Depravity and Shame

Hi Friends,
Today I will write about the suffering of the First Nations people in the northern regions of my province: Ontario. This sorry state is well known, yet the government stays silent. This aching cruelty has been well documented, yet they don't feel compelled to speak to it or of it.
Why would such a benevolent entity such as the Canadian government not be moved by the plight of these citizens? It was this government's concern for the women and children in the third, that they made the G-20 and G-8's mandate, "Children's and Maternal health around the world," and then spent lavishly on the summit for this worthy cause.
Now it has been said that Canadians are a caring lot and when there is aide needed for the third world, our altruism knows no bounds. We have been sold the notion that we are fighting a war in Afghanistan so young girls can go to school and make the most of their lives. A noble cause to be sure. Why doesn't that same hold true for our Indigenous children's education? Why would the First Nation children suffer contaminated schools, and underfunding? These conditions were brought to the world's attention by a young girl (Shannen Koostachin) from the northern reserve community of Attawapiskat:First Nation in northern Ontario.

As a first world nation and judged to be one of the best places in the world to live, why then are the living conditions on these Northern reserves so horrific? With our Canadian government's recent obscene show of over spending at the G-20 and G-8 meetings held in Toronto Ontario this past summer, shouldn't they be doing something to address the abysmal conditions on these reserves? Further, the Canadian government's commitment to spend billions of dollars on more jails for unreported crime is unconscionable.
This unintentionally pointed out by Stockwell Day

"Right to Play" is a charitable organization, founded in the 1992 to bring some semblance of childhood to third world nations and in war zones to give the children of these depressed areas a chance to for a short time at least, simply be a child.

A worthy organization with heart for sure. The only question really is "why in Canada". Are we at war here with the First Nations?

Why would a child advocate and a graduate of her communitie's school, have to die without seeing her dream fulfilled? A child who had won an International Children's Peace Prize, for bringing this story to the world nine years after her school had been closed due to contamination from a leaking diesel fuel dump under the school.

Shannen's dream has been now taken up by the AFN along with others to see it through to completion

Today in the Toronto Star was the story of yet another worthy endeavor; a film by Andree Cazabon, showing the third world living conditions on yet another northern reserve.

Where is the outrage at the Canadian government for the vicious treatment of these citizens?

When a government seeks to make wards of the state, of certain segments of a society,(via legislation...the infamous Indian Act), then they must be held accountable...I defend my outrage at this governments treatment of the First Nations people, as ghoulish and criminal, and yes demand better for them, from them and ultimately us, as Canadians.

Regards Debra