Dear Canada

Why is THIS acceptable? It happens coast to coast, in this case, in my province. It's something we don't talk about nearly enough, yet it goes on every day and like typical Canadians, we just ignore the things we don't like to discuss.

Just about every single one of us lives in some sort of privilege because this land was violently taken away from First Nations. To add insult to injury, our government added disease, poverty and worked their hardest to destroy a way of life through residential schools, which not only sought to erase that way of life, but erased any chances of hope of generations of children from growing up happy and well adjusted because of rampant abuse. Like Canadians though, we buried our heads in the sand.

When did it become acceptable that we do this? Why is it okay that 500K is set aside for infrastructure emergencies for an entire reserve, when it will barely cover the cost of ONE house in many Canadian cities.

Where is it acceptable that in a nation as rich as Canada, that there are communities where there are no schools? No health centres? No access to the services we take for granted? We put a great deal of lip service into wanting people to better themselves, but that's a little hard when there is no school.

How is it acceptable that our fellow Canadians (never mind fellow humans) live like people live in nations without all this wealth?

Why is it acceptable that our government and everyone else just keep turning their heads away when we created and benefit from people having to live in such horrible conditions.

Who do we blame? They government? Ourselves? The people living in those communities? The better question is, who can help change things? The answer is so easy...I'll give you a couple of cookies if you get it right...everyone! You've got it *ding ding!* Write the author, ask him how to hook you up. Write your MP, tell them you're pissed. If you're in Ontario, write your MPP, not that they listen might as well get your complaint on the record. Find groups in your community who are fighting this injustice, learn about the issues, talk to people, pass on brilliantly written articles from the Huffington and less brilliantly written blog rants written by yours truly...linking back to those brilliantly written articles. People need a wake up call, they need to be presented with this issue so many times that it finally sinks in and they are motivated to do something, hell anything! Just creating a dialogue can produce an important ripple. Bottom line is, do not ignore or turn away, it takes so little effort to do something like write a letter or hit forward, so you have no excuses for doing nothing, other than being Canadian and for all our many virtues as a nation, our ability to ignore uncomfortable issues and topics is not one we should keep.