He also told me that the reason for the shortage of doctors was being getting a medical degree is expensive and colleges want to push gender studies bullshit to make money.
Ill trust his opinion on the police issues-
but on why we have a shortage of doctors: "Because we have too much gender studies!" sounds way too boomerish and oversimpified.
We actually do have a relatively similar amount of doctors compared to what we had a few years ago; we're severely lacking nurses though, of which there is a much lower bar to entry and less pay.
The other issue is, Canada being big vs a Smart city being confined to an individual city are two exclusive things. You can still have a smart city, in a big country- youre not making the entire country smart, just the city. To be fair though, if your father is saying that Calgary can't be made smart, he's probably right.
Replying myself to add that I guess pointing out that the schools were TB hotspots is hate speech not against Natives, but against Catholics/the feddies.
To me it seems like the government (especially the Liberal party) is hellbent on minimizing their own role in residential schools. You could argue that John A Macdonald might’ve had the noble intention of using the schools as a means for whites and natives to live amongst each other, but it went horribly wrong and he died before anything could be fixed.
Buut, the Liberal Party had been informed numerous times that the schools were TB hotspots as early as under Wilfred Laurier.
And that it was the Liberal Party who performed the 60s scoop, under Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
I can see why the Liberals and TruAnons have a vested interest in downplaying residential schools whenever it’s brought up that Liberals were in power for the majority of its run and did nothing to stop any of the abuses going on. Because pointing out those facts makes the Liberal party look far more genocidal than the people they accuse of doing it; because at least the Conservatives have done more to apologize to the victims than the LPC have. The CPC acknowledged their wrong doing long ago; whereas the LPC chooses to downplay their role wherever possible.
The thing I actually hate about our approach to native issues is not that the history is rather
hazy (its not), but the fact that we actually have documentation of the entirety of the residential school system ready and available for anyone to read. One big thing is, many of these schools were managed by the Jesuits, and they were meticulous with keeping details and logs- even more so than pretty much any schooling system did at the time.
I can remember in university taking a course in native studies about a decade ago and browsing through the national library to read these files.
There were a lot of native kids that died, but it wasn't anything heinous as far as I can tell. The majority of the records were pretty boring. The deaths were things like "so and so fell through the ice today, was dead upon recovery" or "TB claimed another victim of the X wing of Xavier school".
Two big points here when looking at history:
1st point:
The child mortality rate at the height of this (because who gives a fuck about if you went to a residental school in the 60s, we're talking the early 20th century) is actually very similar to the national average.
My great grandfather in Quebec had 14 siblings (many of which were half siblings). The
vast majority of them died young. This is from the same period. Infant mortality under 1 can be illustrated here, for example:
Versus the national average
Id say its higher, but I wouldnt say its
drastically higher. 1.8 out of 10 vs 2.4 out of 10 is still basically 2 out of 10. Now, this is for kids under 1 for both of them- I'm a bit too lazy to find the overall youth data, but from what I remember it follows a similar trend.
The big thing here is that kids were dying en masse during this period, not just in residential schools, but all over. People forget or just have no idea how hard life was back then, especially rural life and seem to find any childhood deaths shocking, when it has literally been the norm for thousands of years. Its not just native kids, wheres the call for reconcilliation for Quebecois children dying in cholera or TB epidemics? Well, there is none, because a) people don't know history, and b) those that do understand that this was just the norm for the period and was pretty much out of anyones hands.
2nd point:
Where I do find issue with the residential schools is that, regardless of the mortality rate for children, if the state takes children out of their parents hands- I believe the responsibility of care is heightened. If you are forced from your parents home, you have a greater responsibility to care for the child, and if you can't, you dont have the right to take the child. We'll never know if these kids would have died of TB at their parents home (they probably would have), but considering how common this was over several decades, the program should have never been forced.
So where does that actually leave us?
Honestly, I didnt find the residential school system particularly racist or genocidal. Its pretty, mundane? If you actually look into the files, or bother with the history, youth deaths were pretty normal at the time and there isnt some cackling canuk writing their hands celebrating native kids dying. Many of these jesuits actually weep in their journals- at something that wasnt just killing native kids during the period, but all kids.
The screams of "racism" and genocide are just political crutches to be used by opportunists and some sort of Canadian version of original sin or the black legend. The schools are probably racist, but its more the type of "we have to help these ignorant people meet white canadas standard", which is more the paternalistic
White man's burden variety. I honestly don't give two damns about that type of historical racism, if it surfaces. It can lead to some horrible things, but in this historical context in Canada, its pretty understandable.
Genocide though, is absurd, inaccurate, and spits on the graves of the people involved with this, including native bands as well, as someone highlighted.
I don't know where this is heading, but China is probably behind this is my conspiracy theory. When the government was taking a strong stance against the Uiyghurs, thats when "suddenly mass graves have been re-re-rediscovered" conveniently, even though they were never hidden and literally you can look at the national archives for information on them at any time.
Its basically the George Floyd of Canada, where the actual facts of the case don't matter, and its all just a tool used in screaming matches that politicize and honestly denegrade the situation by attempting to attribute false motivations post the fact and ignorant of the actual history.
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