Calling on some substance from the Prime Minister [editorial]

If you are in charge Prime Minister Stephen Harper, step up. You can no longer stand behind an ineffectual minister of Aboriginal Affairs while you, the great and powerful Oz, hide behind the curtain making all the slick decisions that have got us to this place. It’s time to look out and see what you have done.

You are responsible for the embarrassing depths that Canada’s relationship with Aboriginal people has degenerated to. Your words have been untrue, and your actions contemptible. Come out from your hiding place and face the throngs of ‘regular Indians’ who choose to challenge your ‘mean and aggressive’ agenda.  Look out and survey the results of your work.

No, we’re not just talking about the results of the last year, as we approach the anniversary of the Crown/First Nations Gathering and the disappointment that has followed from that day when you were so anxious to get away. No, this downhill slide has been a constant since your government came to power and dismissed the efforts that culminated in the Kelowna Accord.

You remember that agreement that would have seen investments and improvements in education, employment, and living conditions for Aboriginal peoples. Seems like such a long time ago, but really only since 2006 when you dismissed the work that resulted from cooperation and consultation.

Where could we be today if you had acted on those promises? Not here. Not with grassroots people protesting in the streets. Not with a lovely northern chief who you have treated so shabbily putting her health at risk through a hunger strike because you refuse to listen and hear. All she wants is to lift her community and others out of suffering. That’s a good thing. But she is crying. Not for herself, though she is putting her physical self through life-altering stress. She cries for the pain her people are experiencing because of you.

In 2008 you delivered some important words about the residential schools and the legacy of government policies that worked so horrifically against First Peoples, but you have not taken the spirit of those words into your heart. You said Canada wanted a new relationship between Aboriginal peoples and Canadians, one based on respect for each other “and a desire to move forward together with a renewed understanding that strong families, strong communities and vibrant cultures and traditions will contribute to a stronger Canada for all of us.”

Come out from behind your closed door Prime Minister and see if this is the relationship that was envisioned. It’s not what we thought would be the future.

Your words and their meanings are running counter to your deeds Prime Minister. Let’s take the word consultation, for example. This word seems to confound you. Joe Oliver, your minister of dismantled environmental protection, used it in discussions with Chief Wallace Fox on the threshold of the House of Commons just before the ‘scuffle on the Hill.’ He said there had been thousands of consultations happening across the country with First Nations people, and yet the frustrations of chiefs overflow, and the citizens of their communities have their fists raised as they block highways and bridges and demonstrate across this land. You may be talking Prime Minister, but you are not hearing. Both need to occur before consultation has been achieved.

Chief Fox asked a question before Minister Oliver ran back to the protection of your house on that day.

“Why is government policy and legislation always wanting us to surrender...” Fox asked.

“What we are looking for is an equal... a partnership,” Oliver told Chief Fox. Equal is hardly a word that should come from anyone who sits with you Prime Minister. You have placed yourself on top and directed your minions to unfold your will before us. This is not the respect one would expect from peoples who are equal. A partner does not dictate his will on the other. Prime Minister, you are making a mockery of your own words that seemed so sincere in 2008. We cried together on that day, and there was hope and optimism as you purported to turn the page.

We remember from that time getting a question from a non-Native student living in Ontario who asked, shouldn’t an apology be enough? That’s it. This chapter should now be closed. Right?

We thought about how an apology is supposed to work. The moments, days, and years following it should be better somehow, different in a good way. So we told that student that an apology is only as good as the changed behavior it brings. You have not changed Prime Minister. You have brought more legislation and policy that continues to harm our people. #idlenomore is about you, Prime Minister, and you are responsible for what is to come.

It’s on you and this will be your legacy.

Windspeaker