Vancouver Island landfill ordered to remove and destroy 'triggering' Halloween sign
Vancouver Island landfill ordered to remove and destroy 'triggering' Halloween sign
Staff at a Vancouver Island landfill have been ordered to remove and destroy a Halloween decoration amid complaints that it is cruel and distasteful, particularly towards Indigenous women.
Similar signs have graced landfills and residential front yards ahead of Halloween for decades.
But the dark joke no longer lands in light of the discovery of human remains in a Manitoba landfill last year, and the belief that other Indigenous women were similarly murdered and discarded near Winnipeg.
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I’m divided on this one. On the one hand, there’s a crisis facing indigenous peoples. On the other hand, this is a pretty normal Halloween sign that has nothing to do with that. It might be in poor taste but I’m not fully convinced.
There's no fault here, imo...the person that put up the sign probably wasn't thinking about events in Winnipeg. But that doesn't change the fact that someone was killed and thrown away like trash. This sign pokes fun (albeit unintentionally) at a very real and raw situation. It's fair to ask them to remove the sign, so as not to put the families of these missing women through more pain.
Honestly, everything could trigger some group based on that logic. What about a zombie pictured with missing limbs at the local recreation center triggering amputees. What about a nerf whistling football at a school setting off refugees who'd escaped bombing in their home country.
Why does this scenario warrant action, when other similar situations do not?
There's a line that needs to be drawn somewhere, and I honestly don't think this sign is on the wrong side of it.
Not every group of people has recently, within the last year, had to contend with two of their members being murdered and thrown in a landfill, and then it becoming a major national political campaign issue.
Uh oh, looks like you triggered some people.
If this was posted on a landfill in or near Winnipeg, I'd agree that it needs to come down and would be legitimately triggering.
In a completely different province... I don't see the issue.
I'm with you on this. Almost all jokes re: Halloween are in poor taste so I'm not sure why this one is off limits suddenly after years of indifference.
That’s probably what’s happened: the government is finally taking it seriously.
As far as I can see from the article, the government didn't have anything to do with it.
They were ordered by presumably the government to remove it.
The article says the order came from the corporation that owns the facility and says nothing about the government. Do you have evidence that the government was behind it?
It says:
"Regional district staff instructed the landfill operator to immediately remove the sign and to destroy it, so as to ensure a similar error does not occur again," Sailland added.
I interpreted that to be a government district, but I can see how it could be a fully private enterprise.
It's also a landfill on Vancouver island, and I'm from BC as well where I have hardly ever heard of these Manitoba landfill bodies. It easily could have been done in complete ignorance.