On National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, I’m thinking about some of the conflicted views I hold.
For instance, my dad recently completed the sale of our family farm that was previously Indigenous land. I have already and will continue to benefit greatly from the sale of that land while Indigenous people continue to fight for basic rights, services and compensation for various historical injustices.
Similarly, both myself and Shea benefit financially from mineral rights related to oil production at our respective family farms (both from our maternal sides of the family) even as we are very conscious of and aware of climate change and again, that this land was originally Indigenous land.
We also travel by airplane at least a couple times a year, stay at all-inclusives which are horrible for the environment and local economy.
When I was young and idealistic, I made sure to only buy ethical RSPs. Now my financial advisor is like “Here’s one with great returns because it is heavy on US private health care companies” and I tell her to go ahead and buy it. (Yuck!)
I am a strong union supporter but I also see many issues with unions and I also often bend the union rules myself as I give equal weight to my responsibilities as a “professional” even though this isn’t a legally defined concept like a CBA is.
I don’t know – I guess the main thing is to be aware of your hypocrises but we all have our blind spots and/or struggles to reconcile our own inconsistencies.
Like one person I know who has told me multiple times that she’s a feminist but is also actively involved in advocating for policies that will hurt women financially. I’m sure this person struggles with this too (or at least I hope they do.).
But today was NDTR and although the family and I spent it outdoors, enjoying all that nature has to offer, and thinking about the troubled history of our province, I did it all without wearing an orange shirt…
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