Thanks for the response. Theres some good stuff there and I'm glad you engage. I'm not trying to argue with you. You are communicating clearly what some people are thinking, even if I think you're going to move off your current position once you think it through a bit. I know you think you and I see things very differently, which is true, but I think that's because I've been looking at this longer, and more closely. Please take my comments with that in mind.

Quote Originally Posted by wildcatter View Post
Rob,

I am not trying to run any interference, it was the political elite (mostly British) at the time who decided on the program they implemented.
The different churches (not just the Catholics) were tasked with running it so why they get picked on all the time?
And for sure they did a poor job at that, but we don't know if there were other choices, remember child mortality was very high back then
and conditions were bad on the reserves.
You are correct that the political elite made the past policy decisions. That's still going on today, both at the Federal and at the Provincial level. If you go back to Confederation then you are correct - most of the elite was British, but not exclusively so. Quebecois politicians played a role as well. However, the first 2 PMs were Scottish. The order is a bit screwy as Sir John A. was re-elected as 3rd PM, but the 4th was Canadian born (from Quebec) and the 5th was from Nova Scotia, as was the 6th. The 7th, Wilfred Laurier, was a Quebecer (and the PM to whom BC First Nations petitioned in Kamloops over land claims well over 100 years ago, so this isn't exactly new). Number 8 was also born in Nova Scotia. The 9th came from Ontario, as did the 11th - the 10th came from New Brunswick. The 12th was from Quebec while 13 and 14 were from Ontario. Number 15 is Pierre Trudeau, who was elected 9 years before the Kamloops school closed and who oversaw plenty of other residential schools.

Trudeau is modern times. Probably a majority of guys on this forum remember him, and (going out on a limb here) most don't remember him fondly. So, yes, political elites made decision in the past, they make them now, and I'm not responsible for most of their **** ups. Neither are you.

Yes, churches were tasked with implementing parts of that policy. We don't disagree on that, nor on what the policy consisted of. You may not like the bluntness, but if I'm wrong in any point of fact, let me know. The policy consisted, in part, of having armed men kidnap kids from their families and turn them over to strangers who kept them imprisoned. Now we all know that some of the policy makers had good intentions. We also know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so we can't pretend we're surprised when good intentions turn horrible.

It wasn't just the Catholic Church that participated. Presbyterians, Anglicans and the United Church were involved. The latter three have apologized for their roles. The Catholic Church has not. The recent statement from the Pope commiserated with *Canadians* and was widely seen as tone deaf by Indigenous people. I think you're stretching things when you say the Catholic Church gets picked on all the time. Other groups (including the government policy makers, the RCMP, and wonder society) have been castigated. I mentioned that Pierre Trudeau has some explaining to do about this. There is currently a petition with 4700+ signatures calling for a statue of him in Vaughn Ontario to be removed. That's the father of the current PM. Are you surprised that JT is pointing as many fingers as he can at the Church? Of course he is. It's his way of saying "It was them, not my dad!"

When you say the Catholic Church in Kamloops did a bad job of executing the task that the government gave them you understand that you're either diminishing what they did or you're saying that they did a poor job of integrating First Nations into Canadian society, they did a middling job of keeping little kids confined, and they did a really bad job of accounting for kids who died (from whatever causes) in their care.

You have to go really far back in history to find a time when it was ok to take people's kids away, keep them away, not tell parents when their kids died, and not properly look after their dead bodies. We know that all those thing happened. No informed person disputes that. It was real and we've been talking about it for years.

Conditions were bad on reserves, especially through the 20th Century. They're still bad and we've known that as long as any of us on this forum have been alive. People who are informed about the history know that First Nations complained to the government about these problems well over 100 years ago in BC, at times when reserves were being cut down in size or extinguished completely.

Again, you can argue that all of this was done with the best of intentions. There's plenty of evidence in the participants own writings that would run counter to that argument, but you can try to make it. personally I'm satisfied with saying that the government, once again, ****ed up in a big way.

Quote Originally Posted by wildcatter View Post
I was brought up as a Catholic, me and my brother had to go to church every Sunday, I was even an altar boy for a while,
but I never heard or experienced such horrible acts, the priests and nuns were all decent people.
Is it a Canadian, or North American trait, what happened here and why?
You see the difference, right? You went to Church every Sunday, with your brother. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to assume you also went with your parents, and that after church you went home. Now imagine that you didn't go with your parents, you didn't go home, you didn't see your parents on holidays, and that your brother died and was buried in an unmarked grave. Would you ask why the Catholic Church is always getting picked on, or would you curse it's name?

Quote Originally Posted by wildcatter View Post
I'm all for preserving fish and wildlife and access to, but the way I see it and the way things are going, the battle is already lost.
Fair enough. Feel free to give up and let the world roll over you. (I don't actually believe that you've given up, but let's go with that). If all is lost as far as you're concerned, why don't you shut up and quit bitching? This cry baby approach of criticizing people who want to make a change is, quite frankly, annoying. There is no shortage of whiners in the world and you aren't making anything better by swelling their ranks.

What's more, if you think the battle is already lost what could anything that those of us trying to improve things do that would make losing the battle worse?

(Again, I don't think you really believe this. I think you're letting your frustration get the better of you. My solution is for you (not me) to reach between your legs. If you find anything down there remember what they're for and cowboy the **** up. I say that with love because I think you need to hear it).