Adam Olsen Profile picture
May 19 13 tweets 8 min read
Today I stood to mark the one year anniversary of British Columbians and Canadians being awoken with the reality of the fate of thousands of Indigenous children who disappeared and never came home from residential schools. 1/ #bcpoli #EveryChildMatters #IndigenousPeoples
To all our relatives, all our elders, all our residential and day school survivors, to the generations of survivors of these genocidal acts perpetrated by this and other Crown governments, I raise my hands to you…
2/ #bcpoli #EveryChildMatters #IndigenousPeoples
...for your strength, for your resilience, for your patience, for your long-suffering, for your willingness to share your traumatic, tragic, and heartbreaking stories. 3/ #bcpoli #EveryChildMatters #IndigenousPeoples
To the children whose names have been lost, misplaced, or hidden, in the archives of gov't & churches, whose shame motivates them to hide you. You have not been forgotten by your descendants. We remember you. We love you. 4/ #bcpoli #EveryChildMatters #IndigenousPeoples
It's not easy sitting in the Legislature & listening to people state that they intend to reconcile this reprehensible history and yet when I account for reconciliatory actions, my heart is broken again and again. 5/ #bcpoli
This year, like last year, I was told that it was too difficult to recognize Indigenous names on official government documentation. I was told it is very complex, government is working on it, there is more to do. 6/ #bcpoli #EveryChildMatters #IndigenousPeoples
Last week, we heard this gov't reward a museum that has been identified as an unsafe place for Indigenous People, a place that has proven unable to mend its broken relationship with Indigenous People, with $800 million dollars. 7/ #bcpoli #EveryChildMatters #IndigenousPeoples
This new and massive temple will store items of cultural significance, our sacred items, our technologies, and our innovations, while a few Indigenous Nations will be tempted with $30,000 to facilitate the repatriation of items we want to bring home. 8/ #bcpoli #EveryChildMatters
On the floor of this Chamber a deep ignorance is exposed. An unwillingness to acknowledge the truth, that many, or most, of those items locked away in museum basements were collected through grave robberies. 9/ #bcpoli #Reconciliation #EveryChildMatters
Many more were collected by further exploiting destitute Indigenous Peoples ravaged by a fatal virus. This was all happening in BC at the same time as the residential schools such as Kamloops, were being designed to assimilate the Indigenous children. 10/ #bcpoli #Reconciliation
Just as this Crown institution was stealing our cultural items, our innovations, and technologies, stealing the bones & the caskets of our ancestors, they were creating the institutions charged with stealing our children, our languages. Stripping us of our identity & culture. 11/
Now in 2022 we get told it’s too difficult to be called by our names, that our foods and medicines are pests - sprayed with poison to increase timber harvest - and get paltry sums for the deforestation and destruction of our lands. 12/ #bcpoli #Reconciliation
But #IndigenousPeoples are resilient. We are proud. We are powerful. No matter what this Crown institution does to us. We stand here today. Gathering strength, our life-force given to us by our creator, brought to life through our relationship with our relatives. 13/13 #bcpoli

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More from @AdamPOlsen

May 18
Yesterday in question period Premier @jjhorgan was surprised that I “don't support investing in our collective history.”

The truth might be uncomfortable, but the history the Premier is celebrating is the graverobbing of our ancestors. 1/ #bcpoli #RBCM #Reconciliation
This museum has had no issue with its natural history or its settler-oriented exhibits. Its problem is how it relates to Indigenous people.

Whatever story the @bcndp want to tell themselves, we don’t need an $800 million new shrine to house systemic rot. 2/ #bcpoli #RBCM
.@jjhorgan and the @bcndp are treating our cultures as artifacts, while many of those items in their collections are relevant and important today. 3/ #bcpoli #RBCM #Reconciliation
Read 7 tweets
Mar 31
Tomorrow a land management plan will be enacted that will allow the spraying of #glyphosate – a toxic, carcinogenic chemical – broadly across the unceded territory of Stó:lō, St’át’imc, Nlaka’pamux, Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. 1/ #bcpoli #DRIPA
This is where food and medicines are harvested .

The plan will allow BC Timber Sales to spray #glyphosate for 5 years. These poisons will be used to kill berries, salal, mushrooms, hellebore, and other plants. 2/ #bcpoli #DRIPA
Angelina Hopkins Rose, from St’át’imc First Nation, has been calling for gov't to pause the plan - arguing they were not consulted and asking for a 60-day extension, at a minimum, before spraying begins, so that they may raise their concerns with gov't. 3/ #bcpoli #glyphosate
Read 6 tweets
Mar 30
Today the entire @bcndp caucus clapped and hollered as Minister @BruceRalston boasted about being the gov't to welcome the largest #LNG investment in BC's history.

Shocking behavior for “climate leaders”, and shameful given the context of my question. 1/ #bcpoli #ClimateCrisis
They did this just after being told the following:

The national inquiry into #MMIWG found that man camps and resource extractive industries directly cause increased violence against Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2 Spirit People. 2/ #bcpoli #Reconciliation
2) Scientific studies have demonstrated birth defects, cancers, and asthma in communities near fracking.

3) Methane is 28 times more potent by weight than carbon dioxide meaning gases leaked from #LNG production are as highly polluting as coal.

3/ #bcpoli #ClimateCrisis
Read 6 tweets
Mar 30
I raise my hands to the Indigenous leaders and community members who shaped the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (Declaration Act) Action Plan. 1/ #bcpoli #Reconciliation #DRIPA
While the framing of the Action Plan is fine, the metric for success is not what we hear, but what we see. 28 months after the Declaration Act was unanimously passed in the Legislature, this government is only just moving forward. 2/ #bcpoli #DRIPA #Reconciliation
This plan outlines goals for reconciliation, but not the metrics for achieving them. Already the Action Plan lays the groundwork for excuse making. 3/ #bcpoli #DRIPA #Reconciliation
Read 5 tweets
Feb 14
Today I asked @AdrianDix if he believed in the equitable delivery of health care services to all British Columbians. Under the watch of the @bcndp gov't there is growing inequity in access to primary health care. 1/ #bcpoli #healthcare #UniversalHealthcare
Doctor's clinics in my riding are beginning to introduce fees for services that should be free. Even worse under the watch of the @bcndp multi billion-dollar corporations are getting into the business – an example is Telus Health. 2/ #bcpoli #healthcare #UniversalHealthcare
Telus Health MyCare provides a virtual walk-in clinic billed under MSP, but if you want so-called premium services like annual screenings, preventative health, and advanced diagnostics, you'd have to pay sometimes thousands of dollars out of pocket. 3/ #bcpoli #healthcare
Read 6 tweets
Nov 30, 2021
.@MurrayRankinNDP knows the current conflict in the Wet’suwet’en has a root cause - the @bcndp’s policy decision to proceed with #LNGCanada and the #CGL pipeline. Period. 1/ #bcpoli #wetsuweten
cbc.ca/news/canada/br…
The @bcndp understands the conflict over land title, @MurrayRankinNDP himself referenced the SCC’s #Delgamuukw decision. Despite that they made a choice to work with some and not others. 2/ #bcpoli #wetsuweten
By the time everyone was invited to the table the pipeline was already deeply entrenched as the focal point of conflict. The @bcndp wanted #LNGCanada & #CGL pipeline and they chose to ignore the complex governance issues created by successive Crown gov’ts. 3/ #bcpoli #wetsuweten
Read 5 tweets

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