Canada Day should be celebrated
By Letter to the Editor on June 24, 2021.
Editor:
These days it is difficult to not hear via the media about the transgressions committed against the Indigenous people, in particular the Indigenous children. Residential schools began in 1883 up until the 1970’s and 80’s when the schools began closing down or changing to local control. The last residential school closed in the 1990’s. It is reported that the parents of these children couldn’t go to schools and that when the children did come home, they didn’t talk about their treatment until the schools closed down. This is very sad and should not have happened, but it did.
It is also reported that the governments of the day considered the indigenous people second-class and wanted to make them (through the children) more like the white man.
This sounds like the government was exhibiting an unconscious bias which is my understanding that all people exhibit in some form. (Implicit biases are unconscious attitudes and stereotypes that can manifest in the criminal justice system, workplace, school setting, and in the healthcare system).
There have been other races of people that have been subjected to unwarranted treatment by the Canadian government especially during World War Two.
Some 21,000 Japanese people who were living in British Columbia prior to the declaration of war had their land taken from them and they were put in concentration camps. And if that was not bad enough, they never got their land back after the war ended.
Canada has a storied past, that is for sure, but it is not as bad as what was done to the Jewish people in Germany by the Nazis or in other nations around the world.
Fast forward to 2021, we in Canada are now hearing that Canada Day should be cancelled due to the finding of 215 graves of indigenous children in B.C. While I sympathize with the parents and loved ones of those children, I cannot see how canceling Canada Day is going to make the past any better. Many thousands of Canadian soldiers, of which several hundred were indigenous fought and died fighting the Nazis during World War Two. They sacrificed their lives so that we could forever live a life in Canada free of tyranny, which is what it would have been if the Nazis were successful in overtaking our country.
We must not forget their sacrifices even during times such as we are experiencing lately.
Canada Day is a day that we all should celebrate our freedom just as we do on Remembrance Day, November 11th.
Kent Perry
Lethbridge
-1
curious how the issues (yes, plural) of genocide always revert to a sole comparison to jewish genocide, and almost never to the numerous other genocides. moreover, almost always a failure to acknowledge the genocides happening right now, in real time, such as that being perpetrated on the uyghurs by the chinese state (and here we are, buying chinese stuff and woefully dependent on them for the brunt of our junk), and the rohingyas at the hands of the myanmar state. perhaps it is because of the movies and the media, which pretty much has a sole, primary focus on this ugliness.
here is a list of much of the ugliness, that never seems to get old…it just keeps on growing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll
then, there is the genocide in the ukraine, not so long ago, really, with the final tally still to be determined.
“A recent estimate cites 4-5 million; 7 million remains the consensus. Everyone agrees that at the height of the famine-genocide close to 30,000 Ukrainians were dying every day.” https://ukrainegenocide.com/history/
so long as canada does business with massive human rights violators, and those committing genocide – what are we pretending to celebrate. so long as canadians cannot come to acknowledge how we are, and have been, bad actors ourselves and in bed with the perpetrators of the worst crimes imaginable: exactly what are we celebrating, or pretending to celebrate? all the references to fighting for freedom, and fighting the nazis…all that sacrifice and slaughter and misery…what does it mean if we are in bed with what truly amounts to various versions of nazism, only by another name? sure, we need a party, especially after being shut down for so long. and i suppose we can call it canada day, too, which is much a fairy tale, and we can all drink and smile and forget, as we wave our little canada day flags…made in china.
governments are still doing it subtle to all f us, not o;ny the indiginous
exactly…and most choose to buy in, just so long as they have theirs.
the sick part of it here, is that people that have no direct experience with residential schools all have their expert opinions and understanding on the matter; people that have not been stepped down on all their lives all know better than those being stepped down upon…must be because they are the superior race and know what is best for all others.
So just because it’s not as bad as other countries we should brush it off. This is a black mark for Canada as our government had a direct hand in what happened. Investigations have to happen and blame assigned where it belongs. This cloud is hanging over us this Canada Day and to say different is irreponsible. Celebrate Canada Day as I am sure you are but take a minute to remember what has happened and learn from it.
I say we toss Canada Day on the “Woke” pile!
If Canada is so bad… tell us how many Canadians are emigrating to the US or Norway or Switzerland?!