Truth And Reconciliation | Page 2 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Truth And Reconciliation

It has people thinking about things and opening dialogues. By that metric, it's a success already, and it will evolve.

I'm a federal employee so I got the day off. Pretty sure the phone was ringing off the hook all day today with nobody there to answer it since all our customers are provincial and many/most were running as usual.

The joys of federal vs provincial holidays. We get forced to take Family day as well even though we don't get paid for it as it's only a provincial holiday, not federal.
 
actually, today is Orange Shirt Day which started back in 2013 in BC to remember the Indigenous children who were sent to residential schools...it's based on the story of Phyllis Webstad who was one of those children...her grandmother bought her an orange shirt to wear on the first day of school, and when she arrived, it was taken away and to this day, it reminds her of the fact that her cultural heritage etc. was also taken away...schools have been promoting this for years...this is the link I used today in class (along with other stuff)...we had a conversation about some of what went on (they're only 6 so I need to be careful) and how it goes against the teachings of human dignity and respect...we tied it into the Land Acknowledgement that our board implemented; being stewards of creation; reconciliation (remember the wrongs we did and learning from them so that future generations don't make the same mistakes) and finally the 7 Grandfathers


oh, and we watched/listened to some traditional Indigenous drum music while we worked...they loved the day!
 
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I agree that the whole indigenous situation was a mess from day one and continues to be so.

IMO it started the minute the Europeans landed and said "Let's put these ignorant savages on chunks of useless land so we can have the good stuff. They'll fade away."

They weren't fading away fast enough so let's take their kids and turn them into brown skinned white people with no recollection of their culture, language or history.

Hey, let churches do the school thing. People in churches are angels and would never abuse anyone. They have no control freaks, sadists or perverts. (Gag, they're full of them)

So instead of doing something tangible JT has flags lowered to half mast until there is an agreement. They haven't come up with an agreement for a century so what makes anyone think a symbolic gesture is going to help. In the mean time what do we do if a notable Canadian dies? Lower the flag to quarter mast???

Let's make a T&R day that basically increases a business's labour cost by 0.5% added to the Family Day 0.5% the provincial Liberals gave us. The Liberals will claim to have given the population a bunch of new holidays but the struggling Canadian industry pays the bill in the middle of a pandemic while the Liberals are burning money like firewood. Hey honey, can I borrow your credit card? I want to buy you a present that will bankrupt us.

If wearing a tee shirt makes people wake up to the injustices that is good but how many people will think because they wore an orange shirt they've done something meaningful? Let's all wear our orange tee shirts to Starbucks.

I'm not aboriginal but even I'm getting sick of seeing meetings, photo ops, talk, bragging, followed by more talk and meetings.

Smoke and mirrors.
 
tat2 said:
Learn. Acknowledge.

Read the results of the T&R report. Read a book like "21 things you may not know about the Indian Act" or "Resistance & Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School"

We all have a long way to go.
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Thanks Tat. Those are good suggestions and I will try and find those books.
 
The idea was to get people talking about the core issues.
It worked.

BE HONEST NOW: How many of you had no idea about these issues till about two-three years ago?
 
No one told me it was Take Your Wife To The Beach Day. Next year.
 
bitzz said:
The idea was to get people talking about the core issues.
It worked.

BE HONEST NOW: How many of you had no idea about these issues till about two-three years ago?
Click to expand...
I’ll admit I had no clue about the schools or issues until the graves started showing up.

I had some inkling and maybe heard words, but not to this level.

I work for the provincial govt and we had the day off. I went riding. And judging by the traffic and crowds up North, so did a LOT of people.
 
I knew about it. Friend who’s 1/2 Six Nations. She doesn’t dwell on it. Never even bothered to get her Status Card. Old GF is 1/2 Six Nations. She’s always posting on social media. Lived 10ish miles from Muncie growing up, so I usually had 6-8 Iroquois (?) classmates all through grade school. Some of their friend from the reserve went to a “boarding school”. Didn’t really grasp it back then, but I knew there were two different situations
 
I'm troubled with the stat day thing -- I'm not really sure what giving federally regulated employees a vacation day does to further the cause.

I prefer to have a national day that we all can recognize -- I don't see the need to provide a vacation day to federally regulated employees.

Out prime minister set an excellent example of how important it is -- JT took it as another vacation day.
 
mimico_polak said:
I’ll admit I had no clue about the schools or issues until the graves started showing up.

I had some inkling and maybe heard words, but not to this level.

I work for the provincial govt and we had the day off. I went riding. And judging by the traffic and crowds up North, so did a LOT of people.
Click to expand...
I grew up a mile away from the Residential School in Brandon Manitoba and while I didn't hear much about abuses there, there was a lot of talk about sexual and physical abuse elsewhere. There are indications of unmarked graves in Brandon but no details. Three different church groups were involved in running the place over the years. Record keeping was poor, another sign of disrespect. They were like goldfish one flushed own the toilet or buried in the backyard.

It was like the attitude of ignorance thinking that indigenous people were like deer. Once the fawn is weaned the mother doesn't spend much time in mourning if wolves get it.

Can DNA testing track the tribe / region the kids came from? Some reports say the cemeteries were also used for the general population. I have one aunt and one uncle buried in unmarked graves. The uncle's remains are in a well kept cemetery and can be found by a directory but the aunt is MIA.
 
TK4 said:
www.thebeaverton.com

PM spends Truth and Reconciliation Day pondering ongoing genocide of Indigenous Peoples while getting in one last summer swim

Despite being invited by a B.C. First Nation to spend the day with residential school survivors and their families, Trudeau felt that engaging in leisure activities as a private citizen while sporadically remembering what today is about would better reflect how most Canadians will be observing...
www.thebeaverton.com www.thebeaverton.com
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What? No selfies? He usually takes a selfie or three when visiting people to promise them stuff.

Ahhhhh, he didn't even bother with visiting any of them. That would explain the lack of selfies. Carry on.
 
a young major first nation tobacco company heir I follow on social media

day of election - conservatives have never been kind to first nations....Team Trudeau!!
day after holiday - Trudeau is a disgrace!
no joke.

Their is about 6 or 7 from this family who post on social media the high life of tobacco profits with fancy cars and private jets etc. God only knows how much each of them get per month.
 
bitzz said:
The idea was to get people talking about the core issues.
It worked.

BE HONEST NOW: How many of you had no idea about these issues till about two-three years ago?
Click to expand...
You know what? There are a lot of things I didn't learn in elementary school as a kid, but we were actually taught about residential schools in history class (can vaguely remember the beat up paperback textbooks). When June rolled around, I learned that awareness of them was WAY less common than I thought
 
TwistedKestrel said:
You know what? There are a lot of things I didn't learn in elementary school as a kid, but we were actually taught about residential schools in history class (can vaguely remember the beat up paperback textbooks). When June rolled around, I learned that awareness of them was WAY less common than I thought
Click to expand...
I knew about the schools and the abuse but not to the extent that is coming out.

It may not be just apathy as the media plays on what sells. The Vietnam war, The war on terror, The constant middle east issues. Rockets and bombs sell more than history lessons as long as you aren't the one mentioned in the history books.
 
<rant>

IMHO, Its just lip service by the government to make middle class white voters feel better about themselves.

People can have as much dialog as they want but the fact remains that a large % of First Nations who have been forced off their land live in poverty and third world conditions, with squalled shelters, no clean water, no doctors, no education and no hope. No amount of dialog will change that, talk is cheap.

The other thing to consider is that people like Trudeau have huge Marketing and PR companies behind them to make them look good. Oprah has Harpo, Trudeau has Sussex Strategy who are on retainers worth millions of dollars. That staged picture of him posing with a Teddy Bear on a child's grave was so disingenuous, particularly since Pierre Elliott Trudeau built and used residential schools and worked with the catholic church to wipe out "the Indian Problem" in his lifetime.

Pierre was also the author of the most racist attempt in our country’s history to destroy Canada’s indigenous culture in 1969.

This is quite from Wikipedia:

"The 1969 White Paper (officially entitled Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy) was a policy paper proposal set forth by the Government of Canada related to First Nations. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and his Minister of Indian Affairs, Jean Chrétien issued the paper in 1969. The White Paper proposed to abolish all legal documents that had previously existed, including (but not limited to) the Indian Act, and all existing treaties within Canada. It proposed to assimilate First Nations as an ethnic group equal to other Canadian citizens. The White Paper was met with widespread criticism and activism, causing the proposal to be officially withdrawn in 1970.

The White Paper proposed legislation to eliminate Indian Status. First Nations Peoples would be incorporated fully into provincial government responsibilities as equal Canadian citizens, and reserve status would be removed; laws of private property would be imposed in indigenous communities. Any special programs or considerations that had been allowed to First Nations people under previous legislation would be terminated. The Government believed that such special considerations acted to separate Indian peoples from other Canadian citizens."

- Go look up the document - https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED043431.pdf

Justin Trudeau has NEVER included his own family’s history in the genocide of our First Nations so how can that be TRUTH and Reconciliation.

It also really pisses me off that those millions of dollars that went to make "Whitey" feel good about him or herself this week could have actually changed someones life for the better. But maybe I'm a little too pragmatic.

And I'm not just picking on Trudeau as no Canadian government has ever given a ****, but he seems to be milking it all he can for his own personal gain. Its actually to his benefit to keep these people in poverty.

</rant>
 
There was an interesting quote from the Chief of the local band in Kamloops. They sent 2 invitations to Trudeau and both were ignored, and he ended up in Tofino.

‘If this was before the election, JT would be here on hands and knees with a large photo group behind him. He won the election so there’s no need to visit us now.’

I think the words are bang on. It’s all lip service for personal gain. No more.
 
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