Our past shows change is possible

Re: China’s latest big lie on free speech, and What if Canada is wasted on Canadians? July 1.

Canadians have been told that they should not celebrate the 150-year milestone, because of things that happened in the past. There has been much hand wringing over the fact that cheap souvenirs were made offshore. We are to be ashamed that we exist, perhaps. Such a Canadian thing.

What Canada has proved in the past is that change is possible, that better things are possible, and that either anger or complacency are counterproductive.

As a history teacher, I have had to teach about Canadian anti-Semitism (check the “restrictions” in Canada in the 1930s and ’40s); the residential schools and Sixties Scoop; and blatant acts of official racism such as the turning away of the Komagata Maru. I hated doing this, because I don’t think those actions represent what Canada is, or is working toward, but we cannot forget the past.

But we have to move forward. The teepee on Parliament Hill for Canada Day probably would have been better received if the security people were not blindsided by a surprise movement of protest. As it is, that protest is now showing what Canada can be — wanting to work for change. But we have to be patient, and we can’t think that the changes that need to happen are going to be cheap. Generations of Canadian abuse cannot be undone in an instant, and we have to think beyond tax cuts in order to make real change, real reconciliation happen. All stakeholders have to work toward it.

I am proud to be a Canadian. I refuse to throw the good things we have done in the world, and in this geographical mass, out because of mistakes that cannot be undone. I will, and every Canadian should, vow to actively act to make this Canadian experiment work.

Eleanor Abra, Ottawa