Wrong person to ask

"Can I ask you something?" said my friend "K" at Dim Sum today.  Sure, I replied.  "What is the problem with the natives?  What's wrong there?"

OMG!  Where to start?  Not knowing, I simply hung my head in my hands and shook it for a few minutes.  K is a friend from the pool and a bit of an innocent.  Chinese-born and a heads-down research doctor, she is a tad out of it when it comes to the day-to-day bullsh-t that defines Canada.  She also tries to give people the benefit of the doubt and sees the good whenever she can.  (Why she hangs out with me, I have no clue?!)

"We came here 37 years ago from China, when I was 12, and we had no running water or sanitation back in my village," she offered.  "But I don't understand why the natives still live like this in Canada?" 

OMG!  "It's all about money," I explained.  But there's so much of it that doesn't get down to the folks in the reserve slum housing I didn't really know how to break it to her?  I started to spew the numbers -- you know, number of bands, number of natives, number of children in care, number of $$$$ handed out here, there and everywhere -- but this confused her even more.

"So why do they still live in squalor?"  Exactly.  Good question.  We know the answer, of course, but no one ever speaks truth to power.  She went on.  "And what's all this fuss about Gord Downie?  I mean, wasn't he just a singer?"  Out of the mouths of babes. 

All I can do is send her a sampling of my blogs on the natives and Gord to give her a bit of a reality check.  Dear K, wake up!