Canadians Have To Stand Up To Guilt Accusations

Letters: Memo to Ignatieff -- Our Canada doesn't include letting children freeze to death

The first excerpt from Michael Ignatieff's book, True Patriot Love, continues to rile some readers. In particular, the passage where he talked about the father who took his small girls into a freezing winter night, then abandoned them in a drunken stupor. That father is now serving a three-year jail term for this horrendous criminal action. But what angered Post readers is that Ignatieff said this episode "is a story about us." Here are two reactions to this observation.

Michael Ignatieff disgraces the memory of Kaydance and Santana Pauchay by describing their deaths on the Yellow Quill reservation as the “tragic” result of their father’s quest to “take the sick little girls to his parents.” Mr. Ignatieff completely ignores the responsibility of the father of his daughters’ deaths.
He then disgraces Canadians by claiming “it is a story about us.” This is true only in so far as we cry out at the suffering and deaths of two of our society’s smallest ones. It is patently untrue in so far as Canadians by and large reject criminal negligence causing death as a parenting strategy. Finally, Mr. Ignatieff disgraces himself by opportunistically trying to cash in on the girls’ suffering for his own political gain.
John von Heyking, associate professor, Department of Political Science, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alta.

What a digusting correlation. Those kids freezing to death on the Yellow Quill Reserve is not a story about “us.” It was a totally preventable tragedy. Most Canadians would never let that happen to our kids. Why can’t Mr. Ignatieff put responsibility for those deaths where it belongs. The only thing we Canadians have in common with this story is the cold. Mr. Ignatieff cannot define what is Canadian.
I can’t stand preachers who want me to feel shame to be Canadian. I want to be proud of my country.
Ron Batty, Salmon Arm, B.C.