Getting past a sense of entitlement
Re: Canada Opposed Idea Of ‘Cultural Genocide,’ June 8. The necessary and comprehensive chronicling of the residential schools’ abuses, while cathartic for the aboriginal population, is also an important historical lesson for Canada. Nevertheless, it has perpetuated not only a sense of victimhood and dependency throughout the aboriginal community, but a sense its members deserve restitution from the rest of Canada in perpetuity. We are a country of two solitudes — the aboriginal and non-aboriginal. Unless and until the First Nations collectively get their act together and embrace the 21st century (as have the native communities in Osoyoos and Westbank, B.C., and Fort MacKay, Alta., for example), there will be no reconciliation, and the feeling among most Canadians that whatever we do, it will never be enough.
Morton Doran, Fairmont, B.C.
The responsible generation is dead and gone, so are the bereaved parents of the children. I presume the 7,000 still alive have told their gruesome stories, but those are the stories that need to be in the public eye, precisely so that generations to come, like with the Holocaust, have a clear path toward the future.
It does not help to expect Prime Minister Stephen Harper to shoulder the shame or the blame — he has done what he should and could. It helps nobody to expect people, who were little themselves at the height of these occurrences, to pick up burdens they cannot carry into the future for ever and ever. All the hugs and kisses go nowhere, and should make place for high ideals and hard work for First Nations.
Living on reserves is a bad idea. People who live on handouts seldom achieve anything. Bad habits set in, and the blame is always some one else’s. Try and avoid that here by leaving the past to rest, and with good sense and respect open the future for the First Nations. Try to avoid hype and emotion and move on. At least half the Canadian population had no part in those tragedies.
Jean Parkin, Nanaimo, B.C.