It was another week of testimony at the National Citizens Inquiry, this time in Winnipeg. Once again, the testimony was heartfelt, compelling, and disconcerting. I have to admit that I’m struggling with my anger and my disappointment in humanity. In the words of Mary Holland, President of Children’s Health Defence – “Everything I thought should work did not – there was no transparency, no informed consent, no compensation for civil wrongs, no malpractice for administering knowingly dangerous substances, no accountability –
and even no access to the courts, let alone justice.” Every system of accountability, regulatory agency and oversight failed us. I thought we had the protections of our Charter, legislators, public health, CDC, independent media, and courts, but all of them went missing in action. Most disturbing is how our families, friends, and colleagues turned from loving and trustworthy individuals into agents of state control. It's alarming that human relations departments, unions, and courts not only turned a blind eye to the tyranny, but aided and abetted the dismantling of families, livelihoods, and community. My trust in much of humanity has been broken. I can now imagine what it must have been like for our First Nations people
when their children were taken from them and placed in residential schools and their way of life destroyed. Or the pain of Japanese Canadians or Jews in Nazi Germany as their community turned on them. Humanity has some reckoning to attend to. We need to do some deep reflection to understand how we were so vulnerable to turning on one another and how we were able to act with such callous disregard. As with previous acts of massive harm, we desperately need a process of truth and reconciliation. The NCI is a process of providing the truth. The reconciliation, however, will need to happen in the hearts of each man and woman who participated in the violation of our fundamental rights, freedoms and dignity. We must not continue as if
nothing has happened. These transgressions must be sincerely owned and a call for forgiveness made. Ted |