Continuous reconciliation has no end

Protests help plant seed deep into future generations

First, let’s revisit an old-fashioned storyline: indeed a clichéd one, involving the husband forgetting his wedding anniversary.

Across the breakfast table sits his wife, poised to deliver a sweet card and accompanying gift, for her darling spouse. Ouch. This empty-headed hubby is equally empty-handed. His vague unease turns into blind panic.

“I’m so sorry. How could I have done such a thing? Please, can you ever forgive me?” he whines.

Being female, and therefore used to the foibles of men, she does. Yet, the next morning, he again arrives for breakfast. “I’m so sorry, can you ever forgive me? How could I have done such a thing?” he pleads.

Day after day this goes on, becoming some insipid version of a domestic Groundhog Day.

After weeks of such silliness, the wife gets up, grabs a pitcher of milk and pours it over the fool. As milk drips from his chin he whines: “But I thought we were reconciling.”

Yep, folks, we’re now slap-bang up to date, witnessing the sad reality of a similar relationship: that between the government of Justin Trudeau and the Indigenous Peoples of Canada.

As barricades go up, blocking rail lines, bridges and legislatures across the land, we hear the same, lame bluster from our prime minister, a man who was almost dragged back to this country from his worldwide “UN Is Us” tour to reluctantly get involved in this situation, one where some brag they’ll shut Canada down.

We’re told to be patient and consultations are called for. Actually, the first comments from Trudeau’s lips, when informed about widespread disruption back home, as he played global statesman in Senegal, were about how Indigenous people have had such a tough time for hundreds of years.

So, when the man at the top’s immediate response is to sympathize with those blockading parts of the very country he’s supposed to lead, is it any wonder various police chiefs got nervous about actually enforcing the law?

Yet, despite the economic and social damage now being done, we’re still wandering down that well-worn reconciliation footpath. It’s an easy trail to follow, because we’ve walked this way so many times before. But, in the end, it leads nowhere.

Because, just like the aforementioned giftless wife, those being constantly reminded at every opportunity that we are endlessly sorry for their treatment down the decades will not be appeased by such constant bleating. Honestly, would you?

Come on, how does being relentlessly reminded you and yours were a victim, are a victim and, undoubtedly, will be a victim in the future, actually help anyone hearing this stuff? Does it inspire them to link arms and march ever forward as part of some new, united Canadian dream team?

Or maybe it has the opposite effect, making them want to pick up a different type of milk pitcher? Perhaps that’s part of what we’re witnessing today.

When I saw photos of young kids brought along to these various protest rallies and blockades, my heart sank. Yep, there go the next 30 years. We’ll be consulting, apologizing and reconciling to them too, when they’re well into middle age. The seed is now planted and it is planted deep.

Of course, we don’t hear about those Indigenous individuals who’ve left victimhood behind and become a dynamic and integral part of this country. Look to Nunavut or the Northwest Territories, regions where various Indigenous cultures are the majority. Nobody’s erecting barricades in Baker Lake, the actual physical centre of this country.

Nope, but they are agitating, too. But for more independent political power, just like Alberta and Saskatchewan did, before being granted province status in 1905.

Now that’s a fight I reckon most Albertans would happily back. Not wallowing in circuitous reconciliation talk regarding events that happened so many years ago, but pushing ahead to deliver the real dream: that Canada is a country for all people wanting to leave the past behind and look ahead.