Elijah Harper a national hero

Page 4

Hurrah Elijah! Bravo to the Manitoba chiefs and all who stood firm beside them! Your tactics brought excitement and hope. We're awed by your resolve, impressed with your determination and amused by the irony aboriginal people once again did constitutional battle in Manitoba.

In blocking discussion of the Meech Lake accord in the provincial legislature, Elijah Harper MLA and former chief, won the hearts of many Canadians of all races and political stripes. He has done much for recognition of the nation's aboriginal people.

But best of all - in light of the rotten treatment aboriginal people have received from Canada for hundreds of years, with these last months of horrible federal budget cuts to our essential programs, and the appalling historical record of federal and provincial governments in their dealings with aboriginal people - Elijah has won us a major victory.

If only for a brief moment in our history, Canadian Native people grabbed the upper hand. And that hand had this country (to put it politely) by a certain sensitive part of the male anatomy.

We can't help but feel smug. In one week Harper and his supporters did more for Native Canadians than the prime minister and the premiers have in years. For too long ministers have sworn they'll get around to dealing with "aboriginal constitutional matters." For too long, that's been all talk and no action. That's why the Manitoba chiefs wouldn't bargain to allow the passage of Meech Lake in their legislature.

Brian Mulroney and his boys (sorry Kim Campbell, but we ain't seen much action from your department on Native justice atrocities) are finally reaping the bitter harvest of bad relations with Canada's first nations. From the last failed constitutional talks on aboriginal rights to the federal hard line on claims, to the current destruction of Native representative, communications and social programs - this government is finally getting what it deserves.

The issue in Manitoba is not whether Quebec deserves "distinct society" status. It's not about whether Canadians are loyal to their country.

It's about 11 white, upper-middle-class men making back room deals for their own benefit. It's about whether this country and its constituent provinces will deal fairly and openly with their citizens - especially their first citizens and the millions of other disenfranchised from the political and economic powerhouses of central Canada. The issue is also about Canadians being forced (unfortunately that's what it takes) to look long and hard at the 1.3 million Native people systematically oppressed and discriminated against for centuries.

Meech deserved to die, because in trying to establish equity for one part of the country, other are trampled. (Witness Senator Lowell Murrya's outrageous suggestion that Manitoba dump its legislative procedure in order to pass the accord!)

It's a document that lays the foundation for highlighting and hardening our differences and divisions, rather than solidifying our national vision and unity. (Witness Quebec premier Robert Bourassa threatening that if the Indians didn't back down, his province would never support Native rights!)

Meech supporters lament the future of the country without the accord. But given its inherent inequities, Manitoba Assembly of First Nations' chief Ovid Mercredi is right in saying that without it "things can't get any worse," at least not for Native people.

Elijah Harper is a new Canadian hero. It is fitting this man has risen not from the ranks of the high and mighty, but from the files of the politically ignored. How appropriate he has used fundamental democratic process to dismantle a deal negotiated without any regard for that process.

Let's have more of Harper's courage. We'll scrap Meech and do it right next time, having learned a lesson from a valiant, patient Canadian.

Native Press/22 June 1990