I don’t have kids but I have lots of siblings that do … and I have a few friends in southern Ontario who have their own kids.

Hockey parents are the worst, especially in small town rural southern and northern Ontario. They all believe that their four year son (specifically boys) are all going to grow up to become a multi million dollar NHL all star by the time they turn 18.

The format is all the same with them. The kid has lots of potential when they are four, nurture the sport into them and they’ll become great. By the time they’re six, they haven’t shown promise but there’s still time. By the time they’re eight, signs are starting to point that they aren’t that athletic, but we can still try. By the time they’re ten, they are definitely not raw talent, but we can still hope. By the time they’re 12, they are an average player in the little leagues but the kid is just lazy and not motivated enough at this point. By 14, we’re starting to blame the kid for not making it. By 16, they are being blamed for not doing enough or working hard enough. At this point, the parents give up and they forever live with a disappointment of a son who never made it to the NHL like they wanted. At 18, the kid is in the beer leagues and doesn’t like playing hockey any more but loves to talk about it.

Not all parents are like this … but I’ve seen about half my friends with kids go through either all or part of this scenario.

I got to know two players from northern Ontario that made it to the OHL and QMJHL, basically one step away from the NHL. Both players were natural athletes with huge muscular forms and they could run/skate/train like an olympic athlete. They trained 365 days a year and spent mornings at the rink, the days at they gym, and evenings with more training. They did this from the time they were about 12 or 14! And even with all that and years and years of hard work … they didn’t make it to the NHL and their hockey careers dried up and the best thing they got out of it was a university education.

The estimate I’ve heard is that each little hockey player out there has about a 1 in 100,000 chance of making it to a league that might give them a chance at the NHL … and that’s if the parents dump tens of thousands of dollars into the kid every year for about ten years … and that’s if the kid has natural raw talent and the genes of an olympic athlete. It is about a 1 in a million chance for them to make it to become a highly paid professional athlete.

I’ve seen far more kids being destroyed by organized hockey than I’ve seen any make it.

That’s the thing about native politics … we are just as susceptible to propaganda, media spin and outright lies as much as anyone else.

I know plenty of Native people in my circle of family and friends who all banter around the mantra ‘Fuck Trudeau’ and say how much they hate Trudeau but can’t really point to any specific reason why other than to repeat whatever stupidity they read on social media.

Not everyone is politically literate, educated or even moderately informed about most things that happen in the world … it’s a normal part of society in the world … and it’s the same with Native people.

It’s a lot more heartbreaking, heartaching and completely dumbfounding when you’ve grown up with all the stories and first hand accounts of people in your own family about this stuff and then meet someone who does not want to believe it.

I won’t say where I’m from or where my parents went to residential school … we’re from northern Ontario and my family tree stretches from Chapleau all the way up to Hudson Bay. We’re a mix of Ojibway / Cree and OjiCree … we live in that part of the country where two distantly related language groups meet each other. We’re neither fully Cree or fully Ojibway, we’re in between, which confuses many people.

Mom went to a school in the southern part of our territory and she had a few bad things happen to her but she more or less had good experiences, people took care of her and she had a decent education. Dad on the other hand was completely traumatized, literally tortured, basically kidnapped at the age of eight … we have family genealogists and researchers who found documents listening his name and year he was picked up which made him eight years of age, along with four others who would have been seven and eight at the time.

My parents often told us about where they went to school when we were growing … but they never talked about the terrible things that happened to them. They did mention that people were mean and unkind to them … but we just assumed that they were like the mean and stern teachers we all saw at school. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I started hearing stories of what happened. I never got the stories from my parents, I heard them from other survivors … it’s weird, each survivor never wanted to talk about what happened to them, but they were able to talk about what happened to others around them. My uncles told me what happened to dad years later through bits and pieces and fragments of stories they shared over many years. One of my dad’s older brothers was taken in when he was older at about the age of 12 or 14 and he was a bull headed and strong individual who was known to literally start fist fighting with priests, nuns and school people. They kept him only for a couple of years and he was not forced to return. He was the one who told me that dad was one of the weaker kids and that he couldn’t protect him or his other younger brothers.

Dad had one brother who was a year older that he stuck with during those years.

There’s one sad story I learned from all that. At one point, this older brother watched out for dad during their first years together. They were constantly together to the point where the older brother would do things like tie his younger brother’s shoes and help him dress in the morning. That little bit of help and caring was frowned upon and the older brother was constantly beaten and punished for showing any affection.

After the first few years, the brothers drifted apart and they helped each other less and less and the more they spent time away from one another, the worse their experiences became.

No one ever came out with detailed stories of what happened to dad … all they know is that it was bad. Dad never mentioned any of it until he was in the last ten years of his life. He saw the payouts that were happening and he said at the time that he would share some stories just so his kids and grandkids could have the money. He didn’t care about any kind of reconciliation because the damage had been done and that he would never heal from any of it. I helped him write out some of those documents and recounted some tame stories of being beaten, being tortured and being absolutely terrified at supposed monsters and demons he saw as child … I can only imagine that the demons and monsters he saw were just childhood memories of something truly terrible that happened to him.

God I hate this day because it makes me think about and talk about these things.

I am happy that this day exists to remind everyone of what it is and what happened.

But at the same time, it fills me with anger, hidden rage and anxiety knowing what happened to my parents and that in many circles it is still debated and discussed by those who have no connection at any to these things.

I’m happy we’re here talking about it and that I can share at least this much of my story with you … it alleviates some of the burden knowing that I told someone else and it makes it that much better for me knowing that it is being heard by someone who cares.

Chi-Meegwetch, thanks very much.

I return the hand shake my friend.

Chimeegwetch doodem … it means “thanks very much my friend.”

I wish more non native people would take the initiative instead and acknowledge commemorations like this. It normalizes things like this and makes it more significant for us native people … it makes us realize that more of non native Canada is open to acknowledging events like this, and by extension becoming more open and accepting of indigenous people and our culture … not that Canada doesn’t already, it just makes it more so.

The fact you acknowledge the day and think about this history is enough.

Remember this history, share it on this day with others around you. It’s not a celebration, or even a ceremony, it’s a commemoration.

Remembering also shouldn’t be all negative, it’s an affirmation that you stand and support those who suffered in the past and are suffering now and wish that it will never happen again to any group of people any where.

If conservatives had their way, they’d pay their corporate buddies to pave all of southern Ontario south of North Bay and turn it into one giant parking lot.

Isn’t this basically how Taylor Swift got her start … her millionaire father just buying thousands of her debut album at the beginning.

It’s also a sign of things to come

We will reinforce our false and superficial ideas of the past or even present with the help of AI

All the vague uneducated and ill informed ideas we all have about anything and everything will all be magnified and exaggerated a hundred fold.

People want to only believe what they want because they hate being wrong … and they never believe or want to believe that their side, their group, their community no matter what it is can ever be wrong.

I’m not immune to it myself and I constantly have to remind myself that I can easily fall into that same mentality.

Most of us are never taught to be self-critical or to properly question the world or the people around us.

This is thing I keep pointing out about AI

We’re like teenaged trailer trash parents who just gave birth to a genius at the trailer park where we’re all dysfunctional alcoholics and meth addicts …

… now we’re acting surprised that our genius baby talks like an idiot after listening to us for ten years.

A great program, very insightful and informative as it talks about all those funny and unfunny stereotypes of the Hollywood indian we have all watched.

I thought it was hilirious that many of the southwestern Natives they used in some of the films from the 50s and 60s, the people actually used their real language … but called everyone idiots and said stupid thing on purpose in their own words to make fun of everyone without anyone knowing.

Neil Diamond is also a great representative of Native culture in the north as he works for a native magazine based in Montreal … at least he did years ago … the Nation by Beesum communications. I used to read his writing lots years ago but I haven’t seen much of his writing in the past few years as he seems to have moved on to film.

What about the damned millionaires and billionaires who never want to pay their fair share but somehow are gifted benefits for their businesses by government all the time.

Welfare is a problem in every first world system

It’s not the bottom of the poorest using up the welfare money in a country

It’s the top wealthiest people who don’t want to pay their fair share yet also want to take more out of the government just because they can.

"Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”

It’s completely stupid and only plays to the most powerful and wealthy elite in this country … no matter if they are Liberal or Conservative

The Liberals will keep promising things like proportional representation but never deliver on it … they’ll keep pandering to leftist ideals just enough to sway voters but never enough to follow through. They’ll keep playing the game of hoping that everyone will not go with Conservatives while balancing themselves to leaning right enough that no one will notice.

I’m Indigenous Canadian and I grudgingly support the Liberals because they have done a lot for Indigenous Canada. They could do more but they always seem to hold back on everything … giving us just enough to keep us from completely revolting against them. We also know that the alternative of the Conservatives would mean we Indigenous people would lose just about everything we’ve gained in the past decade (which sounds like a lot but it isn’t … to non-Native Canada, any gain we achieve always feel like too much).

In all, like every other first world country … we don’t exist in a democracy … we exist in a plutocracy or oligarchy where only the wealthy and most powerful people get to direct our national politics. People don’t have a say … those with money do.

Always has been

Always will

This is a serious case of the dangers of mixing your pork products

It’s becoming like the problem that parks services had in developing a bear proof garbage can …

… there is a sizeable overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest humans that make it very difficult to design a functional convenient garbage can that everyone can use.

The same is happening with AI content … we will have a harder and harder time telling the different between the most sarcastic/dumbest humans and the most accurate human mimicry of AI

What is this … 1985?

We’re way past the whole Reagan Era politics … or are we just starting to pass that phase here in Ontario?

I just keep walking by without acknowledging them

I’m guessing the store employees originally uncovered 100 kgs of cocaine

Mine broke down and has metal shavings in it

At this point the GOP will just keep trying crap like this and people will just allow it all … until eventually, the right just gets tired of playing around and just takes power out right because they know no one will stop them