Settlers and Reconciliation

 Yesterday I tried to have a discussion with someone on Twitter. Not the best forum, I’ll admit, and it didn’t go well. It ended with a general comment from him to the world that “you can’t talk to a settler who doesn’t believe in Reconciliation”.

I need to address that, if only for myself. And in more words than I am allowed on Twitter. I hope that others will understand, but that is secondary.

First, the term “settler”. Many people use it to describe people like me, who are not Indigenous Canadians, and not recent immigrants. I find it insulting. I am not a settler. I was born here. This is my country, my only home. I am a Canadian.

As for Reconciliation, when I first heard about it, I thought it was an excellent idea. Two groups of people, who have always seen each other as “different” needed to solve their issues and work together. But that wasn’t what the government meant at all. The government version of Reconciliation seems to be based on “you are all good, we are all bad, what can we do to show how sorry we are?”

An example is the Twitter subject: Queens University has decided to change the name of their law school, which was named after John A. Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada, because he also started residential schooling. Agreed, residential schools were wrong. No argument there. But this man was still the first Prime Minister of Canada. Reconciliation doesn’t mean – or it shouldn’t – that ONLY Indigenous history now has value, and anything that was done by white people should be erased. We should honour both.

Another current issue that should not be is the lobster fishing crisis. There is a reason the laws on fishing seasons, lobster size, etc. were put in: to protect the stock. Those laws, therefore, need to apply to everyone. When you put in rules, even perfectly fair ones, and say “but some people don’t have to follow them”, you are going to provoke anger in those who are following them. The end of racism has to start at the top. As long as government is treating one race differently than they treat all of the others, I see no way to eliminate racism.

I remember a story my mother told me one day when she came home from the corner store. Two little girls, maybe seven or eight years old, had been in front of her in line. They were clearly best friends; one was white, the other Indigenous. Each had the same brand of chocolate bar, and the white girl paid first. Then her friend went to pay, and was charged less. The first child saw this, and said to the cashier “Hey, how come she paid less than me?” He shrugged, and said “Because she’s Indian”. This obviously sounded ridiculous to the child, so she turned to her friend, and asked her “Why do you pay less than me?” The other child also shrugged, and said “Because I’m Indian”.

I don’t know what happened with those children, but it seems to me that is the way racism in this country is started: people feeling they are being treated unfairly because of their race, whatever it is. And the best way to start to eliminate this is for the government to treat all races equally.

Abortion: The Real Issue

Given all of the extremely restrictive anti-abortion laws that have been recently instituted in the United States, and the talk by many who either hope or fear that the same thing is likely to happen shortly in Canada, it is not surprising that many people have lost track of the real issue we should be discussing.

People are talking and tweeting about when life starts; if “heartbeat laws” are too restrictive; whether there should be exceptions in cases of rape and incest, or only when the mother’s life is in danger.

I even got involved in some of these arguments, particularly the ones relating to when life begins. But I stopped to think, and realized something: it doesn’t matter. All of these issues are utterly irrelevant.

If I am in dire need of a kidney transplant to keep me alive, and you are a perfect match, that does not give me the right to take your spare kidney without your permission. Not because I do not have the right to life, but because you have the right to control your own body.

Even after death you can choose whether or not your organs can be transferred to someone else. You can, if you choose, be buried with everything intact, even though you no longer have any use for it. It is your body, your choice.

And this is why it does not matter if life begins at conception. As a human being, I have the right to decide whether or not I choose to use my womb, my body, to nurture a fetus for nine months. If I do, fine. If I do not, that should be a medical decision between me and my doctor, and not the business of anyone else. No excuses are required.

Anyone who says otherwise, who passes a law making abortion illegal, is not being “pro-life”. They are saying that they do not consider women to be human beings with basic human rights.

Canada, the Saudis, and our Friends

Let’s have a look at the beginning of the Saudi-Canadian “spat”. In 2012 Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was charged with "insulting Islam through electronic channels", for which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 10,000 lashes. The first 50 lashes were administered. Badawi’s case should be of concern to all nations, but was followed particularly in Canada, because his wife and children are Canadian citizens.

Saudi Arabia has continued to arrest many other supporters of human and women’s rights, including, last week, Raif’s sister Samar.

Last Friday, the Canadian Foreign Ministry put out a single “tweet” on Twitter:

“Canada is gravely concerned about additional arrests of civil society and women’s rights activists in #SaudiArabia, including Samar Badawi. We urge the Saudi authorities to immediately release them and all other peaceful #humanrights activists.”

Saudi Arabia has so far responded to this single comment by:

·        

•      Expelling Canada’s ambassador
•          Freezing trade between the countries
•          Withdrawing Saudi students from Canadian universities
•          Removing any Saudi patients being treated in Canadian hospitals
•         Selling all Canadian stocks at a loss

This authoritarian country, which requires all women to have guardians and has no free speech, does not anger me with these actions. I do not respect them enough to feel angered by their behaviour. I simply feel pride that my country is standing up for human rights.

However, I am feeling some anger in another direction: at our “allies”. The western European countries and the United States, who are supposed to share our values, and who we have supported in the past. This is not a war: we are not asking for the lives of their young men. All we would like is for their leaders to stand up and say “Canada is right. Human rights are vital, and we also urge Saudi Arabia to release peaceful activists.”

How many of our allies have stood beside us so far? None. Zero. The U.S. says that both countries are “friends” and “partners” of their country, and they won’t get involved. The EU says that they don’t “comment on bilateral relations”. The UK urged both sides to show restraint.

Canada is an ally of these countries. We are a member of NATO, and have always been there to help when needed. Saudi Arabia is not an ally, in any sense of the word. But it appears that our “allies” are more concerned with losing access to Saudi oil and money than they are with supporting Canada or human rights.

I never expected that. Even after all I have seen in the world recently, I thought that people were better than that. It is much more of an unpleasant surprise than the ridiculous behaviour of the Saudis, and I feel both hurt and angry.

Open Letter to the People of Ontario

All of us in Ontario, indeed in Canada, have been treated to a great deal of American news in the past year. Much of it has focused on the leader of that country: a man who appears incapable of telling the truth, breaks promises as easily as he makes them, plays at his job like a game, and is an embarrassment to most of his people.

There is one valuable thing, however, that we can learn from this man: how NOT to vote.

People in the United States voted for a man who said he was “one of you”, though he wasn’t. A man who said he would help the common man, though he didn’t. A man who said you can have it all without paying for it, though we all know you can’t.

Too many Americans fell for this, and they are paying for it now.

Doug Ford is simply Donald Trump wrapped in a maple leaf. A rich, bombastic, right-wing politician who will say anything for a vote, and means not a word of it. We don’t have to guess where this leads: we just have to look south of the border to see the results. Do we want to lose respect, becoming a laughing stock, and – oh by the way – see massive cuts to our social programmes which will go to line the pockets of the rich?

We have seen this type of “populist” candidate before. We know where it ends up. Right now the polls are saying that Doug Ford has a lock on the June election. Prove them wrong. Prove we are better than that.

Remebrance Day - Is forgetting the issue?

Remembrance Day – then called Armistice Day – was started at the end of the “War to End War”, to commemorate the thousands of Canadians who lost their lives in the fight.

Two symbols came to represent that day: the poppy, from the poem “In Flanders’ Fields”, and the quote “Lest We Forget”.

Almost a hundred years, and numerous wars, later, we still see these symbols every November. But I have to ask whether the second, at least, is not out of date.

After WWI, people did not want to forget the loss of their fathers, husbands and sons, and they did not want others to forget, either. At that time the quote no doubt made those who saw it stop and comtemplate all they and their families had suffered.

But is it possible to forget – or remember – something which one never experienced? As there is no longer anyone left alive who went through this time, “Lest We Forget” no longer has any real meaning.

If we truly want to keep Remembrance Day as what it was intended to be, a commemoration of loss and a vow to handle things better in the future, then maybe we need to start with a new quote more meaningful to the people of today. Because each year I see it become less a recalling the horrors of war and more a celebration of the glory of our military. And that is exactly the opposite of what Remembrance Day should be.

How Kathy Died

My sister died yesterday.

To be more precise, she was my step-sister. The American daughter of my American step-father. This is extremely relevant, because I live in Canada, and Kathy lived in the United States.

She lived in Michigan, a state which never really recovered from the Great Recession of 2008. She had been unable to find a full-time job, and was working two part-time jobs instead. For those unfamiliar with the U.S. health care system, this meant that neither of her employers was required to provide her with health insurance.

True, under "Obamacare" she was still required to have insurance, but she could not afford it, and told her mother that it was cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for health insurance.

Twice in the last month she had suffered from chest pains. The second time she ended up in Emergency, and they did a few tests. They were going to do more, until she told them that she had no health insurance. The next day she checked herself out because she was afraid of the charges.

Less than a week later, she was dead.

Health care is not something that should be available to those who can afford it. Like fresh water, education and police protection it is a right to which everyone is entitled. The fact that my sister very possibly died in the richest country in the world because they think that universal health care is "socialist" makes me sick to my stomach.

I used to care about not insulting my American friends and family. Maybe I will again, but today I am saying: get your act together, people. Look after each other. Do better than this. Don't let anyone else die because of politics.

Really Living

None of us ever knows how long we are going to live. That is probably a good thing, in general, although there are some disadvantages.

I still don’t know when my time will be up, but since I have been diagnosed with cancer, and am having to deal with treatments on an ongoing basis, my mortality has become something I think about a lot more.

That might sound negative, but it isn’t. I know that my time may be limited, so I want to make the most of it. Any day that I feel well enough, I go out and do something fun. I am doing those things that I always wanted to try, but put off because I didn’t have the time, or because other people would think they were silly, or for one of a dozen reasons. (The latest one is an archery lesson). And you know what? Most of my friends don’t think it is silly after all. The most common response I get is “Go for it!”.

We only have one life (as far as I know), and when it comes to an end I don’t think any of us will be thinking about how many hours we worked or how clean we kept our house. We will remember time   we spent with family and friends, and things that made us laugh and enjoy ourselves.

I may get lucky and live to be an old lady, but I don’t think I will ever regret the things I am doing now, and I plan to keep having fun whenever I have the free time.