Learn from history, advises Harper

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Native people have "come a long ways, but there's still a long way to go," says Manitoba MLA Elijah Harper.

In a speech to delegates to the National Aboriginal Communications Society's fourth annual general meeting and seminar in Edmonton, Harper cautioned them to avoid concentrating on the harshness of the summer of 1990.

"Learn from the history that brought it out."

But the Indian people of Canada have said "enough is enough," he noted. Harper, MLA for Rupertsland in the Manitoba legislature, said the historic defeat of the Meech Lake accord last June proved to all Canadians aboriginal people have dug in and are refusing to allow the present aboriginal policies of the government to go unchanged.

"The colonial system still exists and there has to be a new relationship established."

The cutting of core funding last spring to aboriginal organizations and communications societies was a tragic blow by the federal government, he said. "They called it reducing the deficit, but we were suffering dollarwise already and the GST will take more." Thing are not going to get better unless the funds start to flow again, he added.

Harper reminded the packed conference hall at the Chateau Louis convention center that Native people have to work together. "We have to stick together, to communicate in our own language where possible and from our own perspective."

The impressions the public has of Native people are harmful, he said. "They are led to believe the education of Indian people is free, but we paid for it long ago in the treaties. We must never let them forget what we gave up to the settlers and how we helped them survive in our country. Don't give up the fight for the rights of our people," he said.

Harper urged them to remember the promises made generations ago when Native people signed treaties to share the land and resources. "It hasn't worked out that way. The government is trying to assimilate and integrate. We have to question an administration which wants to build a golf course on Mohawk sacred land as they do in Oka."

Harper said that rather than compete in a federal election he chose to be part of the provincial legislature, because "you have to get to know your enemy. And we did. And we used their own parliamentary system this summer to defeat the Meech Lake accord."

The annual general meeting and conference was held at the Chateau Louis Oct. 31 to Nov.3.