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
