More Non Native Musings on #IdleNoMore and Chief Spence

To be quite honest, I don’t have a full understanding of the #IdleNoMore Movement but I have been trying to follow this movement through the media and trying to learn more as I go.  Part of this is trying to figure out if Chief Spence is part of the #IdleNoMore Movement or if the two are separate but share the same followers.

As I understand it, the request or demand of Chief Spence to have a meeting with Stephen Harper included the inclusion of the “Queen’s Representative” who would be the Governor General David Johnston.  And that request was there from the get-go.

You probably already know that less than a week before this proposed meeting, an auditing firm’s report on Chief Spence’s community, Attawapiskat was leaked by the Government and followed up with a release of the audit by the Government.  I felt the timing of the leak was suspect and I was going to write about it.

My blog was to be entitled “You Wanted Harper’s Attention, It Appears You Have It.”

But I got sidetracked.

As I was reading stories at various sites and following the Twitter responses to the situation I was struck by the bile and viciousness of comments regarding the request of Chief Spence to meet with Stephen Harper and Governor General David Johnston (like it was a brand new idea of hers) and the lack of accountability for funding to Attawapiskat and just general venom shot from all sides of the situation.

All this negativity towards the natives made me think about how we like to make polite talk about our “Cultural Mosaic” and how nice we are to people with differences in Canada...  Just don’t start to scratch at the veneer of civility we show, because it ain’t very thick.

If you bother to listen, you’ll hear the snide remarks and barbs about “those people” because of their clothes, or their religion, or their accents, or the way they look, and so on.  You’ve heard the jokes, probably told a few too.  Most of us have.

Most of the time, this distrust and dislike stems from the fact that the target group is generally made up of newcomers to our country.  But there is one group that is perennially on that list and they have been here a lot longer than the rest of us and the dislike borders on smouldering hate.

Listen, I was reading a blog post by Peter Mansbridge just the other day.  In it he described going to a bar when he was younger where he was permitted to sit in the raised area in the centre of the bar and the natives were relegated to “the racetrack”, a lower level that circled the main bar.  He basically described it as being “separate but equal”, sound familiar?

And I read a news story where a Native Community is boycotting a neighbouring town because a Town Councillor blamed local crime on the Natives.  This isn’t an isolated case, just one that made the news.  In the town where I work there were a few car thefts, some of the locals suggested the police should spend more time checking in a nearby Reservation for the missing cars.  If you have a reserve near you, you know what I’m talking about.

These people don’t need proof to make these allegations, they “just know”.  They’ve “heard” about how the government throws our money at “those people” and how “those people” are all idlers and drunks.  They probably don’t realise that they could very well be working beside “those people” every day. 

Read the comments after the articles.  Read the Twitter posts.  We are not the nice people we pretend to be…

And then someone on the Harper side of the House leaks a “damning” fiscal analysis of Attawapiskat.  The torches are lit and the Harper faithful and their army of echo boxes start screaming about the waste of our money and how the Chiefs live in mansions and so on and so on and the Chief Spence’s supporters rally around her with their torches alight as well.

The truth is lost in the rhetoric.  No one can hear because everyone is yelling.

Is this the plan Stephen?  They tell me you are the “Master Strategist”.

 Seriously, from where I sit it looks like someone took a big chunk of dry wood and tossed it into a pile of glowing embers.  All it will take now is for someone to spill some gasoline on it and we can have a conflagration on our hands.

Maybe something as simple as someone making a nasty remark to exactly the wrong person.

It would get you a place in the History books.  How about “The Great Indian Uprising of 2013” or maybe the Canadian version of Wounded Knee?

I seriously hope that this is only a bad joke that I am making with those comments Stephen, but God knows there are enough crazies on the fringes all around and any one of them could have that can of gasoline as we speak.  I doubt that you or your inner circle wants anyone to be harmed, at least I hope that is the case, but your actions are saying otherwise.

Stephen, in my last posting I mentioned that maybe it was time to stop giving to the Native Peoples and start taking instead.  #IdleNoMore is not a youth movement, there are many elders involved.  Take their time, take their words to heart.  Take this opportunity to enter into a dialogue with these peoples.  They don’t know what the problems are because someone told them.  They don’t know what the problems are because they’ve seen them.  They know what the problems are because they live them every day.

The leaders of #IdleNoMore have worked hard to keep their protests positive and peaceful and I applaud them for that.

I also commend the Mayor of Sarnia and the Sarnia Police for their diplomatic handling of the CN rail line protest which ended peacefully after the protesters had made their point.

Look, the rhetoric over these protests has been heated at times but nothing akin to the open hostilities that have opened up since that leaked report.  It is time for someone to take a step back and consider the future. 

It is time for all of us to step back and consider the future.

BC

A Non Native #IdleNoMore

We, the non native communities of Canada have had our successive Governments impose their will on our friends’ native communities going back untold years. It is time we spoke up and let the Government of Canada of today and the Governments of the future know that this has to stop and that the only way forward must include the voices of those we wish to help. #IdleNoMore

I have been following the #IdleNoMore movement for a while and while I understand some of the reasons behind this movement, I don’t pretend to understand them all.

But what I really can’t wrap my head around is the Harper Party’s response to these #IdleNoMore protests.

I look at the handling of the hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence by Stephen Harper.  Had Harper stepped up in the first place and had a sit down with Chief Spence there would probably not have been much of a protest.

Instead, Lord Stephen chose to rebuff Chief Spence and to ignore her.  When it became apparent that she wasn’t going away, he opted to send lackeys.

First off it was Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan.  This is like sending the server back to a bunch of teed off customers in a restaurant.  The service was appalling and you’re sending the same person we’re mad at back to settle us down?  And then you act surprised when he can’t get a meeting?  It is fairly obvious that Chief Spence wants to talk with someone who can do something more than regurgitate talking points.

Then it was Patrick Brazeau, the Senator who says he is still living at home with his Dad to pick up an extra $30Gs in taxpayer money.  The first time he arrived he was told that Chief Spence was not available to meet with him, when he came back hours later he was told that Chief Spence did not want to meet with him.

And we have Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and other Federal Officials chirping in the background that Chief Spence should just meet with John Duncan. 

Apparently they don’t get it.

Many of the treaties signed over the years were between the Native Bands and with the Crown.  John Duncan does not represent the Crown.  He is merely a regurgitator of talking points.  He is an echo box.  Chief Spence does not want to talk with the “Mouth Piece of Stephen”. (That is a Lord of the Rings reference if you don’t recognize it... Gandalf dealt with him… Chief Spence is more polite) Stephen is supposed to represent the State, and Governor General David Johnston is supposed to represent the Crown and they are the ones she wishes to speak with.

Some Bands have even written to the Queen to try and get some action.

It doesn’t seem to be working.

Look, Stephen Harper says that he hasn’t got the time to meet with Chief Spence, but he did find time for a photo op with Justin Bieber, he did find time for a photo op in a seniors residence playing cards, it is plain to see where his priorities are.

He certainly is some kind of “Master Strategist” isn’t he?

It was just a year ago that Chief Spence and the Attawapiskat Community were in the news, not locally, not nationally, but internationally.  There is already a national groundswell of support for both Chief Spence’s hunger strike and the #IdleNoMore movement and it is showing up internationally as well.

Aboriginal groups around the world have noticed what is happening and are talking about it.  Non Aboriginals have noticed it as well and they are talking too.  Stephen may not realize it yet, but there are many people throughout the world, primarily in Europe who have a fascination with Native Canadians.  In a way they seem to envy us for having these people here, it is very different from their world where they are the natives.

You and I, we all have a share of the problems that Native Canadians face.  We have elected the governments that have failed to solve these “Indian Problems”.  We have forced Native children into Residential Schools, thinking that education was the answer.  It didn’t work out.  We’ve tried to transplant these children into “our” schools often by taking them from their communities and adopting them out to nice white families with poor results.  We, through the government decide on what can and cannot happen on the Reserves.

Imagine that.  How would you like it if you wanted to build a house but the Minister in Charge has to approve the allocation of land for the building, has to approve of erecting a building there and so forth?  Or if the Government decided the best way to educate you kids was to send them off to school in a distant city and not allow them to live the way you taught them?  You’d scream bloody murder.  But this is how we treat Native Canadians.

I think even Stephen Harper would agree that there are problems here and that they need to be addressed.  The problem is that HE wants to determine what the issues are and HE wants dictate how they are handled.  Wouldn’t it far simpler to sit down with the people involved and determine what the issues truly are and work out a plan to try and resolve these issues?

No, not really.  It is easier to impose our will on others, but easy does not mean right.  Sitting down with the leaders of the various communities would take time and it would be hard on both sides, but progress would be made.  The cost of addressing these issues on the short term would be high, but in the long run would be far cheaper than the bandaid solutions that we have been giving them over these many years.

Everything that the Natives of Canada have, we’ve given them.  We forced them off of their original lands and given them reserves.  We stripped them of their Native ways and given them diabetes, addiction, and suicides instead. 

Maybe it is time we stop giving and start taking instead.

Maybe Stephen Harper should take the opportunity to speak face to face with Chief Spence.  He could even take the Governor General with him.  Justin Trudeau took time to meet with Chief Spence, former Prime Minister Joe Clark took time to meet with her as well.

We should listen to what the Native leaders have to say and take their views into consideration and take their advice on how to correct the issues that we have given them.  I’m not so naïve to think that these elected leaders of the various native communities have all the answers, but I am smart enough to see that our elected leaders have failed in the past and will fail in the future unless they take the advice of the experts, and the experts are the Native Peoples themselves.

In the mean time, I along with others will encourage Stephen Harper (@pmharper) to meet with Chief Theresa Spence (@ChiefTheresa) and other Native leaders using the hashtag #IdleNoMore to let everyone know what my feelings are.

For those of you who think using Twitter is a silly way to do this, we are not writing to Stephen Harper, we are writing to the world to tell them what we think.

Cheers, BC

You may have noticed the liberal use of us and them in this posting.  I am a non native who supports #IdleNoMore. 

We helped to create the situation, we need to help rectify it.