As in Justice Sinclair’s $60 million dollar report on Natives in Canada and Residential Schools.
The bottom-line in the report found that this era, beginning in the 1840s, resulted in nothing less than cultural genocide.
Our distinguished Chief Justice, Madame McLaughlin, makes a similar declaration which is surprising since she of all people has been legally trained to sort the wheat from the chaff.
So you can guess at my own thoughts on this which longer time readers will already know but given the recent flurry of interest generated by the Report I thought it worthwhile to restate it…at least the codswallop about Cultural Genocide.
That is not to say Native Culture was not extinguished by the arrival of the Europeans …it most certainly was but the writing was on the wall for the Indian culture with the arrival of Columbus in 1492.
By the 1800s it was all but extinct and that was the real tragedy … not the Residential Schools. The loss of culture for our native peoples was inevitable.
Indeed, I’d argue that the origin of the Residential Schools was in response to their loss of culture and way of life. It was not replacing white man’s way of life with the Indian way of life since the latter had already been confined to the bin of history.
That is not to say that terrible things happened at the Residential Schools but they were formed for good intentions to help natives function in the new reality.
I have not read the Report other than what the papers say about it. The need for more apologies, more monuments and such but what apparently is missing is a statement as to what is needed to advance things for our natives especially those who find themselves on isolated reserves.
During my lifetime I have heard little but blame for white society and the need for more money. If that had been enough the average Indian would be sitting pretty but sadly that of course is not the case.
They are confined to the reserves where little of value happens and where terrible living conditions are handed down generation after generation. In that regard the situation reminds me of the terrible conditions inner city Blacks face in America.
The only real solution is for both groups to decide themselves what is needed to break the historical bonds that constrain them. To continue to ask the Whites for apologies will only serve to delay the day when that happens.
Sadly the Sinclair Report is just another bump in that road.
As I see it…
‘K.D. Galagher’
p.s. did you notice Young Trudeau has accepted all of the Report’s 90 some recommendations obviously without adequately considering them…mother’s looks and mother’s brains. kdg
