It's now been several days since an all-white jury found a white farmer in Saskatchewan not guilty of anything in the killing of Colten Boushie. And since then there have been demonstrations of sorrow and anger all over this country. So I was really glad to see that Boushie's grief stricken family was able to meet with Justin Trudeau yesterday.
A young indigenous man out for a joy ride with his friends. An old white farmer with a gun collection large enough to equip a small army. A gun that goes off "accidentally" and an "accidental bullet" that hits Colten Boushie in the back of the head. An all-white jury that acquits Gerald Stanley of second-degree murder. How cheap is aboriginal life. And welcome to Saskatchewan.
For eighty-five years the statue of Lieutenant General Edward Cornwallis has loomed over a park in Halifax. To honour him for being the first governor of Nova Scotia, and the founder of Halifax. In recent years native groups have tried to have the statue taken down and his name removed from other parks, streets and buildings in Nova Scotia. For his decision in 1749 to issue a bounty for the scalps of Mi’kmaq men, women and children. But sadly I seethat initiative has gonenowhere.
Attawapiskat, the small First Nation's community on the edge of James Bay, is a place well known to many Canadians. And sadly for all the wrong reasons. Five years ago it had to declare a state of emergency to deal with a severe housing crisis. Now it has had to declare another one, and the reason couldn't be more tragic.
They are images that should haunt every Canadian. Native children taken away from the parents by the RCMP and sent to residential schools with more cemeteries than playgrounds. And even though our generation wasn't to blame for that story of brutality and attempted cultural genocide, we can't look away or ignore the problem. Because it is still an open wound that needs healing. And as the Globe points out, it was, it is, and it will always be our story. Canada's story.
I see that the Canadian Human Rights Museum has finally opened its doors in Winnipeg. Which as someone who has fought all his life for human rights, is something I would normally celebrate. Except for the ghastly almost unbelievable fact that it doesn't recognize Canada's aboriginal genocide. Because Stephen Harper and his disgusting Con regime won't acknowledge what was done to our precious native people.
Well I guess Big Oil and its rented pimps in the Harper regime must be getting desperate eh? Neil Young is just too popular. They just can't stop him. Or silence his message. And now his show is rolling into the heart of Albertonia. And it's SOLD OUT !!!!!! So today the oil pimps deployed their ultimate weapon, the Oily Prophet himself, Rex Murphy.
Uh oh. It looks as if the slugging match between Neil Young and the Con regime isn't going to last very long. Not with King Harper already lying on his back. After getting his towel man Jason MacDonald to jump into the ring yesterday, and try to slap Young with this one: "Even the lifestyle of a rock star relies, to some degree, on the resources developed by thousands of hard-working Canadians every day.
Only to have King Neil turn around today, and plant his carbon footprint firmly in Great Leader's ample backside.
To see him standing up for a small First Nation that is fighting a giant foreign oil company is so inspiring. An example to us all. To hear him denounce Stephen Harper and his foul Con regime is music to my ears.
It may not go down in history as one of his greatest speeches. There were no soaring flights of rhetoric, he hardly raised his head as he delivered it. But I thought Barack Obama's reaction to the Trayvon Martin verdict was one of the finest moments of his Presidency. For this needed to be said:
Dear Chief Spence I was so happy to hear that you will be ending your long hunger strike. Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence has decided to end her six-week-long hunger strike after members of the Assembly of First Nations and the Liberal and New Democrat caucuses agreed to back a list of commitments supporting aboriginal issues. For you have endured enough, your people need you, and you don't need to die for your great struggle to go forward, stronger than ever.
For some ghastly reason I couldn't help wondering tonight what Stephen Harper is eating while Chief Theresa Spence dies of hunger. As Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence continues her hunger strike, a critical care doctor is warning that the human body begins to break down after such a long period without food. Jones said after three weeks with no food, a person is "very vulnerable" to infections in the lungs and stomach, which can turn "rapidly fatal." Because you know he does LOVE to eat, and he just gave his personal chef a raise.
I didn't want to blog tonight. I just wanted to enjoy Christmas. But I couldn't get these two contrasting images out of my mind. Chief Theresa Spence slowly starving to death. While Stephen Harper, with a weird look on his face, plays cribbage.
It's hard to believe that a native leader from a suffering community, would have to go on a hunger strike, to try to get a meeting with a Canadian Prime Minister. On the eve of a day of aboriginal protest, the hunger-striking chief of the troubled Attawapiskat First Nation is again calling for a meeting with the prime minister and Canada’s governor-general. And even harder to believe that Stephen Harper would let her starve rather than talk to her. For either he is incapable of even the smallest noble gesture. Or he's AFRAID of her eh?
Woohoo. Excellent. I see the Con Injun Agent has been kicked out of Attawapiskat.
Attawapiskat band councillors kicked out a federal appointee in charge of overseeing the troubled band’s finances on Monday when he showed up in the remote Northern Ontario reserve.
Good for that little community. First the Cons reduce them to misery. Then they try to humiliate them
“It is incredible that the Harper government’s decision is that, instead of offering aid and assistance to Canada’s first peoples, their solution is to blame the victim and that the community is guilty and deserving of their fate,” Spence and her band council said in a statement last week.
After first trying to claim that they didn't know what was happening. Or trying to blame Charlie Angus.
Only to look like fools, and be exposed as LIARS. Again.
Attawapiskat "was always a problem," said Strahl.
"It was not good when I was there, and I don't think it's appreciably or any better now. That was well known, everybody knew it was a very difficult community for a bunch of reasons."
And Chucky should know eh? Because when he was in charge he couldn't even build them a school.
I don't know what's going to happen when the Swine Flu returns this fall. Nobody does. But I do know that we can't afford not to be prepared. Swine flu spreads four times faster than other viruses and 40 percent of the fatalities are young adults in good health. Sixty percent of the deaths cover those who have underlying health problems," Chan said. "This means that 40 percent of the fatalities concern young adults -- in good health -- who die of a viral fever in five to seven days.
And pregnant women and aboriginal peoples are also particularly vulnerable. So I find this hard to believe. And this absolutely horrifying:
"There is no partnership [with the federal government]. There is no development of the organized system that everyone is part of," he said, noting that only two of 30 communities in his northern territory have a plan for dealing with the swine flu pandemic.
When the Spanish Flu struck Canada in 1918, some native communities were almost wiped out. This flu bug doesn't seem to be nearly as deadly as the 1918 one. But then it didn't turn into a mass killer until the second wave hit.
As this chart from that year demonstrates.
So we can't take any chances. And even if the H1N1 bug doesn't mutate into something more deadly, the volume of cases could swamp emergency rooms in Canada's big cities.So can you imagine what could happen in poverty-stricken aboriginal communities? Our incompetent Con government says it knows what it's doing. But I don't believe them. So I hope somebody is working on an emergency plan, like the biggest air lift Canada has ever seen, to rush aid to those communities. Because if we knew what could happen to our beautiful native people. And our government just let it happen. It wouldn't just add to our shame. It would be absolutely CRIMINAL...
You know living in Stephen Harper's Con Canada can be such a depressing experience it's so easy to give up hope. But something always comes along to pick me off the floor. Like the story of these native kids fighting for a new school. Letters, petitions, solidarity. And YouTubes too !!!
You can sign their petition here. The children are standing up for the future of Canada and so should we. Yikes. I think I'm coming down with a bad case of optimism. I mean a good one. Way to go kids !!!!
I'm still catching up with what went on in Canada while I was away in Scotland. So it wasn't until today that I found out what happened to the nasty little Con Pierre "Pee Wee" Poilievre. How he shat on Stephen Harper's little party. By making derogatory comments about native people on the day Great Angry Leader was hoping to score bogus brownie points ...by apologizing to them. And then Pee Wee had to rise in the House of Commons and make a tearful apology. "On a day when the House and all Canadians were celebrating a new beginning, I made remarks that were hurtful and wrong. I accept responsibility for them and I apologize." Sob. Sob. What a sad spectacle. I WANT the video !!! And to think that just a few weeks before this idiot incident he was attacking the Ontario government for funding sex reassignment surgery. Now he's probably looking for an operation himself...a brain transplant and a couple of bazoongas ....so people don't recognize him anymore. I guess Stephen King Con Harper must be REALLY mad with him. And who can blame him? It's kinda like what another little bugger did during this football game....
Except that he was BRILLIANT. While Pee Wee stole the ball from his own keeper...and scored in his own goal. What a dummy. No wonder he's been sidelined. But what I want to know is.... now that he has shown everyone what a pathetic little Con nerd he is....
Instead of just Pee Wee Dum Dum.
Can we also call him Pierre the Penis?
I thought so. Quick!!!! Put a rubber on it before it shoots its mouth off again !!!
It couldn't happen to a nicer prick. Muahahahaha...
I was so happy to see that the National Day of Action unfolded peacefully. I was so proud of our First Nations people. Because after everything we've done to them, it just shows again how great and beautiful they are. I know some people were inconvenienced and that brought out the racist rats. But as for me....I just wish MORE Canadians had been inconvenienced....or had joined in the Day of Action. Not just because it would have reminded more people that a National Disgrace is EVERYONE'S problem. Or because what's a day of inconvenience a year compared to 365 days of suffering.... bad water, hunger and teenage suicide? But also because in a country as rich and fat as Canada raising a little shit is sometimes the only way the poorest and most oppressed and most desperate of Canadians can hope to get any ATTENTION. Deseronto was just one of hundreds of events across the country. But it got ALL the TV airtime because they closed a highway and a railway track....so it was a BIG STORY ...so more Canadians noticed. So at least for one day more Canadians couldn't shove the National Disgrace out of sight and out of mind. So at least for one day the First Nations people weren't the Invisible People of Canada. Like these other poor and desperate Canadians...
They are everywhere in Canada. Every year there seem to be more of them. But we don't seem to see them anymore. Or don't seem to care... Even though homelessness in Canada is now a chronic problem. Canada's homeless population is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people, while another 1.7 million residents struggle with "housing affordability issues," says an analysis of the latest research on shelter.
Bad for them. Bad for EVERYONE.
"The high cost of homelessness in Canada results from the role of homelessness as a proven multiplier of societal ills: malnutrition, unemployment, addiction, mental illness, family strife and lack of income security are all intensified when an individual or household becomes homeless..."
But because so many homeless Canadians are too poor and desperate or ill to fight back...because they have no political clout...because they don't raise shit.... Canadians can easily put THAT National Disgrace out of mind....if not out of sight...
Pretend they just don't see them...or if they do just shrug their shoulders and walk on. Or pretend it's somebody else's problem...as they hurry back to their comfortable homes...
The sad truth is that because not enough Canadians care enough about the problems faced by First Nations people and the homeless, to force our politicians to take immediate and emergency action, both human tragedies just keep getting worse and worse. Even if so many of us can't seem to see them...or don't want to...
Until that changes NOTHING will change.
On the eve of Canada Day I still think this country is the most beautiful country on earth. But until those two national disgraces are history...until those ugly and shameful stains on the Maple Leaf are removed.
For me Canada won't be beautiful enough.
So if it takes more Days of Action to shake things up....
