Too bad

The province of Alberta identified the 50 top opioid-dispensing doctors and pulled the licence of one for life.  I think that's sad because maybe that doctor was giving his patients these drugs to keep them off the streets and out of criminal activity.  Maybe he was trying to enable them to be productive parents or workers?  Maybe he was trying to protect society from those who would do anything for a fix?  Maybe he was actually acting for society's greater good by prescribing safe levels of drugs that would not kill people?  I don't know, but now the people for whom he prescribed opioids will be scouring the streets and breaking into our homes to get the money they need to "fix". 

With Canada about to post 4,000 fentanyl deaths in 2017, a few thoughts occur.  Why is everyone running around in public libraries and schools with narcan kits?  To what end?  So these people can be revived to OD again?  Even if they enter a treatment centre, odds are they will actually overdose there.  I have an extended family member who works with some of these people now and then and the stories I hear do not paint an optimistic rehabilitation picture.  I also have a firefighter son-in-law who must treat overdoses.  Last time I checked, ODing was not a fire, but as first-responders, firefighters are on the front lines -- often putting their own lives in jeopardy. 

To me, it's a form of suicide -- especially for those in costly treatment centres.  It's ironic that society now allows assisted dying, but won't allow addicts to OD of their own volition.  Many summits and meetings have taken place, all to no avail.  Addicts are addicts and no amount of hand-wringing will change the behaviour of those who can't -- or won't -- stop.
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A word about the status Indian (under the definition of the act) who again reacted angrily to my perspective on Trudeau's exoneration of six war chiefs hanged in 1864 for warring on the Crown.  Here's the thing, like it or not, the land they raided was Crown and the people they killed occupants.

As to "Divine Right", good point.  I know what "Divine Right" means within a constitutional context, but what does it mean to the natives?  Do natives have a "Divine Right" to the entire country?  Apparently, they believe so.  Is the"Great Spirit" or "Mother Earth" the divinity which gives them title to Canada? 

As to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, it is open to vast interpretation and has been argued a number of ways by scholars more qualified and learned than I.  So, nothing in stone there.  Let' face it, all colonialism -- be it French, English, Spanish or Portuguese -- is, and always has been, about real estate.  Look at Israel today.  Same thing.

No peoples are "indigenous" to Canada.  We have all come from somewhere else, a fact proven by genetics beyond the shadow of a doubt.  Sadly, this gentleman is dead-set against reconciliation, calling on his daughters and grandchildren to keep up the fight, which he obviously intends to pass on to them.  In fact, he boasted that his little granddaughter's "sense of justice is well in tact."  We know what that means and it will not help future generations with reconciliation.  The problem will remain baked in, unless progress is made in good faith. 

And as to natives being "nations"?  Regardless of what Perry Bellegarde claims, nations have to be able to defend and finance themselves.  But those working within the native "industry" will not be swayed by facts.  It is in their interest to continue the fight -- just as it is in the interest of those in the cancer industry to keep cancer going. 

Canada is no longer unified.  We are a bunch of self-interested provinces without a strong federal leader to hold us together.  Mr. Happy Socks is just not up to the task. 
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p.s.  It's "thou", not "though", as in "holier".