Some fair questions [editorial]

Patrick Brazeau, the leader of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), touched off a war of words this month that might not de-escalate any time soon. "There's too many chiefs," he told the Globe and Mail, starting a somewhat disrespectful expression that ends "and not enough Indians."

We guess Brazeau can get away with that, because he's Aboriginal.

And considering that First Nation chiefs and others have stunted debate on occasion by invoking the charge of racism against those who disagree with them, it's useful to have an Aboriginal person lead the charge against those chiefs. But useful to whom? Brazeau believes there's no need for the 600-plus well paid chiefs travelling the country and running up significant expenses each year. He said we could get it down to less than 100 and still get the job done.

Maybe some of the money used to maintain more than 600 band councils could actually get to the people, he concluded.

He might be right, but we wondered if Brazeau's appearance on the scene at this time wasn't just a little too convenient, what with a federal government in place that has a history of anti-Aboriginal attitudes and policies.

The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples endorsed the Conservative Party of Canada, led by former Reform Party member Stephen Harper, in the last election campaign. And CAP has since managed to secure a 20 per cent jump in its federal funding despite some very serious flaws in its organizational structure?and very serious financial corruption allegations in some of its provincial affiliates.

So it seemed fair to ask if his comments are part of a government strategy to undermine the chiefs and lay the groundwork for a new round of First Nations governance initiatives. Not at all, he said. The ideas are all his. He's a young leader, who lives off reserve, and was a non-status Indian before getting his status back.

He can speak for at least part of the grassroots population. He said First Nation leaders have had more than a century to get something done about the poverty and misery of their communities and have clearly exhausted the patience of the grassroots. Many chiefs have ignored their off-reserve population, allowed discriminatory practices against women, and resisted transparency in their financial affairs, Brazeau said.

Some might say they've brought trouble on themselves. However, there is the argument that the government has had a role to play in maintaining that very destructive status quo. If the CAP leader could also turn his attention to the government's role in all of this, we'd let down our guard, but Brazeau seems to concentrate only on the share of the blame he assigns to the chiefs. The response from the chiefs has been instructive. John Beaucage, the Union of Ontario Indians grand chief, normally a thoughtful, reasonable, high-road-taking leader, sent out a press release calling Brazeau "Minister Prentice's tame Indian."

Wow!

Chief Beaucage obviously believes Brazeau is launching the artillery attack that is intended to soften up the chiefs before the government infantry moves in. There is a long history of Aboriginal leaders being manipulated into doing things that benefit themselves in the short term, but in the long term are detrimental to their people.

Some of those leaders were even chiefs. So he's right to be vigilant. But it's interesting that we received the statement from Beaucage after we inquired if Assembly of First Nation (AFN) National Chief Phil Fontaine would have anything to say in reply to Brazeau's remarks.

It looks to us like Fontaine delegated that one. We didn't get an explanation as to why that decision was made. We suspect there was a very carefully calculated political reason for it. It may simply be that Chief Fontaine was preparing for his appearance before the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

Just days after Brazeau began his media blitz, Fontaine was scheduled to make the AFN case for the Kelowna initiative with the committee, rendered more influential and a possible ally as a result of the Harper government's minority status. But Brazeau said the Kelowna agreement was just a plan to throw more money into a broken and malfunctioning system.

We must note that his suggestion fits perfectly with the federal government's apparent plan to cut back on spending. It fits a little too perfectly, in our opinion.