Today, The Conversation Canada is launching our first newsletter dedicated to issues around critical race. Every couple of weeks, we’ll bring you a round-up of some of the latest race-related stories from our global network.

This week, July 1 marked Canada Day. Every year, politicians extol the welcoming and multicultural values of Canada, highlighting it as a country that welcomes people of all backgrounds, and one that is working to overcome its colonial past. While Canada Day provides a chance to relax and celebrate, it’s also an opportunity to reflect on colonialism in Canada, and how it is still impacting Indigenous Peoples.

Crystal Gail Fraser from the University of Alberta has written about residential school denialism. It’s the troubling trend of people who reject the horrible facts of these Canadian institutions. Fraser says a lack of education leaves people susceptible to believing denialist claims. She says, “the best way to counter denialism is to support Indigenous Peoples in this difficult and ongoing journey.”

Some other stories from our network to check out:

• Looking to learn about Indigenous history? Indigenous scholars from the University of Winnipeg, University of Toronto and McMaster University highlight Shekon Neechie, a website that recentres Indigenous perspectives.
• Trevon Logan from Ohio State University explains how American slavery wasn’t just a white man’s business − white women profited, too.
• Alana Dillette from San Diego State University and Stefanie Benjamin from the University of Tennessee write about how Black travelers want authentic engagement, not checkboxes.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll also highlight some episodes from our critical race podcast Don’t Call Me Resilient. In today’s featured episode, host Vinita Srivastava talks to Min Sook Lee, a filmmaker and associate professor at OCAD University, about Canada’s temporary foreign worker program. Lee highlights the harsh conditions often faced by many migrant workers and shatters any remaining myths about “Canada the Good.”

“The fear of being sent home is a constant running fear for many workers because that’s the reality of Canada’s migrant worker program,” Lee says. “It’s designed to keep workers in line with a strict control that is exercised by employers.”

Also today:

• Why Canada must act urgently to give undocumented migrants legal status
• Drug prohibition is fuelling the overdose crisis: Regulating drugs is the way out
• Churches don’t pay taxes. Should they?
• Nanoscopic motor proteins in the brain build the physical structures of memory
• Our clothes generate microplastics that pollute the St. Lawrence River and other bodies of water

All the best.