Author: Rick Young

Well, it’s been awhile since I posted anything.

This two and a half year pandemic has left me restless, and often at a loss for words. I avoided writing about the perils of living under a life-threatening pandemic and it curtailed my social and cultural life to a point that I really didn’t have much to write about.

I watched a lot of Netflix. Some of it very good, some of it very bad.

I followed the public health regulations – masking and social distancing, etc. And I’m happy to say I have managed to dodge the little bugger so far (Knock on wood!).

In the last month, I have attended a couple of concerts and enjoyed some live theatre at the Grand and Stratford Festival.

To say that I am looking forward to a relatively “normal” summer would be an understatement.

What about you?

April 18, 2022.

I just finished reading Dean Jobb’s The Case of The Murderous Dr. Cream, a true crime story written in the narrative non-fiction style of Erik Larson (The Devil in The White City).

Once believed to have been Jack the Ripper, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream (who for awhile resided and practiced medicine in London, Ontario) was a calculating Victorian Era serial killer who left behind bodies in three countries before being hung in London, England on November 15, 1892.

Author Dean Jobb has written a very readable book that takes readers into the slums of London, England and Chicago, and the growing town of London, Ontario.

Readers are left wondering how Cream got away with his crimes as long as he did.

Highly recommended.

Canada Day 2021 presents many Canadians with a decision to make, including this writer.

Will they celebrate the day with family picnics and get togethers with friends and families and evening fireworks as is tradition, or will they choose to forego this year’s planned festivities in light of the tragic discoveries of unmarked Indigenous graves in the weeks leading up to the holiday? Or somewhere in between?

While a longtime Canadian nationalist (going back to the 1960s when it meant being virulently anti-American) and Canadian History teacher, I have never really gone in for the fervent one-day flag waving, almost American style, patriotism many people seem to relish. And I have nothing but disgust for the drunken louts with Canadian flags painted on their faces who insist on singing Oh Canada at the top of their lungs, off key and devoid of the correct words.

For me, Canada Day (or as it used to be called, Dominion Day) has always been about giving thanks for being a citizen of what I thought was a shining example of a tolerant, multicultural diverse nation — an exemplar for the rest of the world, if you will.

I regularly attended New Citizenship Swearing In Ceremonies in my community so I could witness immigrants from other countries embracing Canada as their own. And I was known to sing Oh Canada proudly at public events. And, yes, I know the correct words.

That was then; this is now.

Since the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. and now the discovery of what are believed to be 751 unmarked graves near a former residential school in Saskatchewan, like many other Canadians, I have been doing a lot of soul-searching about this year’s Canada Day.

Writer Shari Graydon summed up her feelings succinctly in an Opinion piece in The Toronto Star this week:

“I can no longer celebrate Canada Day, and I’m at a loss as to why anyone else should, either. The holiday has become for me a reminder of the unspeakable wrongs my ancestors visited upon those who inhabited this land for many centuries before white settlers arrived. Wrongs that many governments have continued in my lifetime.”

“Every cent earmarked for Canada Day celebrations — the concerts, the fireworks, the speechmaking — should be multiplied by a thousand and invested instead in the reconciliation efforts repeatedly called for not just by Indigenous peoples but by government reports documenting the indefensible acts carried out in our names.

No doubt it would still be a drop in the bucket relative to what’s required, but at least it would remind us every year that we cannot in all conscience, celebrate ‘Canada’ until our actions live up to our commitments to human rights,” she continues.

[You can access the entire article here https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/06/23/i-can-no-longer-celebrate-canada-day.html%5D

Indeed, some communities like all the cities in New Brunswick and Belleville, Ontario have cancelled their planned Canada Day activities altogether in recognition and respect for the plight of the nation’s Indigenous Peoples, calling instead for a day of reconciliation for the relationship between Canada’s Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Peoples. Some communities plan on flying the Indigenous flag alongside the Maple Leaf.

(Note: At the time of writing, the City of London had not issued an official statement regarding its intentions for the day.)

No matter how communities and individuals end up dealing with Canada Day this year, one thing is certain.

It will not be celebrated with the apparent past willful ignorance of the plight of the nation’s Indigenous Peoples and the horrific legacy of the Residential Schools which existed throughout Canada from the 1870s to the 1990s.

No amount of flag waving will ever erase that legacy.

Since the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C. and now the discovery of what are believed to be 751 unmarked graves near a former residential school in Saskatchewan, I have been reading a lot of angry, sad and accusatory Facebook posts regarding the tragic legacy of Canada’s Residential Schools.

This is understandable given the fact that such revelations must be jarring and alarming to those who claim ignorance of the residential schools, a network of mandatory boarding schools for Indigenous children funded by the Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches throughout Canada starting in the late 19th century (the 1870s) and lasting until well into the 20th century (the 1990s). Shockingly, the last residential school in Canada didn’t close until 1996.

However, blaming the education system and former teachers for your lack of knowledge about the schools concerns me as a former high school History teacher (1978-2008) who always included lessons about the schools in my classes using the available resources and information, which admittedly were scarce at the beginning of my career. One individual even suggested there is a large nationwide conspiracy of silence about the schools on the part of schools and teachers.

Let’s set the record straight. Much of what we now know about the schools was uncovered by the federal government’s mammoth Truth and Reconciliation Commission established in 2008 and which concluded in 2015 with the publication of a six-volume, 4,000-plus-page report detailing the testimonies of survivors and historical documents from the time to wide public acclaim and media attention that year. Accordingly, schools and teachers were asked to include information from the Commission’s findings in their classrooms.

Still, if you genuinely do not have any knowledge of the residential schools and their horrific legacy, please take the time to read this primer published by CBC News shortly after the Kamloops discovery. It should go far in answering most of your questions.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-residential-schools-kamloops-faq-1.6051632

RY, June 25, 2021

It would be an understatement to suggest that Ontario’s public schools have experienced a couple of years like none before.

Students have been in school, yanked out of school and placed in front of PCs and laptops for poorly organized and designed remote learning, and then called back to school for in-person learning, only to be yanked out again.

As of May 27, students remain at home perched behind their computer screens counting down the days until this debacle is over.

And yet, there is talk of sending students back to their schools for the remaining few weeks of the waning 2020/21 academic year.

WTF?

Let me repeat that, WTF?

While in-person learning in the schools may not pose much of a health risk to returning students, is it really necessary to disrupt their year even more?

I think not.

Let’s leave things as they are and start planning for a safe return to in-person learning in September.

Let’s also give some significant thought to how we can help students “catch up” after two years of disrupted learning.

And as for talk of a so-called “Hybrid Model” of learning/instruction that combines in-person and remote methodologies, let’s not even think about going down that rabbit hole.

Hopefully, years from now when COVID-19 is behind us, we can look back on these last two years as a learning experience of what to do and what not to do in regard to our kids’ learning.

RY. May 27, 2021.