Watch video: ‘Native’ Canadian woman blames Indians for throwing trash during Canada Day celebrations, says ‘you should be ashamed’
Canada Day is celebrated annually on July 1st, marking the anniversary of the 1867 Constitution Act that united Canada’s first provinces into a single country. The country livens up with tons of celebrations, with families and friends hosting parties and dinners to honour the day.Recently, a video from the Canada Day celebration in Calgary has gained immense traction on social media, igniting a debate online. In the clip, a woman who called herself ‘native’ confronted Indian volunteers distributing free food over littering at a public park.In the video posted on platforms including X and Facebook, a woman named Veronica Lee tells a Sikh man at the Prairie Winds Park that she came to the site to celebrate Canada Day with her daughters but was upset to see garbage scattered across the park. As the man said that “you share your land with us”, Lace replied saying, “We share our land. We don’t treat our land like this. All of you should be ashamed,” before asking the people, mostly Sikhs and South Asians, to “pick up some garbage”.Panning the camera towards the mounds of trash at the park, the woman argued that one should not wait for the event to conclude to clean up. “This is not how we treat Canada,” Lace said, requesting “everybody to bend over and pick up some garbage”.Visibly agitated over the sight, Lace then took a plastic bag from a food stall and began collecting garbage with her daughters. “My girls and I attended the free Canada Day BBQ at Prairie Winds Park today. I feel that you all should be advised of how this event was treating the land and we must be more vocal about this issue!!! Please share!!!” she wrote in a post on Facebook.
Social media reactions
Lace then took a plastic bag from a food stall and began collecting garbage with her daughters.
The clip quickly went viral online, with netizens calling out the organisers for their littering.“She is right, i am an indian, we indians need to behave with better civic sense” wrote a user.“We should have ICE in Canada too,” added another.“She is 100% right, as an immigrant it’s our responsibility to learn and protect Canadian culture,” a user wrote.“I feel like if they made a $1000 fine per piece of garbage people would stop littering. It worked in Singapore,” one suggested.
What truly happened?
The incident took place on July 1 during a Canada Day event organised by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Calgary at Prairie Winds Park. In a Facebook post on June 17, the community announced free BBQ and veg burgers for everyone at the park on July 1. On the day, the Guru Nanak Free Kitchen Calgary had also set up a stall to give away free ice cream. After the confrontation started doing rounds on social media, the non-profit clarified in a Facebook post that the “paper plates, napkins, cups, and other food service items shown in the video were not from GNFK”.The post added that it takes time to collect the garbage after such big events and that “volunteers from both Guru Nanak Free Kitchen and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community stayed behind after the event to help clean the park”.Eventually, the volunteers cleaned up the space, sharing photos of the same on Facebook. The organisers also claimed that Lace was right with her concern and invited her to their future events. Accepting the invite, Lace insisted that she had “nothing against the mission” and that “there is a better way to engage within the community.”“For everyone who assumed they wouldn’t clean up, they kept their word. As they said from the beginning, they cleaned up everything after the event. If you’d like to verify it yourself, check the Facebook page “Guru Nanak Free Kitchen Calgary.” They posted photos and videos showing the entire area cleaned up afterwards. Let’s judge people based on facts, not assumptions,” wrote a netizen.