VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

LONG SHADOW OF SORROW

Like many Canadians, my husband and I are saddened and ashamed to learn of the children found in a mass grave at a residential school. We can’t imagine the pain of those parents who lost their children and couldn’t even bury them.

Shortly after reading this awful, heartbreaking story, I was reading a book by Karen Brooks, and I want to quote something she says here in her story. It is so appropriate for the innocent children who suffered and died without even a loved one to hold them:

“If I’d learned anything over the last few weeks, it was that the dead did not depart this world, not really. They were the tears in the well of the heart, drawn in a heavy pail and tipped into the eyes.

They were fragments of dreams left on a pillow; they were the secret ache of which no one spoke, but which remained in the soul.”

I hope the good Lord can forgive us our cruelty. Jan & Bob Smith, Truro

STAIN ON OUR SELF-IMAGE

What’s going on in Canada over the past few weeks? This bigotry and hatred has to be removed like a canker festering in a wound. Am I painting a gruesome picture of this country? Good. Because now that all this has been brought out into the open, we as a country can deal with it.

I am a veteran, and when I hear of tragedies like the one in Ontario and about other attacks on Muslims right across Canada, a piece of me dies a little more.

My soul took another sad hit with the discovery in British Columbia of the 215 children whose bodies were found buried at a residential school, where they were abused. Before this, I could walk with my head held high and be proud of this country.

But we are just as bad as any other country that struggles with hate, racism and fear of other people who have a different way of praying to their God.

Yes, the stain of anger, distrust and racism is on our flag for this coming July as we mark Canada’s birthday. Let’s own up to this and deal with it. Please do not shove this under a rug and look away, or this cancer will come back and grow bigger.

It has to be stopped now! We can’t change the past, but one day at a time, we can change the future for all of us.

Rick Mills, Dartmouth

VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE

This is an open letter to all those people who are bothered by “other people’s” religious beliefs. To quote Premier Iain Rankin: “What is wrong with you?”

I’m like most other people — shocked and dismayed by the quadruple murder of members of a Muslim family in London, Ont., apparently deliberately run over by a young man in a truck.

It breaks my heart to think there are people in this country who think this was acceptable, necessary even. The same can be said for people who think those with a darker skin colour than theirs are inferior and should be hated.

What is wrong with you? Who cares what religion or skin colour people have? I know I don’t and I don’t hang around with anyone who does.

Heck, you want to talk about differences? I hang around with Montreal Canadiens fans and buy them cold beverages. I’m married to one, in fact, and I’m a Leafs fan. Now that’s tolerance.

Greg Macdonald, Halifax

PRACTISE WHAT YOU PREACH

Imagine my surprise after seeing Bruce Mackinnon’s anti-racism cartoon that the story about members of the Afzaal family being killed was relegated to page A11 of the June 9 edition.

It appears that after all the talk about the problems with racism aimed at folks who are a little different from the Caucasian population, other news items were more important for the front page — namely, COVID-19 testing at the airport, the extra-warm day and free parking to help downtown businesses.

It’s a sad day when these items are deemed to be more important than the horror of an apparent hate crime aimed at a family simply because they are Muslim.

Iris Horwood, Lower Sackville

CLOSE CALL, BUT NOT AN ESCAPE

I feel compelled to comment on the misleading nature of the June 9 headline accompanying Chris Lambie’s article, “Mass killer escaped police shortly before being killed.”

Considering that the Oxford dictionary defines “to escape” as “breaking free of confinement or control,” and being quite certain that the mass killer had not been captured before he was killed by police, I was briefly left confused, wondering how I had missed such an important detail.

But no, he had not been captured — he had merely stopped for gas earlier, at the same time as two RCMP officers were also filling up at an adjacent pump. But they had no way of knowing who he was, since he was driving a car he had, unbeknownst to them, just stolen. He eventually drove off — a close call, for sure, but hardly an escape.

And by the way, I applaud all the media outlets that still refuse to name the killer.