Unpublished letter to the editor

Ipperwash

Editor, Globe and Mail

Good on Murray Campbell for pointing out the history of colonialism that has created social injustices and conflicts such as the one unfolding at Ipperwash (re: "Failing to remember the lessons of Ipperwash", April 21).Militarization is no solution to tensions between First Nations and Canada; rather, the wrongs and destruction wreaked by conquest and colonization must be acknowledged. Though the Indian Act is part of the problem, First Nations deserve special support
and governments are responsible to provide it.

Citizens must conciliate and development planning must adjust. If urban readers think that this not
their problem, they are mistaken; the construction for the 2010 Winter Olympics is stirring up land
issues as courts settle claims in BC's Lower Mainland one by one. Residents and the media should pay more attention because the situation will result in great change to the cityscape, land ownership, and city and citizen identity, while it puts the breaks on industrial and recreational expansion in rural areas.

Barbara Waldern