Dear Editor:

After reading Richard McGuire’s report in the Osoyoos Times relating to Chief Clarence Louie’s speech in front of the Osoyoos Rotarians, I was overjoyed.

There seems to be a large number of people in Osoyoos who are confused about the history of Osoyoos and Canada for that matter.

Not that I’m trying to justify this ignorance, but it is a result of two centuries of misinformation and outright racism that has caused this lack of understanding.

We as a nation, province and municipality are constantly breaking treaties just by the way in which we use the land and occupy it.

The Canadian government has repeatedly ignored the rulings of our Supreme Court and continued to move against First Nations.

This is an absurd waste of Canadian tax dollars and should have us all up in arms, screaming at our MP’s for our federal government to change its course.

Without getting too far into any of this, the fact of the matter is this is, was and will always be First Nations land.

Without their help in the early days of European settlement, we would not have survived.

First Nations people treated us with respect and we have in turn done nothing but lie, cheat and steal.

When it comes to our money please allow me to wax poetic and consider this:

It’s strange to think we gave you trust

Then you came to slaughter us

That was then and this is now

All your idols you won’t disavow

Every bill wears a face

Of your heroes that killed our race

I think perhaps we could make a case

For our elders to take their place.

Consider that every time a First Nations man, woman or child has to use our money there is the face of a genocidal maniac staring back at them.

Sir John A. McDonald being by far the worst.

So, if the OIB would like to reclaim the name of Haynes Point Provincial Park, I say it’s about time this happened.

We need to realize what it is exactly our ancestors did to these people and atone for it.

We should be proud to know the nsyilxcen names for these places.

This is the honest history of our community.

The only shame with ignorance is the failure to do something about it.

We as a community must realize that if we have a problem with the OIB wanting to rename these sites, then the cause for this anger is rooted firmly in a racist, old world view that sees white settlers as a superior race to those indigenous who were here long before us.

“Suck it up” might not be so much the right thing to say. Perhaps “grow up” is a little more apt.

Thank you.

Sean Peltier

Osoyoos, B.C.