Re: Evan Careen’s piece (Comparing police response, St. John’s Telegram and Saltwire.com, Oct. 24). In my view, Evan is absolutely right.
Evan mentions a massive police presence at Muskrat Falls, at a cost of around $10 million, to enforce an injunction against peaceful Indigenous protesters expressing their concerns regarding methyl mercury contamination of their food and water.
This compares unfavorably with the token deployment of a few RCMP observers to watch as a mob of non-Indigenous rioters damage property, commit assault, arson and perhaps other criminal offenses, in order to obstruct Indigenous persons engaging in their constitutionally guaranteed pursuit of a livelihood.
This is a prime example of the systemic racism which exists in this country.
Other writers have enumerated, far better than I, innumerable other examples of this. These kinds of injustices have got to stop. Our government has a clear responsibility to uphold the equality rights of all persons in this country. This responsibility also extends to the treaty provisions confirmed in the Constitution Act of 1982 and reaffirmed in several court cases since then.
I am a veteran, well over 80 years of age and the seventh generation of my direct family to live in the same house in Nova Scotia.
I grew up immersed in many things, both subtle and overt, from words, to ethnic jokes, to highway check-points targeting non-whites, to refusal of services, to unequal prosecutions and sentencing in the courts, that were and still are the norm, and only came to realize, as an adult, how wrong this stuff is. But wrong it is, none the less.
I hope you will see fit to publish Evan’s piece in The Guardian and that Saltwire will include it in other publications as well.
Zeke Eaton,
Brookfield, P.E.I.
