A-plaque-is-seen-outside-of-the-former-Kamloops-Indian-Residential-School-Andrew-Snucins-The-Canadian-Press.jpg
A plaque outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. (Andrew Snucins/The Canadian Press)

Listen Up! Our collective responsibility | Commentary

Hugh Mackenzie

I was encouraged to write about something light and uplifting this week and I was going to try to do just that. But I couldn’t get past the discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia.

There is nothing light and uplifting about that. It is a horrific reminder of our history as Canadians. We cannot fix it. We cannot change it. But we can learn from it.

In thinking about this, I was moved this morning by an online submission by David Lindsay, someone I know well, a former chief of staff to an Ontario premier and one of Ontario’s leading public policy strategists. To me, what he said was powerful and thought-provoking.

“Imagine a mass grave with remains of 215 bodies at your child’s school.

This is our collective history.

We did this.

Not one Church. Not one school. Not one political leader. Not one political party.

Every single one of us as Canadians

We did this.”

Of course, this tweet is somewhat metaphorical. None of us were there. None of us took part, and none of us as individuals are directly responsible.

But it is undeniably our history and therefore at least part of who we are as Canadians. We own that. Desecrating or tearing down statues, blaming individuals or political parties, trying to erase the past or rewrite history just doesn’t cut it and is ultimately dangerous.

What does cut it? Remembering it does. Learning from it does, and so does doing things differently because of it.

Whether he intended it or not, one of the things I took from David Lindsay’s tweet is that collective history and collective responsibility are important, not only in terms of our past but also related to our future.

When we refuse to act, when we ignore what is happening, when we shrug it off because it is inconvenient or unpopular to address, we become part of the problem and the outcome inexorably becomes part of who we are.

That is why today—at a time when we are able to make a difference, when we are responsible and accountable for what happens—our eyes must be wide open to what is going on around us and how it will affect generations to come. That is our collective responsibility and it will become our collective history.

We like to think of ourselves as being very different from the United States, separate and apart and not like them. But they are right on our doorstep and a whole lot bigger than us. What happens there inevitably affects us here.

And what is happening there is frightening. It is challenging democracy. It is promoting an autocratic society where a single, now-unelected individual calls most of the shots, ignores reality, and promotes anarchy. And he is getting away with it. Talk about history repeating itself (ca. 1936) and too many people are sucking it all up. Where is the collective will and responsibility to stop it?

In Canada, we love to point fingers. We all do it. I do it. It’s a national pastime. But the reality is, governments of all stripes can only get away with what we the people allow. At the end of the day, the responsibility is ours.

Take the changes proposed by Québec to the Canadian Constitution for example. Most politicians, and I believe most Canadians, know that these changes are wrong, that a diminishing of guaranteed rights for anglophone Quebecers and an inappropriate designation of that province as a “nation” will inevitably threaten Canadian unity. But to their shame, no political party—not the Conservatives, not the Liberals, and not the New Democrats—are going to stand up for Canada on these issues because all of them are too hungry for votes from Québec. That is where our collective responsibility becomes important. We cannot allow that to happen.

Then there is Bill C-10. A Bill to allow a government-appointed agency to monitor, control, and indeed censor free speech on the internet. The wording of the legislation is somewhat innocuous, but the intent and the effect will be to limit the right of free speech for Canadians to express their opinions within existing laws related to libel and slander. You cannot just blame the Liberals for this. Three of the four official parties in Parliament support it. Surely, beyond party politics, we have a collective (and not a partisan) responsibility to stop this in the interest of democracy.

Finally, there is the economy, chugging along for now but with a record and staggering deficit and debt that will confront our children and grandchildren and will with absolute certainty affect their standard of living and the opportunities available to them. All governments, of all stripes, have contributed to our current financial situation, some for legitimate reasons and some just to attract votes. Nevertheless, it falls to us, as Canadians and not as partisans, to insist on fiscal policies that will mitigate damage to future generations.

At this point in time, Canada, and for that matter the rest of the world, is not a particularly pretty picture. In many ways we are at a crossroads.

As we look back at many of the horrors of residential schools and grieve for the 215 young indigenous people whose unmarked graves have been recently discovered, many of us will do so with a sense of horror and shame and recognize its stain on all of us as Canadians.

A century or so from now, others will be looking back at our time on this planet, assessing how we treated the less fortunate, how we protected Canadian unity, how we protected democratic freedoms, and how we protected the economy for future generations. These are our collective and not our partisan responsibilities. They will also be our collective history.

I wonder how we will measure up.

Hugh Mackenzie has held elected office as a trustee on the Muskoka Board of Education, a Huntsville councillor, a District councillor, and mayor of Huntsville. He has also served as chairman of the District Muskoka and as chief of staff to former premier of Ontario, Frank Miller.

Hugh has served on a number of provincial, federal and local boards, including chair of the Ontario Health Disciplines Board, vice-chair of the Ontario Family Health Network, vice-chair of the Ontario Election Finance Commission, and board member of Roy Thomson Hall, the National Theatre School of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. Locally, he has served as president of the Huntsville Rotary Club, chair of Huntsville District Memorial Hospital, chair of the Huntsville Hospital Foundation, president of Huntsville Festival of the Arts, and board member of Community Living Huntsville.

In business, Hugh Mackenzie has a background in radio and newspaper publishing. He was also a founding partner and CEO of Enterprise Canada, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm established in 1986.

Currently Hugh is president of C3 Digital Media Inc. and enjoys writing commentary for Huntsville Doppler.

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8 Comments

  1. Kathy Kay says:

    Thoughtful commentary and some excellent, thoughtful comments. Some points jump out for me: we are the racists that elected the government, however you want to spin that. Ethnocentrism is a part of us all, whatever our heritage: indigenous, European, African, Asian, South American, or a blend of it all. You get the point. We all notice the “other”, whether it’s skin colour, or economic status, etc. What has to change NOW, not in the future, is our attitude and action. Catch yourself. Watch and listen to yourself. Recognize, own, and shift that attitude.

    Just taking the Residential Schools issue on its own, there were recommendations made, agreed upon, but never acted upon. The payment of money to victims has been a complicated and slow process, but I believe the intent is to be fair and just. However, very clearly, much more can be done and more quickly.

    My grandnephew is Ojibwe. He is a smart, talented, and handsome young adult. And regularly puts up with racist slurs thrown at him, sometimes subtle, sometimes random shouts from ignorant passers by. We are all responsible for the racist behaviour in society. We need to call it out when we see it.

    Own it.

  2. Allen Markle says:

    Today we are aware that there are some low and repugnant episodes in the history of our country. They can’t be expunged or rewritten although there are those who will try. Acknowledge the past; learn from it and move on. Might we suppose the officials and bureaucrats of the past felt they were representing their constituents and the sentiment of the day, but we know that this and future generations will pay the price.
    These episodes are written into the story of my country, for good or bad, but it is not my personal history. Understand that I am not standing close to anyone when they say WE did this. Pick a different pronoun.

  3. Bob Vtech says:

    Religion and genocide.
    Will it ever end?
    Makes one sick just to think about it!
    We can’t change the past, but we can change the future?

  4. Susan Star says:

    Genocide! Still more to be found?
    God bless the little children!

  5. Anna-Lise Kear says:

    Mr. Mackenzie; I agree with so much of what you have said. Thank you for writing about this sorrow and tragedy, that weighs on all of us.
    To Mr. Boyes comments about being too sorry for too long, too many apologies, I say – these revisits or apologies continue to acknowledge our collective past. They can be opportunities to be accountable, to remember in order to do better, and keep us from arrogance and pride. Nuance the circumstances as one will, the importance can still be captured in the essence and example of our Remembrance Day (November 11th) and lest we forget. A dutiful reminder of decisions made and the weight of their long term effects.
    The current and coming generations will be concerned with the debt, but they will also be concerned with our responsibility as stewards of our planet earth. Additionally, how we treat our children and our elderly is right up there as a marker of our humanity.

  6. BJ BOLTAUZER says:

    Mr. Mackenzie, after the last paragraph of your article:
    “A century or so from now, others will be looking back at our time on this planet, assessing how we treated the less fortunate, how we protected Canadian unity, how we protected democratic freedoms, and how we protected the economy for future generations. ”
    I wish to add also the following: … and how we protected ecology of our country for the future generations.

    Economy, good or bad, is of little importance if there is no clean water to drink and no clean air to breathe.

    Also, while an average settler cannot be blamed for the atrocities committed at the residential schools, they are to be blamed for electing racist governments, decade after decade.

  7. John A. Groves says:

    Thanks for this commentary Hugh. The “discovery “ of remains of 215 children has been “chewing “ at me for days. I had concluded that I would never pass through a church door again put I soon realized that I needed to pass through more often. Something about forgiveness
    As you say we are all responsible.

  8. Jim Boyes says:

    Hugh,
    That is a huge package to unwrap and deal with.
    I have never been one to accept guilt for what went on 100 years ago. At some point the past has to be accepted as the past. Lessons learned, yes. Better practices now and in the future, yes. But never ending flagelation and guilt, no. Any society needs to move on and do it’s best in it’s time.
    We can’t rewrite history. What has been done, good and bad is in the past.
    New discoveries of additional evidence serve to add to the facts we have already accepted and from which we havelearned about what happened in the past.