Background Setting for Conversations that Matter

Nancy Wales, CSK on behalf of the Federation Ecology Committee

As we know, the various regional hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission have concluded and the Royal Commission has released its final report. This comprehensive report offered its potentially impactful and transformative recommendations as 94 Calls to Acton. The Calls to Acton provided “a general handbook on how to achieve reconciliation within Canada.” Lenard Monkman, CBC NEWS

No doubt, our exposure to Survivors’ stories opens our minds and softens our hearts to the unimaginable and horrendous experience of many of the Residential School attendees. How-ever, coming to grips with the ongoing events of our shared Canadian history will require much more than just learning about the legacy of residential schools.

Owning our past calls us to create a shared future, which is “a multi-faceted process that restores lands, economic self-sufficiency, and political jurisdiction to First Nations and develops a respectful and just relationship between First Nations and Canada.”  Centre for First Nations Governance

It is apparent that the task ahead is monumental both in size and significance. However, it’s important to keep in mind the words of Lao Tzu, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

An Important Step: Face to Face Conversations

Reflecting on what reconciliation means to me, and us, collectively, it seemed important to have a conversation with 2, local respected elders. Sister Margo and I met Dan and Mary Lou Smoke while working on a local T and R initiative.

In our visit with them, in their home, Sister Margo and I felt their hospitality and enjoyed Kana’talako Indian Cookies and lemonade. I came away from our time together knowing a little more of their personal journey of discovering their cultural roots with its rich ceremonies and traditional wisdom.

Dan is encouraged that following the process of the Royal Commission and the release of its Calls to Acton there has been an evident surge in interest among Canadians to become more familiar with the history, diversity, and richness of First Nations peoples.

It is significant to him that Western University’s Senate, among other bodies, decided to include the naming of traditional territorial lands on which the group gathers for events. I came away realizing the importance of this simple act as a way to include, recognize, and honour our Indigenous Peoples.

However, Dan laments that 100+ natve communites remain without access to clean drinking water.

Furthermore, in neighbouring Delaware, ON plans are underway to build a new waste water treatment plant which raises concerns for him about the future water quality from the Thames River. This is the source of drinking water for London’s 3 neighbouring reserves, Thames First Nation, Oneida Nation, and Munsee-Delaware Nation.

Does this water crisis of which Dan spoke not raise our group conscience for the need for us to contact our local government representatives to apply public pressure to initiate concrete steps to rectify the intolerable situation faced by boil water communities? Our founding charism of unity and reconciliation urges us to assume our personal responsibility in bringing about the necessary healing of the rupture in relationships between individuals of First Nations or Settlers heritage.

Face to face conversations with our First Nations sisters and brothers offer us opportunities to see our mutual history and shared future from new perspectives.

Dan and Mary Lou encouraged us to visit nearby reserves assuring us that we would be most welcomed. Many communities have gift shops and restaurants where we could begin our conversations. Let us embrace Dan and Mary Lou’s invitation and continue to walk toward reconciliation and right relationships.

“Concern for Our Fine Feathered Friends: To Bee or Not to Be”

Kathleen O’Keefe CSJ on behalf of the Ecology Committee 

“Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures, are dependent on one another” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’, #42).

As E.O. Wilson puts it, humans have “an innate affinity with nature.”  We are to interact with the natural world with a profound sense of wonder and awe, along with deep appreciation to our Creator God.  In creation, there is “an order and a dynamism that human beings have no right to ignore” (L.S., #221).  “We cannot interfere in one area of the ecosystem without paying due attention to the consequences of such interference in other areas …” (L.S., #130-131).

In my research, I learned that there is a need to be able to assess the state of the environment and to use sensitive indicators to do so.  Both birds and bees act as “the canary in the coal mine” in terrestrial ecosystems.  Bird and bee monitoring have become essential parts of our adaptation to our changing global circumstances.

“The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all” (L.S., #23).

 On the David Suzuki Foundation website, I read that living beings, including birds and bees, “are moving, adapting and in some cases dying as a direct or indirect result of environmental shifts associated with our changing climate — disrupting intricate interactions among species with profound implications for the natural systems on which humans depend.”

The Nature Canada website stated that “climate change can alter distribution, abundance, behavior and genetic composition of birds” and, can affect the “timing of events like migration or breeding.”  Habitat loss and alien invasive species make matters worse for birds.  Extinction risks increase as a mismatch of birds and their environment takes place.

“How many songbirds would there be without the berries that result from pollination by bees?”  Laurence Packer’s book, “Keeping the Bees” sheds light on this important topic.  Climate change is affecting pollination by disrupting the synchronized timing at which bees pollinate.  Flowers are blooming earlier in the growing season due to rising temperatures, before many bees have a chance at pollinating the plants.  Thus, when bees finally begin pollination there is limited nectar available and competition for these valuable resources becomes more intense.

A report from Health Canada reveals that the bee population is in real danger due to the use of “new highly toxic systemic pesticides in agriculture.”  We need bees for their role in pollinating many food crops on which we depend.  David Suzuki declares, “bees are responsible for about one third of our food supply, and the consequences of not taking action to protect them are frightening.”

Pope Francis challenges each person alive today with these words: “Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations is first and foremost up to us” (L.S., #160).  He urges us to become a part of the “bold cultural revolution.”

 Suggested Resource: 

“On care for our common home:  A dialogue guide for Laudato Si’’ Written by Janet Sommerville and William F. Ryan SJ with Anne O’Brien GSIC and Anne-Marie Jackson.  Ottawa:  St. Joseph Communications, 2016.