Usually on this day, along with many others, I don my red and white clothing and strut about as a proud Canadian. I celebrate our country with the delicious red and white dessert of the season – strawberry shortcake, and end the day oohing and aahing as explosives fill the sky, soil and water with all the chemicals that make fireworks. This year I can’t do it. I am wearing a red shirt but I know that many are choosing to wear orange instead. I feel conflicted.
There are many things that make Canada a great country. I don’t need to list them here, you can name them yourself and find lists elsewhere. There are many things about Canada that make me cringe, make me angry, make me ashamed, make me sad. These last week, as graves have been identified, has been sobering. I should have been, but was not, fully aware of the human loss caused by the Residential Schools. I knew somewhat of the long term impact of the cultural genocide and the very act of removing children from their family and community but I don’t remember hearing of the devastatingly high death toll. I should have known. Many did, but I did not open my ears and eyes to that terrible aspect. Such a shameful history.
Today, I am choosing to be grateful for the good things about our country. The vast and beautiful geography, good quality education, medical services, and on and on. But all this is tempered by the human decisions that have judged and sidelined and abused many within our society. Canada can improve. Canada must improve.
Amen to that Nancy🙏🏽 We are these days struggling along with our girl whose Mom did not really ‘survive’ residential school. Turns out there was a residential school in the small town where John was born. His birth parents would have been of age. (I am wearing orange bandana and bracelet these days. There is an orange flag beside my Canada flag)