Letter to the editor : Colonization has had 'horrific effects' on Indigenous people

Notes: "I was dismayed to read the Rev. Derek Perry’s letter (“Study found no children’s remains at Kamloops site,” January, p. 4) and specifically by his view that Canadian society has little to apologize for to Indigenous peoples. Apparently, he believes the media has exaggerated the horrific effects of colonization. So, I’d like to draw his attention to a recent film. Movies are a good way to vicariously experience life, and the 2018 film 'The Grizzlies', based on a true story, takes the viewer into a small Inuit community. Three separate suicides by Inuit highschoolers frame the story, capturing the very real epidemic of death that ravages the North. One family starves while neighbours drink themselves into daily stupors to obliterate the trauma of residential school experience and the loss of loved ones". Author also writes that "Ottawa ... has the largest Inuit population south of the Arctic. A trip downtown will feature Inuit sitting on sidewalks panhandling. A few years ago, you would have seen internationally-acclaimed Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook sitting there, too. ... Her body was found in the Ottawa River in 2016". "I would urge the reverend to read the final reports of both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. May the stories shared in these reports open hardened hearts".

Subjects: Perry, Derek; Indigenous peoples - Canada - 21st century; Inuit - Canada - 21st century; Colonialism - Religious aspects - Anglican Church of Canada; The Grizzlies (Video recording); Pootoogook, Annie, 1969-2016