The Canadian Museums Association wants government money to finance "indigenous-led reconciliation in the museum sector". ( Canadian Museums Association recommends 10 ways to decolonize heritage sector - Victoria Times Colonist )
The "museum sector" is one of the channels by which knowledge of History is delivered to the public. Indigenous groups want material artifacts now in museum collections to be returned to them, which sounds only reasonable (although which individuals actually own them isn't clear). Beyond material artifacts, however, they want "sovereignty" over material created about them, which includes accounts, photos and art produced by others. The proper owners of artistic and written works are their authors.
Material "created about" aboriginals includes accounts of Canadians' shared past -- the story of the whole nation, by the whole nation. It's hard to record the history of Canada without writing about aboriginal people ... and everybody else. To say that only one in-group "owns" a story is censorship, a silencing of the speech of others. (Can you imagine a decree saying that only white people can write about white people??)
History as a subject should be presented in museums, archives and textbooks by professional historians, not by ideologues with a political purpose. (Personal memoir and fictional-imaginative narratives might be by anybody of course, and are protected as free speech.)
The government money for the reconciliation which the Museums Association wants more of, is taxpayers' money. Taxpayers come from every ethnic background and ancestry.
Imagine legislation saying "only Canadians of European ancestry are allowed to write about other Canadians of European ancestry" -- how would that go over? Let's make sure the equity and inclusion principle so proudly adopted in other contexts, prevails also in the matter of Canadians writing about their society and each other. Someone can feel they "own" their own culture, but they don't own somebody else's words. That's what "right to free speech" and copyright means.
