A family walks through a field where flags and solar lights now mark the site where human remains were discovered in unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School site on Cowessess First Nation, Sask.GEOFF ROBINS/AFP/Getty Images
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Marking tragedy
Re Survivors Not Surprised By Unmarked Graves (July 1): The term “discovery” strikes me as misleading. If the Cambridge English Dictionary is anything to go by, it means “the act of finding something that had not been known before.” But in this case many people know and have known for a long time.
Successive federal and provincial governments knew, as did successive generations of civil servants in multiple departments. Church leaders and religious orders knew. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission knew. Through widespread reporting on TRC recommendations, the Canadian public knew. Most tragically of all, survivors knew.
How can we speak of “discovery” when so much has been known for so long? In a very narrow sense, it is perhaps applicable: how many graves, what exact locations. But the truth of residential schools and their terrible impact is no surprise and should not be considered a discovery.
Kathryn Hamer Edwards Sackville, N.B.
The acknowledgment of a shameful part of Canadian history (and therefore national identity), which occurred for many who read the personal narratives in the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, now has a horrific and tangible focus for all.
In Bloodlands, historian Timothy Snyder’s study of central European carnage in the first half of the 20th century, there is a warning that mass tragedies become “an abstraction few of us can grasp” and require that “countless individuals … nevertheless have to be counted.”
Tracing the identities of the Indigenous children, institutional records and circumstances of their deaths is essential to create the stories that “turn the numbers back into people.”
Chester Fedoruk Toronto
Re Church Is Facing ‘Persecution’ Over Residential Schools: Bishop (July 3): Christianity teaches us that all sinners can be redeemed, but the price is sincere contrition followed by atonement. While no mortal can claim to be the arbiter of forgiveness, from where I sit, Archbishop Richard Gagnon cannot reasonably claim to be in a state of grace according to the tenets of his own faith.
Tom Bimson Ottawa
Not only am I reflecting on my church’s history and my country’s, I am also looking in the mirror. What am I doing to make a difference? If I’m going to say it, I have to do it. And I hold my government to the same standard.
I cannot change my skin colour, heritage or citizenship. However, I choose not to continue my 60-plus-year relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. I cannot continue to support a faith with such an unapologetic history of aberrant and abusive behaviour.
I am sad that it has come to this in my journey, but weep over the hundreds of years and thousands and thousands of wrongs that have been perpetrated. Suffer the little children. Inexcusable. Forgivable? Only one way to find out.
I pray for a sincere and meaningful apology from the church. I pray for forgiveness because I am guilty by association.
Anne Lowndes Kitchener, Ont.
Buy in
Re Non-profit Buys Land In Bid To Save Forests (June 29): “If governments decide to protect all old growth in B.C., I think we could raise the money to do that,” says Andrew Day, chief executive officer of the BC Parks Foundation. This hopeful assertion supports my own belief that we should stop all old-growth logging in our country.
We should consider trees over a certain age as the endangered species they are, and give them maximum protection. There is the 1970s example of substituting plastic piano keys for ivory ones to protect elephants.
We should decide what is important for our survival and the well-being of our ecosystem.
Bev Harris Courtenay, B.C.
Bit by bit
Re Burning Question (Letters, July 2): Whenever the debate about energy consumption and fossil fuels appears, there is an inevitable letter proclaiming that the choice is binary: “Those who wish to preach the gospel of Canada’s climate sinfulness should not step, for personal convenience, on a jet airplane.” This seems the best way to avoid personal responsibility.
Every one of us makes almost unconscious choices each day that can make a difference. Could we drive and idle less, fly less, add solar power to our homes, buy hybrid or electric vehicles, eat less animal proteins, replace older appliances with more efficient ones? The list is almost endless.
The point is that incremental changes by individuals is a very large part of the solution. Presenting binary choices, or blaming other countries for higher emissions, does nothing to solve the problem. Being part of the solution, and not part of the problem, has never been more compelling.
Paul Moulton Ridgeway, Ont.
Service life
Re Finger-pointing Begins Over Condo’s Maintenance Amid The Search For Survivors At Collapsed Miami Building (June 29): Most every physical asset has an end date. No conventional amount of reserving for repairs and maintenance will forestall that. At some point in the life of a building, it’s value-in-place will (even suddenly, as we have seen) be much lower than the cost to keep it in place. At that point, the notion of a “special assessment” for financially and structurally overwhelming defects becomes a bit of a joke.
To the best of my knowledge, as a former condominium board member, there is no insurance policy for this eventuality. Unitholders will be left holding the bag. Their investment will be worthless or worth considerably less.
But for a condo board to waffle in the face of such daunting facts is reprehensible to me and potentially criminal. I’m sure the victims would have been at least willing to lose their investments, had they known what the alternative would be.
Nelson Smith Toronto
Education equity
Re Excellence And Equity In High Schools (Editorial, July 2): Nobody should question the need to provide extra help to those with learning challenges. We should ensure the same for academic achievers.
We all benefit from the brightest among us being stimulated and fast-tracked. Let’s not confuse careful streaming (good) of the gifted with clumsy bigotry (bad) against the poor or disadvantaged communities.
Robin Collins Ottawa
Don’t touch that dial
Re There May Be Life Still For Bachman’s Vinyl Tap After CBC Music (July 1): This is the best thing that’s happened since I had an abscessed tooth removed. At 7 p.m. on Saturday nights, I no longer have to heave my vast bulk off the sofa just to change the dial on my ancient receiver to avoid … guess who?
Graham Bomhower Kitchener, Ont.
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