Dear editor,
One wonders whether Minister of Justice Toews has any awareness of Canadian history.
It is widely known that many generations of First Nations children were sent to residential schools. These schools were administered by a variety of Christian denominations.
The children were forbidden to speak their mother tongue. Their spiritual and cultural customs were denigrated. In addition, many children were physically and sexually abused by staff.
Generations of children had no home life or understanding of who they were. This led to family and community dysfunction, which endures to this day.
One result is that the number of prison inmates of aboriginal ancestry in the prison population is out of all proportion to their numbers in society as a whole.
Minister Toews has ruled that all prison chaplains be of the Christian faith. How insensitive!
The cause of the inmates’ problems stems from the actions of previous federal governments and their Christian mission surrogates.
The mind boggles.
Joy Johnston,
Comox
