Enough apologizing

There's too much ignorance and romantic thinking in Canada about aboriginals.

Vincent J. Curtis

5 Aug 22

RE: Government must apologize too.  Op-ed by Craig Wallace The Hamilton Spectator 5 Aug 22.

There is a cure for ignorance; it’s called learning.  One learns by reading and listening.  I commend reading to Craig Wallace because there’s a massive void in his knowledge that needs to be filled.  He seems to think that the Federal government has much to apologize for in respect of aboriginal peoples, and he says this in the context of residential schools.

News flash: Prime Minster Trudeau apologized for residential schools on behalf of Canada on June 25, 2021.  Besides this, Trudeau has been throwing Canada under the bus – that is apologizing - since his election in 2015.  Heccepted the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which previous governments, both Conservative and Liberal, refused to do.  And they refused to do it because Canadian law already accommodates aboriginal rights.  (But no matter, out of narcissism and for the applause, Trudeau accept UNDRIP.)

Then Wallace rages on about how Canada and Canadians have to make the lives of aboriginal peoples significantly better.  Better than what?  Aboriginal peoples live in modern accommodations, not teepees, wigwams, or longhouses.  They drive cars.  They have electricity and central heating.  They wear modern clothes, mostly.  They have colour TV, smart phones, and internet!!  Clean water on remote reserves?  Why is this exclusively a white man’s problem?  What about moving the entire community of 500 from the Albany River to a suburb of Thunder Bay?

What most people, including Wallace, don’t understand is that there is a strong current of opinion among aboriginals to just sit back and “take the white man’s money.”  Aboriginals won’t progress on their own until the money and apologies stop.

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