How sorry are you?

The Future Is In Our Past -

What does it mean to be sorry? One dictionary puts it this way: "Sorry means regretful: feeling or expressing regret or sorrow or a sense of loss over something done or undone." Sorrow is a powerful emotion that elicits pity and prevents us from taking a balanced approach to that person/thing for which we feel sorrow.

Canadians feel collective sorrow over the way previous governments treated the Aboriginals and continue to pity the Native people. Native children were forced from their homes and placed in residential schools, with the stated purpose of assimilating them into Canadian society.

The assimilation took many forms, such as stopping the children from speaking their own language and forbidding contact between siblings. As well, in the schools, there was widespread physical and sexual abuse, which continues to take its toll.

In order to provide support for Residential School survivors, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) was created in 1998 with a federal grant of $350 million dollars and a mandate for 10 years. It received another $50 million for the past two years.

In last year's budget no funds were allocated for AHF. The federal government is passing to Health Canada the responsibility for administering mental health services. That decision has sparked widespread debate amongst people who continue to feel sorry for the inhumane treatment of the Native people.

Canadians who pity are adamant that we can never do enough to atone for the past. They feel the government created the problem and it's separate from other mental health issues. They recommend continued funding for the AHF, outside the confines of Health Canada.

Others feel that it's time to stop feeling pity and treat the Aboriginals like other Canadians by bringing them into mainstream Canadian society. This is the only way the past can be healed because, they believe, continuing special treatment continues the abuse.

Some people are of the opinion that the government has gone too far in atoning for past sins. The line of respect has been crossed and Aboriginals can hold governments over a barrel, because Canadians are feeling so much sorrow and pity.

Sorrow permits throwing vast amounts of money at problems that can never be solved by money. Sorry is an influential emotion that allows people to look the other way when the object of the sorrow doesn't measure up to expectations. Is it time to ask what has been accomplished in the past 10 years?

Perhaps the only way to truly atone for the sins of the past is to complete the integration, and treat the Native population as equal citizens of Canada. As Thomas Wolfe said, "You can't go home again."

There is no way we can give the Aboriginals back their past. And, even if we could, would they want it? Do you think there are many Native children who would want to go back to the way of life of their ancestors?

That would be like telling Newfoundlanders to go back to the merchant/fishing era. We pine for the good old days, but given a choice, how many of us would choose them?

Why can't the government leave the Aboriginals to their own devices to chart and follow their own course? Do they really need a nanny government any more than the rest of us?

For some reason we seem to think that we have to look after people we don't understand. Our vision is so narrow we don't realize that the Natives survived quite well before our ancestors came on the scene and decided to turn them into British ladies and gentlemen.

There is evidence at the Cape Island archeological site of the trade, which existed across Alaska, Canada, Labrador and Newfoundland before the Aboriginal trade network disappeared. Inuit journeys to southern Newfoundland and Labrador flourished until Moravian stores supplied people with imported articles.

For some inexplicable reason we seem to believe that Canada's Aboriginals wouldn't have survived without us. The opposite appears to be the case - they prospered until we came on the scene. They have merely existed under the White man's tyranny.

Sorrow and pity are not good equalizers. The person being pitied occupies a place far removed from the person who pities. Truth and reconciliation requires that sorrow and pity be removed from the agenda. Isn't it time that Canada's Native population be given an equal place at a Canadian table?

What Canada's Natives deserve is to be visible and respected. Respect is the polar opposite of pity. Feeling sorrow and pity for people makes them feel inferior. Pity is still a way to consider them differently, even if it is under the guise of atonement. Pity says we have to treat them better because they are in a lower situation.

It is relatively easy to feel sorrow and pity. However, before we can respect, we must value. In order to value, we must be in tune with our own values, and know what it is we believe to be right and good. The question for all of us is: Are we sorry enough to stop pitying and examine our personal attitudes toward Canada's Aboriginals?

info@ganderbeacon.ca