So Mark is a bluenose 
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Proof to me that there is a one true god,
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Today is National Day for Truth & Reconciliation. (I gathered that’s the title of the topic referred to when a thread was started for Canada.)
Background (from wiki): A Canadian day of memorial to recognize the atrocities and multi-generational effects of the Canadian Indian residential school system. It’s an attempt to forcefully assimilate Indigenous communities, a cultural genocide.
The residential school system was created as a civilizing mission to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Euro-Canadian culture.
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I read other books on how our government, be it Conservatives and Liberals, still mistreating the Indigenous communities. We are still learning way too slowly.
I have never quite figured out how Sir John A MacDonald got to be the poster child for how bad it was. The policy began under his administration, but there were at most 30 schools with about 1400 students total in his last year as PM. His name has been removed from various public places.
That population doubled under Sir Wilfrid Laurier, yet there is a university, multiple streets (including one in Ottawa), and no one has ever taken a statue of him down. It peaked under Mackenzie King at 17000, yet his statue is still everywhere. The Sixties Scoop began under a Liberal, continued through Diefenbaker’s time, and continued right on under the next Liberal.
It is just bewildering that the political party that was so successful in the 20C that it happily adopted the moniker ‘the Natural Party of Government’ somehow has managed to hang responsibility on the Conservatives, when it really reached industrial scale under Liberals.
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I just don’t understand how Canada is the one at fault, like the colonialists who built this country were the only ones. It was (and still is, in some places) the culture of the time for the conquerers of lands to treat those who inhabited said lands with disdain.
This is still happening all over Africa, pick a spot, colonialism destroyed nations. Bourdain made entire shows highlighting this culture by the French, Dutch, English etc.
It’s happening in the middle East with their class structure and labor force. Qatari’s didn’t build their World Cup venues, 6000 people from other areas died building it.
It’s happening in Ukraine right now.
It happened in Afghanistan
It happened in Central America
It happened in South America
It happened in America (and still happening right now, ICE squads are killing “immigrants” whose ancestors lived there 1000 years ago)
It happened in Australia (anyone ever watched Rabbit Proof Fence?)
$5,000,000,000 settlement was paid out 20 years ago by the Canadian government and that isn’t paid by those who ran the institutions. It’s still being paid by those who live here now. And its become an old, tired narrative that needs to be moved on from.
They have their treaties, their lands and their “ceremonial rights” which allow them carte blanche when it comes to hunting/fishing commercially. They don’t pay taxes to support the infrastructure for the country in which they live. They don’t actually care for the lands they claim to be the stewards for, I have seen first-hand their piles of garbage and waste left out in the open. Their commerical forestry clearcuts and the giant piles of fishing by-catch dumped on the sides of the rivers and roads after their gillnets have stripped the rivers clean.
Time to close the books on this and move on
In fairness, if he’s been supporting since 1989 (tepidly I’m sure) that’s better than the likes of David West Villa Ham Cameron or Phoney Blair supporting Newcastle.
I was doing research about 4 months ago and was amazed that the last school in the late 90’s, I was always under the impression that this ended multiple decades ago.
I also did some research into the residential schools in USA (Under a different name, but the same goal), and was astounded that these schools were closed a couple of decades before the Canadian, and they also did something that I found quite interesting. A few of the schools were kept open (I assume to take ownership rather than sweep under the rug), and these schools were taken over by local tribes.
If I was an outsider looking in, I would have assume that Canada (seen as more compassionate than USA) would have taken care of this way before the USA.
A lot has been written about the atrocities, quite rightly, however it’s often overlooked that there were staff (in the extreme minority) that showed kindness and tried to help students wherever they could (This is verifiable through residential school survivors).
When in Rome do as the Romans?
I hope they have to pay tariffs on the fine.
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I am disappointed they did not show his ‘I am just doing this to pay the rent’ campaign sign.
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