What's the point of truth & reconciliation?

Buying an orange donut, wearing an orange pin or tattooing your kids is easy. But actually reflecting, that’s the hard part.

Yesterday was the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. A holiday created by the Canadian government in order to acknowledge (but certainly not reflect) on the harms that the residential school system imposed on indigenous peoples.

The residential school system was a program designed by prior governments because they believed they knew what was best for indigenous people and their children. They believed that indigenous children should be taken away from their parents and communities and assimilated into European culture and practices.

While driving yesterday I couldn’t go 30 seconds before hearing some speech or message on the radio acknowledging the harms of this system. At school, my kids were all branded with orange tattoos and indirectly told that they shouldn’t be proud of Canada’s history.

I don’t have a problem with acknowledging harms that were caused by prior generations. There are likely no population or society where the prior generations didn’t cause harms to another group. But I have absolutely no desire to apologize or somehow make my children feel like they owe anyone anything for prior government’s mistakes.

The focus of this day should be reflecting on the cause of prior generational mistakes and how to avoid them in the future. Unfortunately that is nearly considered a crime these days.

The official opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre made a very important statement yesterday. He accurately acknowledged that on this day we reflect and learn from the wrongs inflicted by big, overpowering governments against Indigenous Peoples (and all peoples).

For this he was dragged through the coals by many left-wing media personalities for “politicizing” this historical tragedy. Politicizing…

Well if we’re going to try and avoid this in the future, should we not politicize it? Politicians are the ones who created this problem over a 100 years ago. Poilievre is rightfully acknowledging this.

That’s the problem. Theres is an ever growing anti-Canadian crowd in this country that do not want to find solutions to avoid this problem. They don’t want to reflect on what led to these past mistakes. They just want to destroy Canada. That is why they attack accurate takes like Poilievre’s.

Another conservative politicians in New Brunswick dared to reflect on this tragedy and she was also condemned. Sherry Wilson issued a detailed statement reflecting on how as a country we should never allow governments, teachers or anyone other than parents decide that they know what is best for children. For this take she was called “disgusting” and “shameful”. She ended up deleting her post and the leader of the New Brunswick conservatives told the media that her comments were inappropriate.

Poilievre, Wilson and others are not downplaying the harms that may have occurred. They are simply accurately pointing out that this could very easily happen again. Especially if we bury our hands in the sand and simply believe that “our generation would never do that”… I don’t care where you stand on the debate regarding parent vs. teacher responsibilities and gender identity issues. But that debate boils down to: does the teacher (state) have the child’s best interest at heart or does the parent?

That is the same debate that was had 100 years ago. The Canadian government and religious teachers thought they knew better than indigenous parents. They didn’t…

That is why I ask, what is the point of Truth & Reconciliation? Apologizing for your ancestors is easy. Buying an orange donut, wearing an orange pin or tattooing your kids is easy. But actually reflecting, that’s the hard part. And unfortunately our society gratifies the ones who do the former, and humiliate, attack and cancel the brave ones who do the latter.

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