OP-ED: Apologizing for the past Many pundits and people wonder why the present generations are saddled with the wrongs of the past. They complain about being expected to "feel guilty" for things they didn't do. Such people, it seems to me, miss the point that we are all part of something bigger than ourselves. We are nations of peoples living together and trying to build a society of Canada. We don't lose our past: We take it with us always. Every collective decision made is a decision we all live with in the future, because we live with the people whose lives are affected by that decision. In any city neighbourhood you have people living together who are affected by Canada's past: perhaps a Canadian whose grandparents had to pay the 'head tax' in order to be Canadian, while no others did. Perhaps a child whose grandparents were abused in Canada's 'Indian' residential schools. Perhaps a Jewish or Sikh family denied entrance to Canada in the past, or a Metis family who lost someone hanged with Riel. And perhaps there are other examples, but one thing is clear: NONE of these examples are wrongs done to people of the white race. Canada is not a racist country now, not by policy and law on paper at least, but it certainly was in the past. We cannot look with pride at the actions of our forefathers in taking land away from its original occupants, nor in attempting to keep it for possession of 'white people only'. We cannot look with pride to allowing others to share the land only if they give up their culture and heritage and accept ours. The only thing we can look on with pride is our current efforts to recognize and accept that wrongs were done for the wrong reasons, for reasons of racism. We can look with pride at how we are attempting to learn from those mistakes. We can look with pride at the fact that Canada now benefits from the enrichment by many other cultures and we can learn from their mistakes too as we have access to historical knowledge from around the world. I know in my family of Dane-Scot-Irish merchants and peasants who fled to Canada to escape the tyranny of Britain, the lesson of history was "don't look back". We never celebrated our history, only tried to forget. We never learned to rue the powers that be: We only learned to try to become them. Canada is a land of people trying to forget their histories by trying to become something new. However, history follows you and if you don't learn from it, you simply repeat it, as we have done in Canada: We haven't destroyed the power that the 'money changers' have over us, we have simply tried to become them or emulate them in our lifestyles. And we haven't tried to change the racist foundation of Canada, we have only tried to cover it up, hide it in niceties. By far, the most racist thing one can often hear today is the sentiment that immigrants should be grateful to us for letting them come here, and should leave their cultures behind and 'integrate' into ours. It is very doubtful that those same people believe that's what the first 'European' immigrants should have done - integrated themselves with the Indigenous Peoples of Canada. One can only conclude that what they mean is that all non-white cultures should 'integrate' themselves with the white 'culture': That is simply a statement of white supremacy. And there is no longer any place in Canada for that. But there is still room for a lot of re-distribution of wealth from the powers that be: http://www.esnips.com/doc/629185b2-3bf1-407b-88ee-5a4c5ae0ffc7/Wealth-Distribution-Canada Dates represented are 1984, 1999, 2005 and the top 10 percent of Canadians are gaining a larger and larger share of the wealth. Translation: As we struggled to sustain our lifestyles through the crash and recession of the '90's, the wealthy were able to scoop up bargains on the stock market, downgrade workers' pay and benefits, and pensions, and add it all to their own bottom line. So when in Canada do we stop complaining about 'immigrants' and start complaining about the real villains ... hunh? When do we stop fighting each other for foot room, and join together in fighting those who would oppress us all? http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2006/12/05/globalwealth.html