Indigenous Nationhood

Please tell me that I am not the only one who is shocked by federal Justice Minister Vic Toews' idiotic comments tonight on APTN News. Did he actually say that there is nothing wrong with our justice system and that our justice system does not discriminate? I can't even think of a proper descriptor for his comments - ignorant, racist, wilfully blind, pitifully stupid, unprofessional, and irresponsible don't seem to convey the depth to which his comments are offensive. http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/11/28/the-justice-system-doesnt-discriminate-says-justice-minister-toews/ It is as if he has ignored every single justice report, inquiry, and Supreme Court of Canada judgement that has found, based on overwhelming research and evidence, that our justice system does in fact discriminate, especially against Indigenous peoples. However, we all know that as Minister of Justice he knows about all these reports - he has simply chosen to ignore them because it suits the Conservativ

I am moved to write this blog because of Minister Duncan's outrageous remarks that residential schools were NOT cultural genocide. This has led to discussions about whether or not the murder, torture and abuse of Indigenous peoples in this country "qualifies" as genocide, given the more recent, and much more distant atrocities committed in countries like Rwanda. Rwanda gained international attention because upwards of 800,000 people died in less than a year by brutal means. The Srebenica genocide resulted in the murder of approximately 8,000 Bosnian men and women in 1995. The holocaust of millions of Jewish people is likely the most famous of all. These events all took place far away from our shores in North America and allowed Canadians and Americans to point across the sea and shake their heads in horror and disgust. North Americans have been able to rewrite their own histories so that they don't have to face the atrocities committed here at home. They have the be