June 4, 2021
I've always considered myself a strong ally to the Indigenous. Like many of us, the last few weeks have shown me I have a long way to go. I had a sense of what #ResidentialSchools were & that I supported #TruthAndReconciliation but did I dig into it all? Apply my privilege? No.
To the Indigenous community & especially those I'm very lucky/grateful to call my friends, I'm sorry it took me so long. I *can* promise you today that like the #ClimateCrisis, #TruthAndReconciliation isn't something I'll walk away from until it's done. My work begins at this egregiously late date the same way the Climate stuff did: by asking myself what the hell I'm going to do. What the hell I *can* do. As always it starts with seeking/learning the best available knowledge.
Truth and Reconciliation Calls To Action #71 is just calling for the data we already know exists to be forwarded to the appropriate agency, that it can no longer remain stubbornly sat on by repeated generations of bad government actors who would prefer to keep hidden the exact details of one of Canada's worst secrets.
#72 calls for the formation & maintenance of a database as to which children from which families were taken to which facilities & where their bodies were buried. How is it not monstrous to refuse such a thing to the many victims' ancestors at this very late date? Indefensible.
#73: WE NEED TO KNOW WHERE *ALL* THE INSTITUTIONS WERE AND *ALL* THE GRAVES ARE. BECAUSE OF COURSE WE DO.
#74: Where a victim has been identified the family must be contacted, ensuring a proper ceremony can be performed and if desired the remains returned home in accordance with that family's wishes. A humane people would see this done.
Call To Action #75 is really just calling for a system to ensure that existing or newfound gravesites are treated with the sacred dignity they deserve. You can translate this directly into not further compounding one of Canada's most horrific "secrets"
The final #TruthAndReconciliation Call To Action as it relates to Missing Children & Burial Information just means Indigenous personnel and practises must hold sway over the process so as not to further compound this atrocity. It's quite literally the least we can do.
Those are just 6 out of 94 eminently sensible & humane Calls To Action from the #TruthAndReconciliation Commission of Canada. You can access all 94 calls to action at this link. You can read the full summary report here.
Or share this far and wide. It's why I made it:
Once armed with the knowledge you try to bring all within range of your voice to the cause. Speak to your fellow allies or proto-allies & make the work you've just done all the easier for the next person. Break it down into easily comprehensible chunks.
Of course #TwitterAdvocacy on its own isn't enough, it's just a small piece of the work but it can help get your feet wet on what will also be a lifelong process: putting political leaders at all levels on notice in regards to your expectations of them.
Just like the #ClimateCrisis, #TruthAndReconciliation has *it's* scientists, experts & thought-leaders, including survivors and the family of survivors. Like your political advocacy, the act of listening to these experts is never finished.
As with the #ClimateCrisis I began compiling experts, allies & thought-leaders in a daily growing list (make private! Always private!) to ensure I'm each day seeking, hearing & elevating important voices to the cause. If I were a better ally I'd've done it a long time ago.
Just like in the Climate Crisis there are villains in this tale, protecting an indefensible status quo. They must be identified and called out and no longer only by the Indigenous, who have already done so for over a century. It must be all of us.
As an avowed but not-really-in-your-face-about-it Atheist I have a role to play in pushing the #Catholic Church to at long last do the right thing. If you yourself are a Catholic at any phase of spiritual journey your word has MUCH more weight. Use it.
July 1, 2021: #CancelCanadaDay
The image below is quite literally a desecration so I get it if this offends you. It offends me too, it actually *hurts* me and I made the damned thing. You know why I did it though. We *all* know why.
I was compelled to make it because the Canada that partnered up with the Church and made all those little corpses and then covered it up and have done so very, very little to reconcile it offends me much more than a Canadian flag with a bloody hand where the leaf should be. Canadian social networks are full of images like this.
#CanadaDay's something I've celebrated in some capacity every year of my life. I will not, cannot celebrate ever again until at minimum the #TruthAndReconciliation calls to action #71-76, those dealing directly with Missing Children & Burial Information are fully addressed...
... and concrete verifiable steps are taken towards the full & speedy implementation of the remaining #TruthAndReconciliation calls to action. Until these steps are taken the Canada I thought I knew & loved is a farce & a disgrace. We believe ourselves a moral people. We are not.
I'm the last person to casually throw around Holocaust comparisons but with the increasing revelations of more and more unmarked graves full of unidentified little bodies how long before we're ALL making that analogy? Celebrating *Canada*? While it still hides *that*? Not me.
If we are at long last to become the good & decent people we've always believed ourselves to be, we will as a People step up. If we again leave this terrible burden for the Indigenous to shoulder alone we fail ourselves.
I'll be ready to celebrate #CanadaDay as I always have when I'm proud of this country again.
****