Consult or prepare for consequences

The definition of insanity, they say, is doing the same thing over and over, while anticipating a different result. If that is true, than one has to wonder about the lucidity of the Conservative federal government's attempts to do an end-run around consultation and bring in through the back door its 2009 version of the Liberal government's First Nations Governance act.
It was a lack of consultation then that ultimately scuttled that bill, with a newly-minted prime minister Paul Martin declaring the well on the act poisoned by then-Indian Affairs minister Robert Nault's bull-headedness to unilaterally impose his will on First Nations governments across Canada. Nault was relegated to the hinterlands after that fiasco, and a light shone briefly over Parliament with its new insight. Consultation, like it or lump it, is compulsory.
But beyond the fact that consultation is the law of the land, the highest law, and Stephen Harper is the law and order prime minister, when it suits him, it is also an important component in getting the legislation right, for improving the lives of real people in First Nations communities, for providing that hand up, rather than the continued pressure to push an already burdened population down.
Consider Bill C-8, the Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights act (story on page 9), that is coming up for discussion in the House shortly. Under the former incarnation of the proposed act, Bill C-47, which was dead on the order paper when the House prorogued in September last year, there was some consultation with First Nations on how equity in the face of marital breakdown could be achieved on-reserve. Was that consultation extensive enough? Many would say no. But a more important question is, however, was that limited consultation taken to heart in the drafting of the legislation? If it wasn't, be assured there will be real, flesh and blood, consequences to the failure of a badly conceived solution to legitimate hardship faced by women and children who are sometime forced out of their homes and off of the reserves when a marriage dissolves.
We can no longer afford made-in-Ottawa, urban-elitist solutions that don't make sense or don't function in the communities. This is not theory we are dealing with; the theory of equity. If this legislation does not make sense in the communities, the solutions imposed from afar on small, remote, struggling First Nations will only serve to harm in real ways the families the legislation is purporting to help.
The Harper government wants to tick a box and say that, yes, one of its achievements is to bring gender equality to First Nations communities. Members of Parliament must realize, however, there are severe consequences to getting this wrong, and a ticked box shouldn't be the paramount motivation for moving forward with an ill-conceived and unworkable legislation.
Is the Canadian government working to achieve real equality for women in First Nations communities? Or is the perception of just doing something enough for Stephen Harper and Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl to find sway with the female Canadian electorate who continue to view the Conservatives suspiciously.
We, at Windspeaker, are a cynical lot, some might think, but the federal governments, both present and past, have given us nothing to be generous about. We spend exhaustive hours trying to figure out the angles that are being played by governments, the agendas that are being pursued, and we are not alone. At the end of February we learned from the Canadian Press that internal government documents suggest that the Harper government would rather spend big money with a public relations firm to help "shine" the public's perception of the fact that he put Native children's health at risk rather than spending money to send them to healthy schools. APTN has worked at exposing the documents that suggest the back-door revival of the FNGA, and the top-down attempt to change the way First Nations are funded and report back to government.
Governments have relied on their concern for more transparency in the funding relationship with First Nations as its motivation for making those changes. Seems rich coming on the heels of what national chief leadership contender John Beaucage describes as the "cloak-and-dagger, secret memos and clandestine government schemes" being leaked to press of late.
Real consultation, an openness to listen to the concerns and opinions of First Nations leaders and community members, and then incorporate those ideas into the solutions being offered, has at its heart transparency, so if that is the motivation, why not take the steps to get things done right?
These bully-boy tactics haven't worked in the past, and the knee-jerk reaction from First Nations leadership to such tactics suggests strongly that they will not work today or into the future. But there is another old maxim that comes to mind when we think about government's aversion to consultation: Governments will do the right thing only when all other options have been exhausted. It seems we have some way to go.
Windspeaker