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COLUMNS: History repeating itself?

The kids were hoping the powers-that-be would pay attention
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Today is the first day of spring, the season for hope and new beginnings. New Year should begin in spring instead of winter.

Last Friday over a million young people from all over the globe participated in mass demonstrations calling on their governments to take action on climate change before it’s too late. The kids were hoping the powers -that-be would pay attention.

Alas, also on Friday came news from usually peaceful New Zealand of a vicious attack on two mosques that killed 50 Muslims and injured many others. This news eclipsed the youths’ events. Disaster instead of hope.

What’s triggering the hatred of Muslims? Why do we worry about Muslim immigrants taking over our country but don’t pay much attention to who’s running it now? It isn’t a myth that big corporations control our politicians, the SCN Lavalin scandal is proving that. Those corporations aren’t likely to surrender that power to anyone.

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Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer can huff and puff about the Prime Minister kowtowing to Lavalin but Stephen Harper’s government did the same. The stories surfacing as a result of LavaScan aren’t pretty and it’s only one of the big influential companies.

To make matters worse, many of our resources –LNG, oil, farmland, etc. are controlled by foreign companies and/or countries, and our governments do everything they can to accommodate them in order to “grow our economy.”

Canada was settled by Europeans who barged in and took over the land. The original inhabitants welcomed them at first. Is history repeating itself?

If it doesn’t disappear from the news, LavaScan might be the trigger to wake us up, or maybe it will be the young people who protested on Friday if they don’t give up. And it would be nice if the weather realizes spring is here and behaves accordingly.

Diana French is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. She is a former Tribune editor, retired teacher, historian and book author.