Dear Minister Qualtrough:
I have no doubt in my heart that you sought public office out of a desire to help people, and so I’m confident in knowing that you share the horror of the deaths of 215 children at the hands of church and state.
The difference between your horror and mine, is that you bring your horror with you to Cabinet table where you sit alongside the most powerful people in this country. People who easily find trillions of dollars for corporate bailouts and tax breaks, and people who decade after decade have not found the will to bring clean running water to Indigenous communities, who continue to battle Indigenous children in court so as to withhold medical care from them. All against the backdrop of trillions of dollars for corporate bailouts.
That brings us to the pickle you find yourselves in today. Facing the families of 215 precious children, those corporate bailouts tell the world what Indigenous communities already knew: that when Bay Street “needs” something for its billionaire CEOs, it happens; and when Indigenous communities need running water, it’s too much. When Indigenous children win a court battle, your government uses the most protracted appeals strategy taxpayer money can buy to avoid ever living up to the court-ordered compensation. 215 children.
You will say I’m drawing a long bow. Or I’m conflating different issues. Or something. You will have a lot of things to say. But none of it changes the reality that you sit at the highest level of power in the country, you belong to a government and a party that has every ounce of power to do things differently, and still you turn a blind eye. 215 children. How long? How long? 215 children.
Pam Shaw
