Shedding a little light on the agenda [editorial]

Well, in case you missed it, the table is being set for a leadership challenge at the Assembly of First Nations. It was evident at this summer’s chiefs gathering in New Brunswick, with all the fine speeches being made by a certain ‘also ran,’ who we suspect will take another stab at securing the top post of the chiefs’ organization next July, and now we’ve seen the first very public shot lobbed across the bow of the S.S. A-in-chut when Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan announced they were turning their collective noses up at the education panel.

The education panel, jointly announced by National Chief Shawn Atleo, and Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan, is currently touring to collect information from First Nations communities as a way to break down the walls that have grown around on-reserve education, including lack of resources, both material and financial.
What with the need for 60 new schools to be built on reserve, with high school and post-secondary Aboriginal graduation rates being eclipsed by the non-Native education success rates, and the severe underfunding of each child in our schools, the education panel is a construct long overdue. So it doesn’t take a great leap to wonder if the public flogging of this initiative isn’t more politically motivated than driven by what has been described by the critics as a “flawed and deficient” process.

The chiefs have learned a thing or two about brinkmanship from the mainstream politicians, especially over the years since the trouncing of Paul Martin by his own federal Liberal colleagues, and then the trouncing of the federal Liberal brand by Conservatives under Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the minority years.

Remember Kelowna? It doesn’t matter if the idea is good and right; it’s about stymying the efforts of the current leadership so any claims of achievement can’t be made heading into the next election.

Brinkmanship: To seek advantage by pushing a highly dangerous situation to the limit.

We saw it this summer in the United States when the Republicans, in the name of ideology, pushed the American economy into that extremely dangerous place.
Raise the debt ceiling or default on loans. The Republicans dug their heels in and let their suffering citizens twist in the wind. The result was a slap on the wrist from Standard and Poor’s by knocking back the State’s triple A credit rating to an double A plus. With that the stage was set for another roller coaster ride for investors, who, it seemed, hadn’t been hurt enough by the sub-prime loan debacle of a couple of years back.
What will be the ramifications for our children now that 230 leaders decided to play chicken with their future?

Perception is everything in politics, so, in order to secure an advantage for the challengers, the current leader has to be seen as ineffectual or incompetent. Never mind right or wrong. That’s another matter altogether, and not nearly as important as the acquisition of power and influence.

Never mind that our children’s ability to learn and therefore compete is at stake. Heck, they’re just kids. They don’t know what they’re missing anyway, having always been behind the eight-ball when it comes to education and educational supports.

There’s a greater purpose to serve here, right? Power and influence. It doesn’t really matter how much havoc is caused as long as that end goal is achieved.

Oh for a new way of doing things, or at least a more constructive way of carrying on. We lauded that as an ideal with the passing of Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, this August. The public outpouring of grief for Mr. Layton caught many by surprise, but Canada’s reaction to his death was driven not only by the affection we had for him, but by the fact that the man was cut down at the pinnacle of his political life. Many wondered about what could have been if cancer hadn’t taken him.

But perhaps what Canada was also grieving was the death of Jack’s promise of a future of political civility. And that civility might well have spilled over into the rough and tumble world of Aboriginal politics.

Is it too much to imagine in First Nations politics that the bully-boy tactics and belly-bumping currently being applied could somehow become a relic of times past? What’s wrong with letting ideas and vision become the foundation upon which the chiefs choose a leader, rather than relying on devious political games to subvert accomplishment?

It’s time for our leaders to choose to behave with our interests in mind and not allow personal self-interest to scuttle our progress forward. And it’s time we start exposing their self-interest to the light of day.

Windspeaker