Re: Rights under attack on Canada Day (The Capital, June 5)
Simon Nattrass’ column on July 5 was an embarrassment to your publication. Victorians just had a bad week. We found out that our small city on an island at the edge of the world is not immune to the scourge of Islamic terrorism.
On our beloved Canada Day, when citizens from coast to coast gather to celebrate what a wonderful country we live in, two of our own tried to murder and injure. We are all poorer because of it.
So what does Simon Nattrass and the News do the following Friday? They kick us all in the teeth with a ridiculous editorial painting a picture of Canada that is utterly disgusting.
According to Nattrass, our police use Orwellian armoured vehicles and helicopters with search lights to harass harmless everyday citizens, Victoria was the staging point for “the genocide” of indigenous peoples up and down the coast, Victoria “orchestrated the spread of smallpox” to natives, and then Mr. Nattrass confesses that he can’t really get that “O Canada feeling” celebrating Canada Day on “stolen land.”
Mr. Nattrass, let me tell you about Canadians.
First of all, we are not apologists. Supposed injustices 100 or 150 years ago happened, you guessed it, 100 or 150 years ago, and had nothing to do with us, so get over it.
Secondly, no Canadian living today undertook any “colonization” of natives nor did anyone ever intentionally spread any disease to natives.
Finally, the overwhelming majority of Canadians completely disagree with you. If Canada isn’t the best country in the world then it’s certainly in the discussion, and we are abundantly proud of what Canada is and will continue to be.
No matter how many of you and your Marxist apologists graduate from our universities every year, you’ll always be greatly outnumbered by ordinary small-c Canadians that know our country is awesome from coast to coast.
D. Gramlich
Oak Bay
