The Infectious Quality of Unfathomable Stupidity

"As soon as it hit the floor, there was a realization by me as president that it was an emotional issue. We're talking about the first prime minister of Canada and how he is held in esteem by many people. It's an emotional issue."
"But what's important is that we're having an open and frank discussion about pieces of our history that we've talked about, as we have with residential schools, as an example."
Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario president Sam Hammond

"When you see Macdonald's name, he's the author of the residential schools. At least in my mind. They (in 1867) did this to us, and people are still suffering the effects, and they will be for more generations."
"Why would you name something, especially a place of education, that is so offensive and was so harmful to all of us First Nations people?"
"There are no First Nations people who are not affected. Not today, not yesterday and they'll still be affected tomorrow."
"I just find it a slap in the face. Five years ago, they renamed the Western Parkway. Why? Why would you pick the author of the residential schools, the person who harmed us to a point where we can barely recover? They finally apologized, so now let's get rid of the memorabilia that makes this person heroic. He was not a hero to us."
Ottawa Indigenous community activist Lynda Kitchikeesic

Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue in Kingston, Ont. (Lars Hagberg/CP)

"Where will it stop? If we start to do that, where will it stop? And this is a good example."
"Will we change all these names [an airport, bridge, highway, street, parkway and federal buildings]? John A. Macdonald, like all politicians did good and wrong things, but he is the first prime minister of Canada and is really related to the history of Canada. I don't think we have to throw out his name everywhere."
"[If we throw out his name whose will follow]? We'll only be left with [former Prime Minister and Nobel Laureate, Lester B.] Pearson." 
"Right now, we're trying to rewrite history with our eyes, from today. But when we look 100 years ago, society has changed so much. Generally I feel we should keep those names; it's an opportunity to speak about what they did -- something good, something wrong. But if you throw away these names, we will forget them and never speak about them."
Michel Prevost, president, la Societe d'histoire de l'Outaouais, archivist, University of Ottawa

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leaves a Teepee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday. Trudeau had a brief meeting this morning with indigenous activists who have set up a demonstration tepee on Parliament Hill ahead of Canada Day celebrations.   Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS

We are separate nations, with a different social culture and certainly different political system, but when any social craze strikes the United States like a persistent cold-and-fever, Canada sneezes. What becomes au cuurant in the United States, from popular culture to political responses to world affairs, becomes an echo in Canada, albeit in watered-down form, reflecting Canadian values to colour Canadian response. Sometimes the echo comes too close in content and reaction for comfort.

And it certainly has done so with this latest media-emphasized and left-versus-right bout of social-driven righteousness in attempting to re-write history bringing out the crazies on both the left and the right to impact public consciousness on the sanctimony inherent in victims' rights and entitlements.
Mr. Prevost, an esteemed historian got his facts wrong on Lester B. Pearson, held in such high esteem as embodying the best and the brightest to come out of Canada's old Department of External Affairs. He too would now be looked upon as a racist; he evinced a deep dislike of Blacks.

As for Canada's first Prime Minister and one of the architects of Canadian Confederation, he was a creature of his times, and  his time in governance was a century and a half ago. First Nations now are aggrieved over the residential school system that the government of the day in agreement with religious orders established to expose Indigenous children to European-based methods of education and social studies, as well as socializing them in the reflection of European values.

Most of the children who underwent that process of education learned to look after themselves, received an education comparable to those that other children in mainstream society were exposed to, and went on to further their own aspirations. Many other children made claims to physical and mental abuse, and harm done them. Children died in those residential schools from episodes of disease that swept through society at the time, but in no greater numbers than other children in society.

Today's First Nations are encouraged by their leadership to live in traditional ways on traditional lands on reserves operated by tribal leaders many of whom take advantage of their position to betray their responsibility to the larger reserve population, all paid for by financial allocations taken out of tax funds. There has been little accountability, and while some reserves are operated to the credit of their elected officials, all too many others are rife with corruption.

On reserves, living the 'traditional' way, in remote communities, housing is supplied by the government and funding for education, health, and all other living expenses is provided through general taxes, exempt for First Nations people living on reserves. There is scant employment, education and medical care can be sub-par, and poverty is rife, but not for the band councils which compensate themselves generously through government handouts.

Family dysfunction is rife, sexual predation is high and violence is common, while drug and alcohol dependency rules the day so that children's needs are neglected and the suicide rate among aboriginal children is high, as is the number of children taken into care in recognition of their parents' incapacity to meet their emotional and nurturance requirements. All these failures are attributed by the aggrieved state of victimhood embraced by First Nations, to the advent of the residential schools.

A group of indigenous protesters have erected a barricade on Argyle Street at the south end of Caledonia, Ontario on Thursday morning, August 10, 2017. The location is the same spot where a large protest over the Douglas Creek Estates residential development took place several years ago. So far protesters are not allowing photographs at the site, nor are they willing to comment on the matter that prompted the barricade. Ontario Provincial Police are on scene and have stopped traffic from approaching the scene. Brian Thompson/Brantford Expositor/Postmedia Network

In the United States, complete reconciliation between the two competing political/ideological/social forces that led to the American Civil War remains elusive and simmers under the surface. It has now culminated with the push by 'progressive' leftists to remove all vestiges of that historical time; the memorials and statues erected to commemorate the Confederate side of the Civil War. In response, that segment of society that values those historical remnants of a time gone by, have resisted. And into their orbit has come white supremacists, fascists, neo-Nazis and other racists, as is their wont.

Now we have the echo resonating in Canada, with calls by leftists, by unions, and by First Nations activists to emulate demands in the United States to expunge from public view all commemorations that give offense to the delicate-minded who fail to appreciate that history is real, it happened, and not always to everyone's liking, and that toppling a statue will change nothing. It is wince-worthy but not entirely surprising that a teachers' union would propose the elimination of memorials to Canada's political worthies. Not surprising since their chief enabler is the current government itself.

These are the teachers who appear in classrooms to expose Canadian children to their preferred versions of history. And the appeasing hordes of leftist sycophants who slaver at the bit to reassure the original victims of European invasion into Canada triumphantly bleat their accord with demands to rearrange Canadian history to make it less offensive to Canada's indigenous populations. Who never went to war among one another, nor took one another as slaves, nor tortured nor killed other tribes' populations.

First Nations protest along Highway 1 east of Winnipeg causes lengthy delays for driver. Still from video.
“You’re sick of being here stuck in traffic. Imagine what it’s like to be stuck in a First Nations community where there’s no hope, no resources for you, and you don’t have anywhere to reach out to. We’re stuck,” Jennifer Spence-Clarke with Urban Warrior Alliance said.