You're obsessed with my considering running for council. Why is that?
I never claimed Sir John A. should be canonized. I never claimed he was perfect or blameless. What I claim is that he was not the party most responsible for the abuses in the residential schools. He wrote a lot of very racist stuff, that's true. In that, he wasn't much different than American, British, and European thinking of the time. Was that correctthink? No. But it was the thinking of the time. We've evolved past that as a race, for the most part, and that's a good thing. But placing Sir John A. in a vacuum and judging him after all that progress was made (which he didn't get the benefit of, due to his dying before we got there). You seem to be making my point for me by your quote from Dr. Daschuk (looks like an interesting book, btw. The link in the article is dead but I got a copy off Amazon here and I look forward to reading it when it gets here.). If modern Canada was founded on ethnic cleansing and genocide, then that makes Sir John A. a product of his time. You seem to have a good knowledge of this. Do you know if he had any contemporaries who exhibited a more modern morality with respect to the natives? Or, if it hadn't been Sir John, would it have just been someone else who did the same things?
There's a book about that, and how the Canadian government deliberately allowed Indigenous peoples in the Prairies to starve after the bison were hunted off the land. I haven't read it but it got a lot of attention when it came out. https://www.amazon.ca/Clearing-Plains-Politics-Starvation-Aboriginal/dp/0889772967
Not according to his book: https://www.amazon.ca/Clearing-Plains-Politics-Starvation-Aboriginal/dp/0889772967
Clearing the Plains by James Daschuk PhD: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0889772967/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_i_J55FSTTXVVY8QV9XKK77
If you're educated on the ongoing development of the Canadian settler state, then the best you can do is not just to be kind and generous. You can work to share information and educate those around you about Canadian history and the states relations with Indigenous peoples on Turtle Island. I don't mean just abruptly bringing it up to everyone you meet, but there are ample opportunities to have these discussions with friends and family.
some books I have found helpfuk in learning about Canada's history:
Yeah, it's from a conspiracy subreddit, yet I don't see this kinda stuff brought up much in any native subreddit. Also check out this book https://www.amazon.ca/Clearing-Plains-Politics-Starvation-Aboriginal/dp/0889772967
Yea, everyone is an migrant. Sorry if that offends some sense of Canadiana in you. This nation at times work with indigenous people, but ultimately this country work to kill, abuse, and displace indigenous people.
The sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can heal and move forward. The longer this stupid, idiotic, racist, narrative of the 'white savior' continues, the longer it will take to heal.
Canada may be a grand nation; but if we only tell ourselves what we want to hear we are nothing but a lying nation. I'd rather own up to a complicated, dirty and truthful history than some sappy, Disney story that folks demand goes unquestioned.