YORKTON - Thanksgiving has come and gone.
It is a day that is perhaps the most multi-faceted holidays we have.
It is a day where families gather and share food and memories, and in our breakneck world anytime we can take even a half step back for family it is a good thing.
But, on a broader basis the day is one we all hopefully reflected on all of the good and positive things about living in Canada.
Sure, this is not a country without its warts – the recent Truth and Reconciliation Day reminds us that part of our past is dark and despicable, but the day was also one where today there is a framework whereby we might get to a point the past is remembered but the future is a good thing.
Residential schools for First Nations are only one of our country’s scars which includes the internment of Eastern European descendants during the First World War and Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.
And even in the current era there are too frequent attacks on Canadian Muslims, Sikhs and the LGBTQIA2S+ community, oo many missing women and children.
We should be better than that but hatred runs deep and has a way to see out of the dark corners if a community and country is not ever vigilant.
A month out from Remembrance Day we should be keenly aware of our responsibility to protect the freedoms of all citizens. So many Canadians gave their lives to stop the evil of Adolph Hitler, and to protect our freedoms. Those freedoms must extend to all Canadians and ensuring that is everyone’s responsibility. Intolerance and hatred must have no place in our country.
Generally on Thanksgiving we could have looked at our country and thought we do better than many countries, and that generally Canada is a good place to live. It’s good to reflect that as Canadians we are in a good place to live and raise a family.
But, hopefully as we relaxed after a Thanksgiving meal we also thought about how we can do better.
Yorkton Tribal Chief Isabele O’Soup often speaks about the importance of simply getting to know each other. It’s such a simple idea but profound in the sense the knowledge gained from sharing stories is empowering.
And wouldn’t our provincial government have served us better had they held some conversations before announcing children in Saskatchewan schools will need permission from parents or guardians to change preferred first names or pronouns if they are under the age of 16, and now rushing to hide the lack of discussion behind the ‘notwithstanding clause.’
So we still have shortcomings as a nation, and likely always will have, but we still have a country worthy of being thankful for and if we can just learn greater tolerance it can become even better.
