01/07/2021
⚠️ Long read ahead on some subjects of interest on Canada Day⚠️
9:15 a.m., July 1, 1916: 758 soldiers and 23 officers of the Newfoundland Regiment begin their advance.
9:45 a.m.: 85 per cent of the force is dead, dying or wounded.
July 2, 1916: 68 men report for roll call.
On July 1st of 1916, soldiers of the Newfoundland Regiment were ordered to attack the German lines at the village of Beaumont-Hamel near the Somme River. Of the regiment's 798 soldiers, 310 were killed and 374 wounded leaving 68 to report the next day. Lest we forget their sacrifice.
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Beginning in the 1880s, Aboriginal children across Canada were removed, often forcibly, from their homes and placed in Indian Residential Schools. At the schools, students were forbidden to speak Native languages and practice their culture. Testimony from surviving former students presents overwhelming evidence of widespread neglect, starvation, extensive physical and sexual abuse, and many student deaths related to these crimes. As is so often the case with state-inflicted mass atrocities, records indicating accurate rates of abuse and death at residential schools do not exist or were destroyed. Until existing estimates can be substantiated with research, we only have survivor testimony to rely on. These estimates suggest that sexual abuse rates were as high as 75 percent in some schools, and rates of physical harms were higher still. If this number is even close to the total, the scale of violent crime against children at the schools is staggering. On another level, searching for a precise number for rates of abuse at the schools is beside the point. The larger crime is that these schools were designed and operated by the church and state with the purpose of destroying Native cultures and communities in every corner of Canada. This crime has caused incalculable harm, not the least of which was allowing—even encouraging—the abuse mentioned above. Truth and reconciliation is coming. It's time for us as Canadians to learn from history and do what is right.
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Canada Day, or Dominion Day until 1982, celebrates the Confederation of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The Confederation divided Canada into Ontario and Quebec while including provisions for other provinces and territories to join in the future. By terms of the Canada Act of 1982, the British North America Act was repatriated from the British to the Canadian Parliament, and Canada became a fully independent country. At the same time, the name of the national holiday was changed to Canada Day. Celebrate our nation, but do not forget our past, nor the past of others around you.
Sources:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/why-july-1-means-something-very-different-for-newfoundland-andlabrador/article30717153/
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/indian-residential-school-truth-and-reconciliation
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Canada-Day