My Journey With Weight Loss – Recognizing My Call To Action

The past 2 days I got up at 4am so that I could ensure I got my training in before heading off to a convention. I am determined that I won’t let outside influences interrupt the progress that I have made over the past couple of weeks. The problem is that I quickly felt that making the sacrifice of getting up so early wasn’t really worth it. You see, I soon realized at the convention that I did not in any way feel welcomed. This was not because of the delegates or the staff (all of whom that I spoke to were great) but rather the leadership. By lunch that first day I had already decided that while I would attend day 1 and 2, that day 3 was today (Saturday) and I had no intention of getting up early nor wasting a precious day with my husband for an event that I did not feel comfortable with. It took me a long time to get to the mentally strong state I am currently in and I plan to stay there so I skipped the convention today.

There is something from the convention that has really impacted me, though in a very positive way. One of the keynote speakers was Dr. Cindy Blackstock whom I have heard speak several times before. She is such a powerful speaker and is always so engaging and motivating. Dr. Blackstock has a PhD in social work and has worked in that industry particularly regarding indigenous children for more that 3 decades.

She made a statement that really had me sitting up and paying attention. This year here in Canada we have learned of 1,300+ unmarked graves found at residential schools (if you don’t know what these are please Google them as it is an embarrassing story of Canada trying to remove the ‘Indian’ from indigenous children). Dr. Blackstock acknowledge that many people in the room would have the mentality that this happened in a time when we didn’t know better (um, yep, that is sometimes what I thought). She boldly stated, if you think that way you are wrong.

Dr. Blackstock then went on to tell the story of Dr. Peter Bryce. Dr. Bryce was the first Chief Medical Officer here in Canada and was appointed in 1904. In 1907 he provided a report on the fact the 1/4 of indigenous children in residential schools had died of tuberculosis. This was 20 times higher that any other identified group. He went on to name the problem as stemming from poor ventilation, poor standard of living and the fact that healthy indigenous children were intentionally exposed to sick children. He recommended the government spend $10,000 out of their $6,000,000 budget to fix this issue. The government ignored the recommendation.

Dr. Bryce leaked the report to the media and there was immediate public outcry about this atrocity. However, nothing was done.

In 1922 Dr. Bryce published a book outlining the government’s role in creating and maintaining conditions that led to the deaths of indigenous children. Once again public outcry so you would think actions would have been taken to eliminate residential schools. The opposite is true, after the book was published the number of residential schools in Canada actually increased.

Now look at today. There has been a huge public outcry regarding the unmarked graves at residential schools that have been found in Canada. But now I recognize, we did know better but we did nothing. I admit I am terrified that the same will happen now, we won’t repair all of that unbelievable damage that has been done (note, our government has just filed another appeal regarding an award given to indigenous children who have seen discrimination in our social services system). The first public outcry was in 1907 yet nothing was done for 90 years to shut down these schools of genocide (yes, this is what I believe they should be called), why should we believe something will be done now.

I’m going to quote Dr. Blackstock here, ‘keep talking until justice is done for the children’. This to me was my call to action. What am I going to do? Well, apparently there is a great thing called the Spirit Bear Calendar which each month of the year gives you an action to complete to help with Truth and Reconciliation. I have decided not only will I commit to doing those actions each month in 2022 but all of my family will be given that calendar in the hopes they will do the same.

As for today, I do not regret missing the convention. I did a 10 km run first thing, walked the dog, walked uptown and back to meet the family for lunch and have logged 30k steps. I have to admit, this feels way more welcoming to me.