The Prime Minister was in Tofino
Today is Monday October 11, 2021, also known as Canadian Thanksgiving. In the United States, observed as Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Among the myriad horrible news stories the world has witnessed so far this year, Canada’s chief contribution has been this story unraveling since May:
Walking up to the steps of government buildings, schools and churches over the summer, Canadians sometimes found themselves greeted by dozens of small pairs of shoes.
The shoes were laid out in commemoration of the hundreds of children — brothers, sisters, daughters and sons — whose remains were found on the sites of former residential schools in Canada.
Using ground penetrating radar technology, Indigenous communities across Canada have been leading searches of residential school sites. So far, more than 1,300 suspected graves have been found.
But Indigenous leaders, families and advocates say it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
In the months since, the Government of Canada declared September 30th, 2021, the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Future textbooks will cite this as an example of “optical allyship”:
Simply put, optical allyship can be thought of as making statements or showing solidarity for mere appearances, without having done anything to address the issue at hand or to dig deeper.
And to add insult to injury, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent the Truth and Reconciliation day vacationing in Tofino, British Colombia.
To commemorate this surreal occasion I made a sculpture:
To bear witness and remember that —
May 27, 2021 — The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced in a gut-wrenching and triggering discovery that the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found buried at a former residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia. The 215 deaths are believed to be undocumented. At the time of writing, 4,100 Indigenous deaths have been officially recognized during Canada’s cultural genocide.
June 24, 2021 — An indigenous nation in Canada says it has found 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Saskatchewan. The Cowessess First Nation said the discovery was “the most significantly substantial to date in Canada”. “This is not a mass grave site. These are unmarked graves,” said Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme.
July 1, 2021 — A Canadian Indigenous group said a search using ground-penetrating radar has found 182 human remains in unmarked graves at a site near a former Catholic Church-run residential school that housed Indigenous children taken from their families. Cranbrook is 843 kilometers east of Vancouver.
September 30, 2021 — On the first so-called “National Day for Truth and Reconciliation”, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, vacationed in Tofino.
“Treaty 6 acknowledgement”,
“Reconciliation”,
my butt —
October 7, 2021 — the joke was always on us.
