Canada's Third World People

Most people are not aware of it. The fact that many people in the Canadian north are dying. In one school division alone twelve suicide attempts in the past four months. Numerous acts of violence, missing women, and hungry kids. The schools throughout the Canadian north are the battlegrounds where teachers, principals and support staff work with the communities to find answers. Why are so many children in Saskatchewan dying? Why does no one seem to care? So this week in Sandy Bay a missing boy is now presumed dead. His footprints in the snow led to a spot near the ice. Like the stinging bite in the bitter wind. It warranted two paragraphs on the second page. If we have a sense of social justice it should begin at home. TJS



Moonlight Over a Northern School

If all the stories had the same voice or the words heard the same source then knowing would appear rational. Like I could touch and feel the voices in my head from the words that were said.

Or perhaps the knower takes the scalpel and removes the discourse from its voice and examines it laying dead. Then what hurt and bled could be touched and the discourse then made solid. Instead the words follow the trees and breeze cross the valleys and through the snow covered woods.

It is cold now and the moon shine has fragmented the solid structure of my mind. There is no reason to the voices only discourses dancing in the moonlight.

TJS 2009