What's buzzing Hive!
I'm back from the mountains and we had a great time but before I get to that I would like to raise awareness on an important topic that was always dear to me but there was never any public evidence to use, now there is. A gentle warning, this read is not for the faint of heart. I'm never sure what is the world opinion on Canada but speaking to others over the years it seems foreigners have this opinion that we are a human rights utopia and I never understood why. I'm sure there are far worst things happening in the world somewhere why I feel awkward bringing this topic to light with you. We have our fair share of atrocities committed. This summer we come at a crossroads. With Canada day fast approaching , more and more indigenous children are being found with radar equipment as the begun scanning other school grounds after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves of children as young as three in Kamloops British-Columbia.
Official logo of the EVERY CHILD MATTERS campaign to raise awareness on residential schoolsOver the last couple of weeks, more and more have been found across Canada with many more school grounds to search. The largest so far is one school in Saskatchewan that ran for almost 100 years with 751 unmarked graves discovered containing both adults and children. In total there was 130 of these Catholic residential schools across Canada that operated as late as 1997.
Relations between Indigenous and European settlers always had tensions from the beginning but somehow maintaining trade relations over many years. As settlers grew in numbers and gain strength, the more bold their actions became. Over the centuries there has been many acts of aggression and cultural genocide against the indigenous people of Canada that continues to this day in one form or another. The church in conjunction with government began establishing in residence/boarding schools to eradicate their culture, those who failed to comply disappeared and were called "runaways" but many children never made it home from these establishments . First, what were residential school and what was their purpose?
The term residential schools refers to an extensive school system set up by the Canadian government and administered by churches that had the nominal objective of educating Indigenous children but also the more damaging and equally explicit objectives of indoctrinating them into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living and assimilating them into mainstream white Canadian society. The residential school system officially operated from the 1880s into the closing decades of the 20th century. The system forcibly separated children from their families for extended periods of time and forbade them to acknowledge their Indigenous heritage and culture or to speak their own languages. Children were severely punished if these, among other, strict rules were broken. Former students of residential schools have spoken of horrendous abuse at the hands of residential school staff: physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological. Residential schools provided Indigenous students with inappropriate education, often only up to lower grades, that focused mainly on prayer and manual labour in agriculture, light industry such as woodworking, and domestic work such as laundry work and sewing.
To many Canadians, this is a fresh discovery, many still don't know what was done to these children or understand what these schools were. Having grown up on both side of the culture spectrum I suppose I had an earlier exposure to the topic than most Canadians and have seen first hand the damage it has caused within the communities and heard some personal stories over the years. Nobody from my generation went, the schools were coming to a close during my childhood but many of their parents and grand-parents were forced to attend the schools and were permanently traumatized from the experience. Others were more fortunate and attended day schools if they were cooperative and submissive but still under abusive conditions.
For many years, many were afraid to honor their culture and language to the point it almost disappeared along with the mental health issues it has caused and abuse cycles created by these schools. The government school system barely teaches anything useful about the subject aside from honoring the so called heroes that founded Canada yet are also the founders of the silent genocide going around abusing and killing children. There has been knowledge of these grave sites by eye witnesses attending the schools along with stories of raped teenaged girls having the priests babies being taken from them and burned alive but they were never allowed to search the school grounds for anything.
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The Canadian public were told it was for "the Indian's own good" and the public went along with it based on the propaganda they were given and to this day still believe they were good and just a little misguided in their actions as some priest's recent sermon suggested. It is unknown the amount of children that never returned home but it is estimated that tens of thousands of children went missing during the operations of residential schools. To this day, many places are named after the founders of the schools and are celebrated publicly.
In the Edmonton and Saint-Albert area, we have the controversial bishop Vital-Justin Grandin who is widely celebrated with streets, communities, schools etc. named after him but is the architect of the residential school systems in Canada. Until recently a mural was painted in a major light rail train station with him in front of a residential school with a nun holding a young indigenous child. The truth was never hidden. It's always been in plain sight but somehow, everyone ignores it. With the discovery of the initial gravesite in Kamloops created controversy and was finally removed and covered up with orange paint with it's significance to the EVERY CHILD MATTERS campaign.
https://www.change.org/p/greater-st-albert-roman-catholic-school-distirct-no-734-rename-vital-grandin-school-stop-honoring-one-of-the-architects-of-residential-schools?recruiter=36087907
The church still refuse to acknowledge their actions of abuse and issue a formal apology on the Vatican's behalf by coming to Canada and publicly addressing the trail of victims it left behind. In my opinion, the church should be forced to pay for the recovery and identification cost of the already thousands of tiny unmarked bodies found in just a few weeks with so many more waiting to be found and finally be heard, have their story told ...allow their loved ones to have closure and their story taken seriously.
Many names were changed in the recent years, including a mountain in Canmore that was so offensive, I don't even want to name it in this post. Many complain of cancel culture as things get renamed and statues are torn down and vandalized but to the indigenous it's been hundreds of years of cancel culture to accommodate settler culture with constant reminders how their worst nightmare is regarded as heroes to everyone else. It has created inter-generational issues and high suicide rates over the decades yet so little resources for mental health are offered to the communities affected by the church and government's actions, more pronounced in the remote communities.
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After the residential schools, an new program now called "60's scoop" involved taking indigenous children from their families to be sent to foster care and sometimes even sold to white families. There was even news add for these adoption agencies and were also considered as an act of good public service. The same suggest it only happened in the 60's but that's a misconception. It continued in the 70's, 80's to be honest, it still continues to this day. A disproportionate number of indigenous children are placed in off reserve foster care creating further mental health damage and broken families. The Canadian government has recently acknowledged the past foster care controversy and started paying reparations but do very little to solve the current one.
All government have their flags at half mast to honor the victims of the recent discovery yet so many issues persist and goes ignored making many Indigenous communities at a disadvantage and less opportunities in life. Many communities especially in northern territories don't have access to clean drinking water for their communities due to toxic chemicals left behind by now defunct major gold and other mineral mining companies. Road infrastructure to connect them to major cities that may be as close as 40km away are lacking, some have to take a canoe or a barge across the river to get their water and groceries near Winnipeg. There is a lack of housing in many of these communities forcing many generations to live together in sub par housing that also contributed to elevated numbers and the spread of covid infections with communities with limited healthcare services if any at all also aggravated by a lack of clean water.
Another epidemic concerning Indigenous communities is the disproportionate amount of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and the lack of investigation or convictions in the cases that arises. The lack of services has often led to tragic circumstances that went unresolved or unpunished over tiny technicalities like the length of trial or rejected evidence. All across Canada, many continue to go missing and the government has promised an inquiry but is slow moving in that regards just like the water crisis and everything else Indigenous related. The lack of access to family services and mental health resources for struggling teens girls leave them in troubling circumstances that often lead to their disappearance and death continues to be ignored and has led to many heart breaking end that are barely talked about to be forgotten.
I could continue on the current mistreatment of Indigenous people happening but we could be here a while to be honest. Many things need to change. The government keeps screaming propaganda about reconciliation with minimal actions to back it up. Over the centuries, the government restricted their access to their ancestral lands including many national parks like Banff or Jasper along with many others. There are now steps to re-establish their rights for trading in those territories and more history and culture is being included in the local history but more still needs to be done.
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I have been wanting to write this for a long time and have half written and deleted it a dozen times, it never felt right, something was missing. I found what was missing. During our travels, we stopped at Lake Louise for a hike and as we arrived, I could hear drumming in the distance. We got there just in time for this beautiful young drumming family to begin their performance to raise awareness for the EVERY CHILD MATTERS and residential schools by making their way to Kamloops B-C and then retracing their steps and making their way down to Ontario and stopping as much a they can for a performance and spread their message.
They performed 4 of their family songs, one for each of the wind directions some were centered around recognition and healing others were for strength and to awaken the warrior spirit. It did finally give me the strength to talk about a difficult topic that is in dire need to be addressed especially in a country like Canada that supposedly prides it's identity on diversity and ethical treatment and human rights of all humans regardless of skin color/culture/religion and all of categories you want to fit in here.
If the government really means what they say about reconciliation perhaps they should back it up with stronger actions to right the wrongs committed in the name of our flag. We can't erase the past but we can acknowledge it and the damage it has caused to real people that deserved so much better. We can begin to offer solutions to the problems rather than ignoring them and allow them to go on. It's 2021, how is it a developed nation such as Canada with the largest amount of fresh water in the world makes minimal effort to provide access to communities. Perhaps offering scholarships for community members to attend post secondary education in mental health resources and family services so they can return to serve their community in healing and keeping families connected to avoid the foster care system altogether as a way to make reparations to the victims and their descendants that would also create local jobs for community members.
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Over the recent years, many community members across Canada have worked hard to reclaim their voice and culture. Many decided to take studies in teaching and learning Indigenous languages that were nearly lost across the country. More needs to be done in the education department, many small communities do not have schools passed grade 7 or 8 and student must leave their families and communities to attend high school leading to a higher number of drop-outs or separated families if they are lucky they get to live with a relative elsewhere. Imagine yourself anywhere in North-America having to leave for college how scary it was...now try to imagine going thru that as a child. We pay high taxes in Canada, this is what we are supposed to be paying for, a basic standard of living for all citizens, not just most based on their ancestry or where they live.
Many of our own school system need to review the current curriculum on Canadian history and include the actions committed in the name of flag including the bad. Some of you may call it cancel culture but removing the names of those responsible for operating and funding the residential schools from public establishments, streets and whatever else , bring to trial those who are still living for their actions. Where there are statues of them, add another statue that represents the harm done by their hand to Indigenous peoples, no need to erase them, immortalize their miss deeds just like they tried to immortalize their legacy so the people always remember since history tends to repeat itself.
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Perhaps as a grand gesture of peace and sincere apology, the residential school grounds and buildings could be voluntarily handed over to the affected indigenous communities to do what they please with them historical buildings or not, they have caused a lot of pain. They would most likely get burned down rightfully so, some could choose to turn them into museums to honor the victims and continue spreading awareness on the atrocities committed over the centuries. Let me remind you, actions that involved mass killing of children and mass forced sterilization of young women, separating families. Many refuse to call it genocide to this day but what else would you call it then? All in the name of god. What god are they worshiping? Not the same one I do. My god doesn't condone killing children or anyone at all for that matter.
Now we sit here as Canadians with the fast approaching Canada day debating if we should even celebrate at all with such somber discoveries in an ongoing ethical crisis. Our country has done many great things but an equal amount of harm to the original people of the land and at some point we need to recognize that and fix the harm it has caused if we ever want any chance at reconciliation. I grew up with hopes of it happening in my lifetime but as I got older it seemed more and more unlikely but maybe there is still a chance. Maybe this tragedy can somehow unite us as a country and finally begin to heal together and work towards a better future for all.
For this Canada day, those who chose to stand in solidarity with the Indigenous and the current residential school crisis will be wearing orange instead of red and white to honor the victims as part of the EVERY CHILD MATTERS campaign. The official orange shirt day is on September 30th, where solidarity can be shown again. We mourn with you.
I saw the headline today on my mobile, something about discovering a mass grave in Canada but I didn't click into the link as there's a lot going on.
Wow! I had no idea all this was happening in Canada, and tbh I hadn't really thought about Canada having indigenous people. I mean I heard of it happening in Australia, and to a lesser extent in Taiwan, but this is quite surprising. Reconciling and making good on indigenous tribes always seems like a pretty low priority for governments, hopefully we'll see more on that front from Canada.
It's a big developing story. Many knew it but it couldn't be proven until now. This is going to be so much bigger. they still have many schools to search.
Who knows, we seem to make progress then step backwards. Hard to say what will happen.
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