Shame in our past must be corrected

Speaking as a non-Indigenous person, I feel that the fundamental problem with the Indigenous children travesty is not that they died and were buried away from their families, but rather that they were taken away from their families in the first place.

What arrogance our ruling fathers (yes, fathers, not mothers, because our society was still male-dominated) demonstrated in thinking, and believing, that they knew better what was good for the Indigenous peoples nationwide than they did themselves; that one day those First Nations would be thankful for being helped along that better path.

Madness! Arrogance!

If that is the fundamental problem, then is there a fundamental solution? Unfortunately not! What is done is done.

There can only be reconciliation because those disrupted families can never be made whole. How do we reconcile when there is such a gap in values between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people? We need to identify the parameters of that gap and narrow the gap so that we can one day live in harmony whilst retaining the beauty of the Indigenous culture that our ruling fathers tried to take away.

We cannot, and must not, simply look the other way and say that the faults of our ruling fathers were not ours. We have shame in our past that must be corrected, corrected properly, in order for us to one day be able to hold our heads up high and be proud that we, all of us, are Canadians.

Right now, we cannot do that.

Leonard Sherwood Victoria