The Editor,
Re. “Kwikwetlem claim Riverview, Colony Farm & Gates Park” (The Tri-City News, Feb. 12).
Did you know that the provincial government’s handling of the “open” Riverview review process has left the Tri-Cities in conflict where municipalities (in the plural) are now pitched against the Kwikwetlem First Nations?
Oddly — some may say cynically — BC Housing gave minimal voice to the Indigenous peoples while refusing to consider the city of Coquitlam’s wish for a restoration of a mental health admissions hospital, pushing instead for its own idea that any new development must break even.
It is difficult to walk a fine line between the interests of two much neglected and often misunderstood minorities: indigenous peoples and the mentally ill.
Both groups have been victims of condescension, prejudice and social evolutionism, considered the necessary corrective.
Both groups frequent our jails and are prone to very high rates of suicide. And It should be noted that there remains a very high proportion of indigenous people (who are ill) languishing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Likely they would have fared better — and we all as a society — if Riverview had not closed down in the first place. And it would have kept people from going in and out of jail.
The old prejudices of the past overturned by the currency of post-colonialism, the economic value of native land and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms give, I think, the indigenous peoples an edge over the mentally ill in terms of representation, at least in the Tri-Cities. And I would like to invite the Kwikwetlem minority, rising in influence, to consider the plight of another minority that is without the security of a specialized hospital in this province.
The mentally ill are not the cultural oppressors of the First Nations, nor can they be. Nonetheless, they do expose of the ills of society (for example, the apparent excesses of capitalism) while the First Nations have been perceived to stand in the way of a certain idea of Canadian nationhood.
To some, it may seem commonplace but, given the provincial government’s lack of understanding on the issue, maybe the Kwikwetlem First Nation also needs a certain reminding as it begins to assert its sovereignty: No one is immune from mental illness.
A restored Riverview Hospital would be in everyone’s best interest.
Joerge Dyrkton, Anmore
