An Open Letter To The Party Leaders
Submitted by Mary Simon on Wed, 2011-04-13 15:11
Let me begin by offering each of you my thanks for speaking with Canadians during yesterday evening’s debate and sharing with us your views on several key national issues. Such broadcast events are crucial for Inuit because they are among the few opportunities we have to hear directly from party leaders.
Indeed, the four ridings in which Inuit primarily live are so large that voters in many communities can’t be assured of seeing their local candidates during the short campaign period.
So I found it especially disappointing that there was no real discussion last night about the Arctic and the substantial challenges Inuit face today. And no real winner for Inuit.
I have read your platforms in an effort to see where each party stands on a range of issues that affect Inuit well being, and I find that each of you has much work to do in confronting and addressing the realities of Canada’s remote Arctic communities. We are not looking for empty promises, but a real understanding of our needs and a willingness to address them in a meaningful way.
After all, Inuit issues are Canadian issues. Inuit are voters – and based on numbers from the last Census, some 3,600 have come of voting age since the last general election.
It concerns me greatly that when the eyes of the world are on Canada, such as during the Vancouver Olympics, Inuit are front and centre. Yet when it comes to national discussion of issues of importance to Canadians, we are all but ignored.
There is another debate this evening. It is another opportunity to channel your voices into the homes of Inuit families.
And that is not all. Each day on the campaign trail is an opportunity to appeal to us – to show that our people, and the issues we face, are of national concern.
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Comments
Inuit voters, challenges and Seal clubbing
How can we empathise, relate to or work with people from a community and a country that condones the clubbing of defenseless seal pups, in the name of cultural tradition!
A horrific barbarism meted out repeatedly, despite international outcry for the last 25 years. “Canadian sealing regulations describe the dimensions of the clubs and the hakapiks, and caliber of the rifles and minimum bullet velocity, that can be used. They state: "Every person who strikes a seal with a club or hakapik shall strike the seal on the forehead until its skull has been crushed," and that "No person shall commence to skin or bleed a seal until the seal is dead," which occurs when it "has a glassy-eyed, staring appearance and exhibits no blinking reflex when its eye is touched while it is in a relaxed condition. Reportedly, in one study, three out of eight times, the animal was not rendered either dead or unconscious by shooting…...”
No- thank you to business with any Canadian community, tribe or company that is too afraid to change and be part of growth in realizing consciousness.
Is ignorance bliss?
I do not even know why I am bothering to reply to your ignorance. I feel compelled, I suppose, to attempt to make you and your small-minded cohorts aware of the inaccuracies of your statements regarding the Inuit seal hunt. Inuit do not hunt with clubs or hakapiks. They hunt with guns. They hunt seals for food. Seals have been a vital source of food for Inuit in a land where you can’t just hop over to the farmer’s market for some squash and a feed of mung bean sprouts. Seals have provided food, shelter and clothing for Inuit. They do not over hunt seals. Inuit are respectful of the lives they take in order to live themselves. Perhaps you should do a tinge (or more) research on your own instead of falling for the propaganda you read on a website and the one research study you mentioned in your comment.
Did you read the challenges Inuit face to survive in their homeland? Did any of what you may have bothered to read in Ms. Simon’s letter educate you about the conditions of Inuit in Canada? You are concerned about seals but what about real people, children who were taken from their families to face unspeakable tortures at the hands of ‘religious’ and governmental establishments that were purportedly meant to ‘educate’.
The residential school system was put in place by a paternalistic government that attempted to eradicate entire societies of Aboriginal peoples. How? Well, by taking children away from their cultures and forcing them (physically and emotionally) to submit to the social conventions of Anglo society, that’s how! What education did they receive? Were they taught how to be politicians? Doctors? Judges? Oh no, they were taught to be the menial labor of these so-called educational institutions. They were relegated to the tasks no Colonizer could bother themselves with doing. They were not allowed to speak in their own language. If they did, they were beaten. They were taught that their traditions and cultures were ‘less than’ that of the more ‘civilized’ (I use this term very loosely) people. They were taught to be ashamed of who they were. These children went through this system and, once they ‘graduated’, were sent back to their traditional societies. Here, they faced a disconnect and lack of belonging as they no longer knew their language and culture and had been brainwashed into believing that their own culture was something of shame. These people then grew up and had children. They did not have the normal parental upbringing and thus their children did not always grow up in loving, caring homes. Why, you may ask? The answer is that the parents were not treated with love, they were in institutions fraught with abuse and racism. They were not given the education they would have received at home where they would be surrounded by people who loved and cared for them.
Inuit are healing from the scars of a society that tried to destroy them. They are still facing people like you who obviously have not done their research and paint all seal hunters with the same blood – stained brush. You are imposing your views (or the views of others in your society) upon a society, which you know little to nothing about. How very small-minded and ethnocentric of you. You should be ashamed. Until you know a thing or two worthy of discussion here, it’s best you save your typing for more important things in your world, as they are not required here.
Ajagutak
Proud to be Inuk
How very telling
How very telling, but really not all that surprising, ………. an anti-sealing activist who is completely unwilling to empathise with, try and relate to, or work with, a culture and people who experience:
* a suicide rate that is 11 times the national average
* a shortage of affordable housing that the south would not tolerate,
* TB rates that are over 150 times higher than the south,
* child poverty and food insecurity that is close to 3rd world levels, and
* an infant mortality rate that is 3 times that of southern Canada.
All because that culture and those people refuse to bow to the misguided, dishonest, and emotional appeals of a group of people who obviously value seals more than they value Canadian Inuit.
Your comment speaks volumes about the anti-sealing mentality Aisha. Maybe the next time you receive your talking points from whichever group is sending them to you you can mention some of these things, and then ask them about how the seal bans of the 1980’s added to those problems and see what they say.