Nanaimo Daily News letter called ‘racist’, stirs controversy online

A letter to the editor on the Nanaimo Daily News website has once again stirred anger online.

The piece, ‘No groups in Canada should get special status‘, was published on Monday and starts with the sentence:

I always have difficulty coming to grips with the condemnation of 21st century Canadians by aboriginals for injustice suffered by them in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: I always have difficulty coming to grips with the condemnation of 21st century Canadians by aboriginals for injustice suffered by them in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

The writer, Bill McRitchie, goes on to say, “North American aboriginals were treated terribly by those European nations that were compelled to spread their empires throughout the world and to subjugate any and all indigenous peoples who were perceived a threat to colonialism/imperialism as well as by fledgling Canadian governments”, but writes when that was happening, the world was a very different place.

“Treaties were merely empty promises designed to overtly appease the indigenes while covertly exploiting them,” writes McRitchie.

This is not the first time a piece on the Nanaimo Daily News website has stirred up controversy. Back in March, the newspaper apologized for publishing a letter by Dan Olsen that criticized First Nations.

In a response to McRitchie’s article posted on the Apihtawikosisan blog, the author writes “reconciliation is really about soothing the discomfort of settlers who do not want to take responsibility for Canada’s annihilationist policies which continue to decimate Indigenous peoples.”

They have addressed their article to Hugh Nicholson, the publisher of the Nanaimo Daily, saying “Hugh Nicholson is actively providing a venue for people like McRitchie and Olsen to basically engage in the popular Canadian equivalent of Holocaust denial. I make that comparison mindfully, because the most ‘successful’ Holocaust deniers do not claim that the Holocaust never happened at all…they minimise and distort the facts in order to claim it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was. ”

WATCH: Global News’ report on the Truth and Reconciliation Walk in Vancouver:

People are once again unhappy with McRitchie’s letter and took to social media to express their anger:

http://storify.com/amyjudd/nanaimo-daily-news-offends-with-recent-letter-to-t