Thread by @LouisBusch

The Canada you grew up in is not the Canada I grew up in.

- a thread -

I was born in Lynn Lake, a town at the end of highway 391; a land exploited by the Sherritt & Blackhawk mining companies for nickel, zinc & gold.

#215children #Indigenous #CancelCanadaDay #Genocide

The mining corps made a fortune, didn't pay taxes, and left 21m tonnes of toxic tailings behind; buried on play grounds, under houses, and in the water supply.

Everyone knew.

cbc.ca/player/play/24…

And so Lynn has been under decades long boil water advisory while disproportionate rates of cancer continue to ravage her residents.

A modern day @ErinBrockovich story in Indigenous Canada, but without the hero to hold the bad guys accountable at the end.
cbc.ca/news/canada/ma…

The Canada you grew up in is not the Canada I grew up in.

A few hours east, the sacred sights & traditional hunting grounds of my ancestors, lay decimated by the greed and indifference of a gov-corp partnerships.
@SGuillemardMLA #WaterIsLife

cbc.ca/news/canada/ma…

Once the site of the 3rd largest fishery in North America, South Indian Lake was a self-sustaining & flourishing community. In a few short decades, the CRD polluted the land, collapsed the economy, & poisoned the people & wildlife with neurotoxic methylmercury.

Everyone knew.

The Canada you grew up in is not the Canada I grew up in.

My grandmother was kidnapped & raised at Sturgeon Landing / Guy Residential School. My mom was forced to attend the Prov. Indian Day school. Both were tortured at the hands of government supervised clergy.

Everyone knew.

The Canada you grew up in is not the Canada I grew up in.

In 1990 the Canadian government sicced the military on women, children, and Elders so that a golf course could be built over the graves of our ancestors.

While other kids were in pools & at parks, I held my Mom's hand & marched with Elijah Harper, Phil Fontaine, & Ovide Mercredi at Peace Village in protest of racism and desecration and genocide.

I was 6 years old.

While other kids watched Saturday-morning cartoons, I watched military men beat mothers & aunties like mine while spectators hurled rocks & racial slurs at grandmothers and grandfathers like mine.

Everyone knew.

On my first day of school in Regina SK (Canada's Selma Alabama), a group of white kids asked "are you an Indian?" and when I said yes with pride, they said "then you're dead".

The first of many fist fights that would follow introductions.

I got used to being followed around and emptying my pockets in stores, and heard words like bogin and squaw on the regular from strangers, and teachers and friends.

In high school I tried to present on residential schools; on the sexual abuse & the torture, the mass graves & the incinerators.

I got "Canada's Secret Genocide" up on an overhead slide before the history teacher interrupted saying it was not "age appropriate".

Everyone knew.

The Canada you grew up in is not the Canada I grew up in.

I've watched the mass incarceration of my brothers, & & cousins & uncles.

A legacy of inherited violence turned sociocultural crime.
theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…

From Helen to Tina to Barbara to Joyce, I watched Canada discount and disappear our life-givers, the old & the young.

Daughters, & sisters, & aunties, & mothers, & grannies washed away & ignored.

A highway of tears for every city and town. #MMIWG

I've watched the our mass apprehension of our children evolve from residential school, to scoop, to children's aid TODAY. A trauma pipeline to prison, & opioids & death. The doctrine "Kill the Indian in the Child" built into social services and guarded by govt lawyers. @cblackst

The Canada you grew up in is not the Canada I grew up in.

So when you hear #CancelCanadaDay or #Genocide or #215children, don't look away.

Don't scream "cancel culture" or send thoughts & prayers.

Act where you can, & teach your children so we don't have to do this again.