174 Forward Avenue

Ottawa ON K1Y 1L2

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Letters to the Editor

The Globe and Mail

444 Front St. W.

Toronto ON M5V 2S9

To the editor,

Re the Saturday, November 29, 2014 Grey Cup weekend edition of The Globe and Mail:

The main reports in this edition concern: (1) the violent Black unrest in Ferguson, Missouri,

USA due to the police fatal shooting of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown; (2) the

extremely difficult lives of the people of war torn Ukraine; (3) the long overdue proper

compensation of Canadian Thalidomide victims.

Receiving no mention whatsoever were: (1) the Burnaby Mountain, BC, Native-centric protests

against the bitumen pipeline building executed by Kinder Morgan; (2) the unmitigated illnesses

caused by Alberta’s Oilsands horrific pollution of the Athabasca River, and contracted by Fort

Chipewyan’s mainly Native population, as detailed in the documentary, Downstream; (3) the

1970 horrific pollution by mercury poisoning of the Grassy Narrows and Whitedog First Nations

Native communities of Northwestern Ontario, and the Thalidomide-like birth defects there as a

result.

If the editorial staff of The Globe and Mail had any balls, there would have at least been articles

on: (1) PM Harper’s solution to homelessness, involving building more prisons at the same time

as Natives comprise 25 per cent of Canada’s prison population while Natives comprise only 4

per cent of Canada’s general population; (2) continued assimilation of Natives into white-bred

Canadian culture, so well documented in Tomson Highway’s play, Ernestine Schuswap Gets Her

Trout, that I couldn’t stop myself from openly crying while watching it; (3) the continued refusal

by Prime Minister Harper (“Ca brille par son absence!”) to launch an investigation into the more

than 1,000 missing and murdered Native women and children across Canada over the past 30

years.

I suppose all that’s left for me now is for me to look forward to the Sunday instalment of the Sun

Newspaper group here in Canada’s capital, Ottawa. If past efforts are any indication, I’m

probably in for its usual, small-minded, holiday ideological whipping, which is characterized by

a niggardly, rude and completely bereft treatment of human rights and equality issues. To

prepare myself for this, I’m: (1) putting Billy Joel’s not at all bluesy little tune, Uptown Girl, on

my sound system; (2) downing a glass of Bombay Blue Sapphire gin so as to once again become

the perfect Canadian gentleman; (3) climbing into my powder-blue PT Cruiser and driving

madly off in all directions to Christmas shop.

Globe and Mail, what I tell you three times is true: that unsurprisingly in the exact same manner

as the Harper government, you blew it!

Yours truly,

Rolf Auer