Editor:
The avalanche of bad news has led me to emotionally and morally question much about Canada and my place in it. I want to be a proud Canadian, but every day I dread opening my news feeds.
The mounting numbers of unmarked graves at former residential schools for First Nation children and the knowledge this is going to be a story that will unfold for years to come fills me with lugubrious torpor. But we will all have to muster the courage to listen and understand, no matter what.
New evidence from a Royal Society of Canada report is indicating Canada may have undercounted the COVID-19 death toll by 50 per cent and most of those deaths were in lower income racialized front line workers and frail elderly living alone.
A senator with extensive influential ties to Asia, who defends the nefarious Chinese government’s genocidal march and calls on us to recognize the legitimacy of a totalitarian state’s legal system, while Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, whom he represents, are incarcerated in deplorable conditions.
Pusillanimous politicians who prevaricate by abstaining from contentious votes, leaving work on their desks, while rushing off to a summer cottage; translation – really just not doing their job.
Our proud military and police forces seemingly infected with rotten misogyny and sexual perversion.
The list goes on as they say, so I propose a real shake up of our true north. A purge of injustices, obscenities and redundancies from our past and present, starting with a speedy conclusion of all the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including the release of relevant documents held by the church, even by passing legislation to do so by court order, followed by force.
I leave you with a list of questions to ponder for our purge:
Why do we still trust the Catholic church with the care and education of our children? Why do we have the Catholic church deliver health care when they refuse the provision of medical assistance in dying to their patients? Why do our tax dollars go to both institutions, and for that matter, to any non-secular school? Why is it still illegal for gay men to donate blood? Why do we still bow to a royal family an ocean away?
As with any good quality improvement project, our purge should be followed by iterative reflection and continually adding to this list with shameless gusto.
Failing this, attrition will follow and we will be having this discussion across the barrel of a libertarian gun, unless we summon the sanity to ban all guns.
Phillip van der Merwe,
Canmore
