In this Interview, Kevin Annett talks about his new book “At the Mouth of a Cannon: Conquest and Cupidity on Canada’s West Coast”

We sat down to have a chat with Canadian author Kevin Annett about his new book “At the Mouth of a Cannon: Conquest and Cupidity on Canada’s West Coast,”  which takes on the topic of genocide in Canada. He opened up to us about why he is so passionate about this issue, what he hopes his work will ignite in readers, and his upcoming theater and film projects.

You have been involved in shedding light on genocide for a long while, why are you still so interested in it?

Genocide in my country is still at work. Native people are dying at the same rate as a century ago and continue to lose their lands and lives. To continue, these crimes require the active or the passive complicity of “mainstream” Canadians. Once my eyes were opened to the crime and our collusion in it, I was not able to look away or lose interest. My worldview and my life have been fundamentally changed by what I’ve learned and what I know now. Also, the “rabbit hole” keeps getting deeper. I am one of the few people in Canada who led the campaign to expose and prosecute these crimes and so I have an obligation to continue.

What would you like to see happen with this issue?

I would like to see the abolition of the causes of genocide in Canada, which is the colonial political system and the foreign corporate domination of our society. To do that we have to disestablish Canada as we know it and its “crown” legal system and create a genuine Republic, which can then sponsor a major war crimes trial to prosecute heads of church, state and corporations. Short of that the crimes will continue. But in the short term Canadians and the world need to know the truth of the crime and take responsibility for it. I don’t see that happening. There continues to be massive denial and resistance, even to examining the hard evidence I’ve gathered. (www.murderbydecree.com). We need to educate the next generation of children by getting the truth into the school curricula.

Have things improved for indigenous people in Canada?

No. Things in fact are continually worsening for most native people. I work on the ground in many native communities and the drug and child trafficking, poverty, sickness and suicide are all skyrocketing. But a small elite of educated, collaborating aboriginal politicians and professionals is being created and publicly displayed by the government and media as “proof” that things are getting better. The puppet native chiefs are like the “model ghettos” run by the Nazis to convince the world that genocide wasn’t going on under their rule. The native “leaders” are the ones leading the final extermination of Indians across Canada. I discuss that in my latest book “At the Mouth of a Cannon”.

When people are reading your book what do you hope they take away with them and do with the information?

I hope it changes their view of the world and prompts them to action. I hope they stop attending and funding the Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada, which committed and continue to conceal the massacre of over 60,000 residential, school children. I hope they help set up a new Republic in Canada and undo the whole legacy of genocide.

I hear you may have some other creative projects in the works? Can you let us in on them?

I have written several plays, both for the stage and radio, about how genocide has been normalized and institutionalized in Canada, and abroad. We hope to produce them in the new year. I am also working on a new documentary film, “Unrelenting”, which is a sequel to my award-winning film “Unrepentant”. I also have interest from some Hollywood writers for a feature film based on my life and work.