Plaque a symbol of Vancouver’s colonial past
Re: Vancouver’s first street corner gets a facelift
I too miss the plaque that once faced West Hastings at the corner with Hamilton, and wondered what had become of it, but for very different reasons.
During spring and summer breaks we often host day camps for youth interested in human rights leadership (I work at the Amnesty International office right around the next corner). We often included a walking tour of the area to discuss past and present local and national injustices. We would stop at the plaque and I would ask them to read it and tell me what they thought. Some realized right away why we were stopping at this plaque, others needed a prompt to reflect on what it means to characterize the area as "empty land" when we know this was territory shared by several indigenous peoples.
It would be interesting if SFU not only made the plaque publicly accessible, but also challenged the settler attitude it conveys.
-Don Wright
Where is the support for Canadians?
Canadian Prime minister Justin Trudeau has promptly let in 25,000 so-called refugees into Canada. Most have been housed promptly in hotels on the taxpayers’ dollar. The Liberal government has a mandate to permanently house the refugees from Syria, in short order, promised by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our very own Canadian populous live in the thousands, lying on the streets and sleeping on hard cement. Aboriginal First Nations are over represented in such blight, and everyone from Mayor Gregor Robinson to the Prime Minister and Premier Christy Clark could care less to allocate tax funds to build some more dammed BC Housing buildings to house our Canadians sleeping in Stanley Park, sleeping in cars, sleeping on the sidewalk all over downtown.
Where is the uproar that Syrians walk directly off a plane into Canada and directly to a warm bed and a stable roof over their head? Why can’t Canadians be so lucky?
–Calvin Petrie
