Last week a few tweets from educator Shannon Elliot (@mselliottKPDSB) caught my eye and I am grateful for her permission to share them in Listen & Learn.
On March 11, 2021 Premier Doug Ford accused NDP MPP Sol Mamakwa of jumping the line for his vaccine, and getting it in a community where he "doesn't belong."
This comment was false, as all Indigenous adults across Ontario qualify for the vaccine as part of Phase 1 and because Mamakwa was specifically invited to the community he received the vaccine in, in order to raise awareness and combat vaccine hesitancy.
Ms. Elliott highlighted the following quotation from that exchange the next day in her classroom:
"Indigenous People in Ontario are "happy as punch" As I've heard from numerous people, the Indigenous community has never been treated better."
- Premier Doug Ford, March 11, 2021
On Twitter, she shared images of her students conducting research prior to preparing responses to this comment, and then shared some of the hand written letters and videos they produced. Links to their work are here, here, and here.
I want to thank Ms. Elliot for sharing her students engagement and demonstrating a way to speak back to power - those tweets were a hopeful light in an awful month.
I was furious at Ford's comments - in February, a First Nation community that I have a longstanding relationship with had a horrible outbreak of COVID-19 and many of my friends and their children were sick, and it was a huge relief when the vaccines made it to their community.
I watched from afar as they worked hard to stop the virus in its tracks, locking down completely with no in or out travelling, while ensuring everyone in the community had access to food, medicine, and water. (In this particular community, they cannot drink the water from their taps.)
I also watched community members who lived in town sharing that they were being denied services from local businesses and health providers, just because they were associated with the community. One friend was unable to get a flu shot for her baby because the health clinic was "not serving people from Wabaseemoong at this time." It was so prevalent, The Ontario Human Rights Commission issued a statement.
The racism online bubbled to the surface too. Tania Cameron, an Anishnaabe woman and advocate, called attention to the racism she saw on Facebook and asked people to "rise above the hate" and was met with numerous calls from the OPP asking her take down her criticism of the racist posts.
Ford flippantly said Indigenous people are "happy as punch" as a retort after lying so blatantly. As all this was happening I sat around feeling angry and helpless. Ms. Elliott's students did their research and then did something about it.