Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has outraged the Indigenous community people for not observing the inaugural National Day of Truth and Reconciliation which took place yesterday. National Day of Truth and Reconciliation honors the Indigenous people who both survived and died in Canada's residential schools. On a personal note, my maternal aunt was a survivor of a residential school.
Given the significance of this day one would think Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would be front and center. Instead, he spent his day vacationing on a beach in Tofino, British Columbia near Vancouver. He would have been wiser to have traveled up the Interior into Kamloops where mass graves of 215 Aboriginal children were discovered back in May.
But Trudeau possesses no such wisdom. For his part, Trudeau claimed he spoke over the phone with residential school survivors. Then again, the Prime Minister's Office claimed he would be spending the day in Ottawa when in reality he was nearly 2,900 miles away.
Needless to say, nobody is buying it. Lynne Groulx, President of the Native Women's Association of Canada, issued a press release bluntly stating that Trudeau "doesn't give a fuck" about Indigenous people.
Although Trudeau will take a beating over this for a few days, he will very likely get away with it just a he got away with wearing blackface. After all, his party was re-elected a week and a half ago and doesn't have to face voters again anytime soon and perhaps ever if he chooses not to seek a fourth term in office. If he does seek re-election be it in 2023 or in 2025 this episode will have been long forgotten by most including many in Canada's Indigenous community. Or those that do remember will still view Trudeau as the least of all evils.
Yet the least Trudeau could have done yesterday was to go to Kamloops or Marieval, Saskatchewan. But it would appear that Trudeau doesn't care in the least.
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