To the Editor,
Despite promises of wealth, resource development not only threatens our environment but insults and attacks the core values of First Nations and all other Canadians who care about the land we call “Canada”.
There is a predominant belief that mankind has dominion over the earth.
There is a narrow-mindedly neglects to consider the aboriginal world-view, which holds mankind as the least powerful and lowest in the fundamental heirarchy of the traditional order of creation.
Nothing on earth depends upon humans for survival.
In the general scheme of things, mankind is expendable to the earth which would begin healing itself without us.
As George Carlin once said of mother earth - “She’d shake us off, like a bad case o’ fleas.”
Aboriginal peoples’ lives everywhere have always been based on a respect for and symbiotic relationship with nature, living in cooperation with it and completely dependent upon environmental stewardship for continued survival.
Whether adopting a westernized lifestyle including Christianity or not, even today the continued basis for First Nations’ spirituality and their deepest reason-for-being is a covenant with their Creator to be ‘guardians of the land’.
A world-view increasingly adopted by non-aboriginals’ too.
It’s strangely ironic, with all that Canada’s First Nations have endured since European contact, but we should thank First Nations for inspiring us to have a deeper and more meaningful relationship with God. But we should also that them for reminding us all what it means to be a good Canadian.
Liz Stonard,
Port Alberni