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| (creator not identified, found this on https://www.change.org/p/carolyn-bennett-o-canada-our-home-s-on-native-land) |
Sir,
You must deal with the truth of Canada’s nature and relationship with the First Peoples. From killing Old Growth forests to missing and murdered women, from residential "school” to prisons where too many of the First Peoples are confined, from poisoned drinking water to eroded territories, from the RCMP to the OPP, I've barely begun the list. The truth is that our entire economy and society was never paid for, and can't be paid for. Subjugation and eradication haven't done their evil job, the First People are still standing, asking for the partnerships we promised. We are no longer the brutal people who first peopled this land. We know better. Know better, do better.
We can't do land acknowledgments and then arrest land defenders. We can’t pollute drinking water and not provide drinking water. We can’t claim respect and absolve their murderers and abusers. Canada should be a land of integrity.
Two things you can do right now:
1) Call off the RCMP from Fairy Creek.
2) Find all the bodies of children murdered by the insane residential system, and do something about it.
Then, enact every recommendation from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report http://www.trc.ca/. Take every first and next step possible. And then the next. For as long as it takes.
Canada is amazing, but I can't feel proud of my country because of these failures. We need to get on with the hard work of building a partnership with our environment and our First Peoples so that seven generations from now, our descendants are still here.
Maybe in a few generations we can heal the wounds and build trust, but not until we start. The first step is to acknowledge a pattern of behaviour that is not working and is, ultimately, killing us. It's time to get healthier. Be honest, be clear. June is Indigenous History month. We can never fix the past, but there's plenty to do in the present.
