When I woke up today and saw that it had snowed, for the first time this winter, I felt like I was back in Canada eh? Because I can't imagine winter in the Great White North without snow. Just like I can't imagine this country without the Québécois or the First Nations. So I can't understand why a Canadian Prime Minister would refuse to meet with a chief from one of those nations, even though his pride might kill her.
About ten years ago I saw a young couple throw themselves in front of a subway train at the McGill metro station in downtown Montreal. It was all over in a flash.
All I saw was two people on the opposite platform suddenly rush forward, and then the body of one of them lying like a rag doll under the middle of the train when it came to a full stop.
But the incident haunted me for years. I couldn't help thinking if only I had been on the other platform, I might have been able to do something to save them.
So I can't help but note, even on a Saturday night, that today was World Suicide Prevention Day. Because suicide is a huge problem in Canada and not enough is being done about it.
Every month about three hundred Canadians take their own lives, and many more attempt it. The young and the old are particularly vulnerable, and so are the mentally ill.
In native communities, where suicide rates are many times the rate of non-native Canadians, they call Autumn the suicide season. And what's happening in one native community is an absolute horror show.
Pikangikum, a fly-in community of 2,400 people in northwestern Ontario, is thought to have the highest suicide rate in the world...Of the 16 suicides examined by the coroner, four of the children were 12.
The top recommendation is for Ottawa to build a school in Pikangikum to replace the one that burned down four years ago. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada has committed to rebuild it, but that has not yet happened.
Our failure to stop this slaughter of our suffering native youth is a gaping wound in the side of this country. Our apparent inability to talk openly about our suicide problem only makes things worse.
The good news, and the point of Suicide Prevention Day, is that we CAN do something about it. We can force governments to do more, we can help more Canadians choose life, and we can help reduce the shattering pain of those who loved them and lost them so suddenly.
We just have to educate ourselves about the problem. We have to be able to recognize the symptoms and the warnings in those we know and love, know what to say and how to help them.
But perhaps the simplest and most effective thing we can do as ordinary people is just say "TALK TO ME."
Which just happens to be this year's slogan of The Trevor Project, an organization that helps LGBT kids, who attempt suicide at a rate four times higher than their straight peers.
Here's Kevin McHale from Glee speaking to them...
And here's a flash mob in Los Angeles sending out a message that I'm dedicating to everybody, young and old, gay or straight, who are feeling sad and hopeless tonight...
Yup. Talk to me eh? Three four simple words that can save a life.
I fell in love with the native people of the Great White North long before I arrived in Canada. When I was a kid in Scotland I "borrowed" a book on native legends from the village library. I'd read it under the sheets at night, with the aid of a flashlight, and the stories and the illustrations filled me with wonder.
I knew they came from a rich and amazing culture. And when I arrived in Canada...after recovering from the shock of finding no natives in Montreal... I found it all to be true and their culture even more AWESOME than I thought.
And the only thing that disappointed and shocked me was to see how desperately poor they were, and discover how badly they had been treated. Even though we owe them so much.
So when I heard that Dick Pound had called natives "savages" it made me shudder. But I figured anyone can make a stupid remark and he should just apologize for being so IGNORANT. And of course resign his position at McGill University, because I went there, and I don't want my degree DEGRADED. It's bad enough that Dr Roy went there as well.
But what really disgusted me was Margaret Wente's column. Not just because her facts are all wrong. But because of the moral dimension.
Why would ANY decent person try to put down the culture of some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country? Instead of trying to boost their self esteem, help them to be proud of who they are, help them to escape from poverty.
Margaret Wente could have defended Pound without trying to defend the indefensible. But she didn't. Which makes her no better in my book than this wretched racist.
Can you believe that deranged dwarf and her equally pathetic and racist sidekick Small Dead Chihuahuas? How miserable and morally DEFICIENT can you get?
As for Margaret Wente all I can say is.... until she apologizes or gets her ass FIRED. Or is reassigned to the obit section...where she can write about dead rich people....you know the people she wants to be. And their expensive shoes. Or even better goes back to some Republican place in Redneck Land U.S.A. where she really belongs.
I would boycott the Con Globe.
Because you never know what nasty thing could bite you next...
