Reconciliation is not the city’s business

Vincent J. Curtis

11 July 21

RE: Hamilton Council doesn’t get it on reconciliation.  Hamilton Spectator editorial of 11 July 21.

Since when is it the city of Hamilton’s business to take any kind of position on “reconciliation?”  Indian affairs is a federal responsibility.  The city is a creature of the province of Ontario.  The responsibility of city council is to tend to the city’s business, not federal business.

I think it’s wonderful that aboriginal people choose to live in Hamilton, but if they find a statue to Canada’s first Prime Minister triggering, then maybe they should consider moving to Six Nations reserve.

In the vast sweep of Canadian history, the residential schools issue is small potatoes.  Yes, tragedy occurred in the misguided effort to school aboriginal children.  Tragedy is the lot of life in this world.  How many thousands of Canadians died at Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele,  Hill 70, on D-Day, at Kapelche Veer, the Scheldt Estuary, and liberating Holland?  We have to keep tragedies in perspective.

Canada faced two Riel Rebellions early in her history, in 1870 and 1885, but Canada undertook nothing like the slaughter that saw the settling of the American west.

Residential schools are a monument to what happens when distant bureaucrats who are concerned about their careers in Ottawa run a program intended to benefit people they don’t care about in distant regions.

We have no idea what “reconciliation” will look like, or what will make aboriginal people happy – other than the departure of the white man and western civilization.  These issues are for the federal government, not city council.

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