currently witnessing the most overt and cross-sector demonstration of white supremacy in the last 30 years.

So many BIPOC are being punished for speaking up, scaring the rest of us into silence.

After working twice as hard our whole lives to get a seat at the table, many of us realize that seat comes with the cost of us checking our truth, humanity and full selves at the door. It requires us to toe the company line or be shown the door (as demonstrated by Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles kicking Sarah Jama out of the NDP Caucus).

Even those of us who run our own businesses aren’t safe because the systems we operate in center white supremacy. Personally, I was doxxed and threatened; professionally, OCP has lost massive business and clients, throwing us into financial precarity, for taking a human rights stance on October 7.

And despite the financial precarity and stress it left us in if you ask me if I could go back, would I choose to speak up again? The answer is hell yes.

Because in addition to watching the first (of many) live-streamed genocides, we are seeing that the powerful in Canada do not believe in universal human rights. The consistent way in which the tentacles of white supremacy have shown up should terrify anyone who has been or is systemically oppressed, in particular, BIPOC, Trans, Women, Disabled, Queer, Migrant, Low Income, Working Class (Includes Middle Class) and others.

It is unacceptable that Canada, for all its celebration of diversity and multiculturalism, is a country where freedom of speech is not afforded to people of colour. Remember, if Canada can ignore a genocide of Palestinians and suppress/punish dissent once, then Canada can do that again, except next time it might be you and yours in trouble.

We can’t pretend this isn’t happening. We cannot ignore the violence of our systems. We can’t let these systems think this behaviour is okay. We need to recruit white and BIPOC allies (SocialGoodCrew.ca) to be in solidarity with us against white supremacy because this group project needs all hands on deck to complete.

As Audre Lorde says, without community, there is no liberation - so the solutions we need will not be found in our silos or status-quo ways of doing; instead, they will be found in the community.

So let me be abundantly clear: On Canada Project Inc. is committed to a pragmatic approach to collective liberation; if that aligns with you and your values - then we want to be in community, co-conspirators for a fairer and more just country and world.

We’re not just a social media account; we’re your bridge to the next generation. We are expert communicators and an untapped resource to amplify your programming, events and advocacy. We are your strategic partners in community building, strategic planning, and communication. Our superpower is community, communication and our unwavering commitment to human rights.

So invite us in, and let’s work on projects, proposals, and initiatives together because if the last two months have shown us anything, it’s that this is the most important group project of our lifetimes.

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