Prime Minister Stephen Harper has issued an apology on behalf of all Canadians to First Nations for the physical, emotional, and psychological abuse suffered by those who attended Residential Schools.
This page says that's nice, but it's too easy to score political points by extending apologies for past transgressions, and it's not always the afflicted party one is trying to reach out to. This is not a sincere effort towards reconciliation with Aboriginal people, this is an exercise in covering for the churches who ran the residential schools so that good Evangelical Christian Racist Tory voters can sleep at night knowing their man in Ottawa has done the heavy lifting. Harper is looking to get out in front of this parade of regret and steer it to the right well after progressive Christians have already addressed the residential schools issue.
A sincere effort towards building a relationship with First Nations would be something like restoring the Kelowna Accord or abiding by the United Nations Declaration on Aborginal Peoples: when is Harper going to call a press conference to apologize for trashing one and dismissing the other?
3 comments:
Was wondering how long it would take you blog about this!
I don't think Harper is trying to cover for the churches to placate the base so to speak. Most of the red meat evangelicals would never darken the door of a United Church lest they run into one of "them" the Presbyterians might see one of them the Anglicans and the Catholics are not "True Christians" (see landoverbaptist.com) and in fact they see most of the liberal mainline as a mission field.
It has been the liberal mainline that have been leaning on the feds since we started aplogizing and we all have except out Roman friends. "Cretin" (who refused to meet with a delegation cossisting of the Moderators of the UCC and PCiC the Anglican Primate and the Chair of the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops on this file) and "St. Paul" could have done something so could have Mulroney and Mr. Turner "you had an option sir" even the "Great Pierre" mr liberal himself could have lifted his arrogant ass off his chair and done something.
There is no real politcal upside to this for Harper or his ilk. Most of my colleagues a good majority of whom are died in the wool NDP hacks are applauding the PM for doing the right thing with integrity and a deep sense of rsponsibility.
As far as the link to the UCC as an exmple of a progressive christian denomination take it from the inside we are still mainline liberal old and tired, there are progressives among us to be sure but there are also conservatives charismatics, seekers and saints and we try to get along in our "big tent"
Your Bro, The Rev.
Welcome to the show, 'Brother Dave'. This page is happy to be touched by God, or at the least, by one of God's authorized distributors. Nice to meet you.
Perception is everything, and this government perceives a majority government for themselves, even if it is the bastard child of the Silent majority and the Moral majority. For evidence, this page admits Bill C-484, Bill C-10, and the closing of Insite against all medical evidence to the contrary.
Also, at least in the 604, the Tories love to pump up how they appeal to 'traditional' ethnic (read: Chinese) voters, with 'traditional' coming from some authoritarian hellhole between Confucianism and the Tianmen Square Massacre.
This page still contends that talk - action = 0, so without any serious attempts to address the social and economic issues confronting First Nations, it's still an exercise in letting the Dominionist control freaks feel good about themselves.
'Saint Paul'...you have to be dead to be cannonized, right? ;)
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