The Hair seems to be trying so hard to remake Canada into an image only understood by the Prime Minister and a few of his friends in Calgary. It seems to be an image something like that of 19th Century Dodge City, Kansas without the dust. It is a vision of a country of rugged men, petticoated ladies and indolent Indians. It is a country where every man is a king on his own land and he does with it as he wishes.
The Hair might have had to at one time make an apology over the treatment of Canada’s native peoples and he did create the truth and reconciliation commission. Now that the commission’s report is in, the Hair appears to want no part of it. It is like there will be no environmental controls of the oil and gas industries while the Hair rules in our parliament in Ottawa.
The Hair’s greatest problem is his failure to change Canada’s history.
In the days of dusty Dodge City, the cattle people of the day could dehumanize the native peoples, take their lands, use their women and answer objections with their six-gun. Not so in Canada where the treatment of the native peoples had a supposedly benign aspect. We thought we knew what was best for them. We shunted them to reservations, took their children to ‘civilize’ them and talked of how benevolent we were. And what we did in the name of the main-stream religions was horrifying.
And how can the Hair be so inured to the plight of so many native women—missing and maybe murdered and mostly ignored. Are we that brutal a society?
Is the Hair using our weaknesses as a country to allow tribalism to triumph over decency and acceptance? Is this a land of French versus English versus Mètis versus aboriginal versus any and all newcomers?
And why is the Hair trying to change history? The truth and reconciliation commission should have recognized that it is only the future that we can change.
But the truth of our past has to be acknowledged. Our ancestors often screwed up. They did not know better. They did not live to our standards. They had many fears that we have overcome. A hundred years from now, maybe our progeny will recognize, understand and accept our failings.
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Copyright 2015 © Peter Lowry
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