Aren’t we or our parents and grandparents and great grandparents complicit in electing and supporting the politicians who implemented and maintained the residential school system and the various policies and practices that disadvantaged First Nations people?
I know one of my grandma’s worked at a residential school for a time. My great grand parents farmed land that was taken from First Nations people. I work for a Government Department that is constantly losing in court because we’re failing to meet treaty obligations with various First Nations. My cousin’s family adopted several First Nations kids who I think were taken up as a part of the 60s scoop. I’ve worked with a couple of guys from the Okanagan Indian Band who was probably 20-30 years older than me and was crying as he spoke to me about the abuse he experienced in residential school.
Growing up, I was constantly hearing about the Treaty negotiations in BC and remember the creation of Nunavut and the lengthy rant by Pia Shandell(sp?) against it.
It’s not really the abstract past that some people in the US use to argue that nothing needs to be done now to make up for slavery.
But as Canada is functionally a representative democracy, isn’t the federal government in Ottaway effectively “you”?
You could argue that since Canada is really a monarchy, the party responsible is the Crown, but that would be a stretch considering the constraints placed on crown power for most of Canada’s history.
But shifting back to the article that started this tangent…sloughing responsibility off on the sovereign doesn’t work in much of the US because the states have sovereignty (although some of the lands taken in Ohio were taken by the British crown).
BTW, for context, keep in mind that it was the land of some of my ancestors that was taken by threat of force in what is now Ohio.
In case you were wondering what’s in the Trump Store in Gatlinburg, one YouTuber, an American expat who’s been living in London for over a decade, dropped in during a recent visit back to the States.
