To The Editor,
This letter is in response to the previous letter that was in The Review, Daniel Cloutier’s letter was inspiring and insightful of an archaic broken machine.
As for the second letter from Simard and Drouin, I found it totally despicable. The information they presented were facts already out there and after all the years Action Champlain committed to the cause, why did this MPP and MP come to the scene now? It’s election time, that’s why. Who knows, maybe like the last election two months before, $7.5 million will be given to the local farmers association. It’s amazing how many votes you come by with that kind of money.
Since we’re talking politics and government, let’s talk residential schools. That whole situation was orchestrated by our first prime minister along with other political types who were the architects of this mass inhumane treatment of young, innocent children at the hands of religious believers wanting to beat, rape and starve these tender souls, to forcefully change the very fabric of their beliefs. The fact that this happened at all is unthinkable and the way it happened is unforgivable. They were literally being forced to fit into a mold the Canadian government wanted them to fit into. Assimilation or uniformity …at all costs.
They were taken from their families at the age of five or six with no choice to refuse. At the age of 18 they were given $20 and told to leave and find their way back home.
As all this pain and suffering was being put on to the children for decades, when indigenous women went to hospitals for various procedures they were being sterilized without their consent or knowledge. Hospitals would not do this without direct instruction from the government, our Canadian government.
Native people were here in this country long before all us Europeans came along. They helped us cope, they were the original stewards of the land. They do more than just protect the land and wildlife, they are the land itself.
In closing, I believe that all Canadian prime ministers and premiers of all provinces, all the doctors who operated and all the various religious followers who were instrumental in this atrocity all have blood on their hands, that will never wash off.
Have we the people learned anything from these revelations, maybe, the big question will we remember, or will it just be a flash in the pan that the government will cover up with lies and empty promises. They are real good at that, cause they do it all the time.
Thanks again Action Champlain, I think we all need to take a good look inside and see what we’re really made of.
Andy Perreault, Vankleek Hill
