If there was ever an argument for abolishing Canada’s appointed Senate, Lynn Beyak is it. After defending the first genocide of the continent’s first nations by European colonials, then the second genocide through the residential school program by bonafide Canadians, Beyak spent her summer months supposedly meeting with Indigenous communities. Her takeaway? Give up your culture and assimilate–also, apply for citizenship that you already have.
“Trade your status card for a Canadian citizenship, with a fair and negotiated payout to each Indigenous man, woman and child in Canada, to settle all the outstanding land claims and treaties, and move forward together just like the leaders already do in Ottawa,” she said in an open letter published Sept. 1 on her Senate website.
(Indigenous people born in this country are Canadian citizens, and were given full voting rights in 1960.)
“Like the leaders already do in Ottawa” is an interesting euphemism, considering the outstanding criticism is that we flout our treaties. Perhaps Beyak is unaware, but a federal government dishonouring its agreements is generally perceived as a high-risk partner in diplomacy, and it severely damages your government’s ability to bargain. There’s a reason North Korea has exactly zero friends, with their supposed ally mostly using NK as a proxy to undermine the United States. The fact that Trudeau is undermining “fewer” of these treaties isn’t… exactly… progress.
Also, she’s apparently unaware that status first nations are still citizens? Why is this twit being paid with my tax money?
“None of us are leaving, so let’s stop the guilt and blame and find a way to live together and share,” she wrote. “All Canadians are then free to preserve their cultures in their own communities, on their own time, with their own dime.”
Great! So we’re de-funding the Catholic systems then! (Somehow I doubt that’s what she actually means)
How about, instead of paying this leaking ass-pimple her salary, we use the money to fire her into the fucking sun.
-Shiv
I heard on the CBC this morning that the Conservatives are removing her from all four committees that she served on – although not doing anything really useful, like kicking her out of the caucus (which is really the only responsible option.)
Still, it seems clear that her own party is getting rather tired of her – you know you’re getting pretty far out there into the racist fringe when even the Tories are embarrassed to have you around.
She just keeps finding new ways to get worse and worse. At what point is she going to realize the best course of action is keeping her mouth shut?
I kid. She’s a privileged white conservative. She’s never going to realize that.
Random thought: Star Trek TNG as an allegory for the residential school system.
Consider this: there exists a sentient species that’s considered an existential threat to Federation civilization. The crew of the Enterprise get their hands on one of their kids and lock it up with no ability to communicate with its family. They then plot how to use it to destroy the rest of its species. They devise a plan to infect it with a deadly infectious disease that it will then spread throughout its species, but that plan is eventually vetoed by Picard (over the objections of his staff) as too atrocious. Instead, they indoctrinate it in their culture, knowing that it will no choice but to share that culture with its species. Finally, they send it back to its family.
The next time that they encounter that species, a few years later, its society has completely fallen apart due to the confused mixing of the two cultures. This newfound lack of ability to take care of themselves has resulted in bad actors from outside taking over large parts of their population and doing all sorts of horrible things.
Maybe Beyac has a good point, and all Catholics born in Canada really should consider applying for Canadian citizenship? What am I missing here?
How many members of the Canadian Parliament are there from Quebec, if natives and Catholics aren’t considered to be citizens yet? And how many MPs should there be for each population area (Province, etc), if the population totals don’t count any natives or Catholics who have not yet complied with the Beyac plan to apply to be Canadian?
And if we can think of further excuses, maybe we can declare Canada to be vacant and open for claim of discovery and absorption by anyone else who comes along?