ROTHENBURGER – Canadians are getting the message about T&R
ACTION, NOT JUST WORDS. We hear that a lot these days in any discussion of reconciliation, and it undoubtedly was spoken many times yesterday, for it was National Truth and Reconciliation Day.
The event received a lot more attention in the media than the first time it was marked last year. On radio and TV and newspapers, it was covered from every angle. Across the country ceremonies were held, speeches were given, and pleas made not to make truth and reconciliation a one-day-a-year proposition.
Calls to action are a good thing, for they look to the future. It’s also good to take stock of where we’ve been in order to figure out where we’re going. Fact is, we aren’t there yet, but we’re making progress.
Two and a half years ago, I recapped some of that progress. Let’s look at where we were at then, and where we’re at now.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
R Marcus Lowe
Again BULLSHIT. WHEN and only when, all cover-up, withheld records, in the “safekeeping” and “privacy” of Government, Police, and Church are made public will there be a chance to start with the TRUTH. Thank You, Mel, for at least trying. Love Always, MnT.ast trying. Love Always, MnT.
Are we really? Using the measuring stick of how slowly our provincial and federal governments are depending on words to replace action we need only look at : the continuing Trans- mountain pipeline, program, the continuing big dam project begun by Cindy Clark and picked up by Horgan that will flood one of the few remaining agricultural in the north, the massive increase in fracking activity in the northeast, the ignoring of First Nations rights in the Smithers area where RCMP are jailing protesters so they can force through a pipeline now being drilled under a sacred rive the current court case where our provincial government is trying to prevent first nations from recovering land rights on our west coast, and the list goes on and on without even mentioning the intergenerational trauma symbolized by the handcuffing a grandfather and granddaughter by the racism displayed by a big bank. My bet and despair is that long before our governments will ever morph their words into action this pale blue dot in the cosmos won’t be worth living on for all our descendants unless we adopt the seven generation longsightedness of First Nations and somehow replace capitalism with a kinder economic model to assure our survival.
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