Re: 鈥淭ally for statue removal: $30,126,鈥� Nov. 17.
The continuing focus on the cost of putting the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald on ice is akin to looking at one flea riding on the back of a stampeding herd of elephants leaving an endless path of destruction in its wake. I鈥檓 most disappointed in the Grumpy Taxpayer$, who are keeping the flea on life-support to flog it further.
The real cost to be concerned about is the one measured in lives damaged and destroyed over successive generations, and the billions upon billions of dollars lost to decades of enforcing this genocidal policy, followed by generations of reparation costs and payment owed for the wrong done.
Here are the words spoken by Macdonald in 1879 that launched this carnage: 鈥淲hen the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write.
鈥淚t has been strongly impressed upon myself, as head of the department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.鈥�
Joanne Thibault
Victoria
