Canada’s sad Indian Residential School history is by now very familiar to Canadians, and it is increasingly being taught to our children in school. This is both necessary and proper. A caring and compassionate society should know its history, warts …
“Stopping global warming” had no place in Presidential debate
Logic defeats the climate scare
Sometimes logic trumps even the loudest voices. That is what happened on Wednesday night when climate change and greenhouse gas emission reduction were completely missing from the first Presidential debate.
Nine climate activist groups—the League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, The Climate Reality Project, MomsRising.org, GlobalSolutions.org, iMatter Campaign and Moms Clean Air Force—delivered petitions with over 160,000 signatures to the office of debate moderator PBS newsman Jim Lehrer urging him to ask the candidates about climate change. For weeks, main stream media have been pushing climate change, asserting that President Obama and Governor Romney must address this, “the most crucial issue of our time.”
But they did not, and Lehr completely ignored the topic as well.
It appears that Obama, Romney and Lehr all instinctively understood that, in comparison with the nation’s pressing issues, discussions about “stopping global warming” were not worth even a single minute of air time.
Residential Schools Generate Anger But Also Pride
There are fundamental questions which have never been answered by those who condemn the residential school system. Were we to leave people by virtue of no common language, illiterate, innumerate and unable to deal with the larger society?
It’s Time To Focus On Healing: Residential school stories lack balance
A recent event in Winnipeg organized by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission highlights the need to focus on healing from residential schools, as well as present a more balanced perspective on these institutions, which were not all negative.
Residential Schools Propaganda?
While not forgetting that Indian residential schools were based on coercion and allowed abuse, it should be remembered that not everyone suffered abuse and that they opened up educational opportunities to many.
Residential Schools: Another View
Most children who went to residential school learned to read, write and calculate. Many children also learned other modern skills — the principles of democracy and common law, for example — which would help them participate more fully in both aboriginal and Canadian society. Given this context, were aboriginal residential schools the unmitigated disasters that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will, without a doubt, hear them described as? Probably not.
Residential Schools Story More Complicated
Residential schools also provided benefits to native students.
Winnipeg Should Choose Education Over Anger in Bishop Grandin Debate
Winnipeg City Council needs to know renaming streets will not advance Indigenous reconciliation and it will deny Winnipeggers a chance for a learning experience about the residential schools legacy. A final motion goes to city council on March 23. The …
Bishop Grandin
Winnipeg is close to saying goodbye to Bishop Grandin. Soon, the streets, and anything else that bears his name, will be erased from Manitoba’s history. Before that step is taken in historical revisionism city councillors might at least pay respects …