Partners in all

Page 5

Editorial

In the five hours that former prime minister Jean Chretien was on the stand in the Victor Buffalo versus the Crown civil action on Feb. 23, we got a rare glance into the attitudes that have shaped Indian policy in this country over the last 40 years.

It was like sitting around the Cabinet table and seeing how the minds worked and the decisions were reached. What we saw was not malevolent, but it was disturbing.

Never was the cultural divide so evident as in that Federal Court of Canada courtroom that day. Samson Cree Nation lawyer James O'Reilly, whose experience as a key combatant in historic Native legal fights goes back just as far as the right honorable witness, asked Chretien if Native people had ever told him they believed they'd paid their taxes up front with their contribution of trillions of dollars worth of lands and resources that were ceded or just taken from them by the Crown in the early days of colonial expansion.

Chretien's answer-and the court's response-was a defining moment in the day's events and in the history of the relationship between Native and non-Native people.

"Oh yeah," Chretien said. "They made that statement. I don't blame them. They were making their case. But I have to deal with the reality of life."

Then Justice Max Teitelbaum jumped into the fray.

"And the reality is they did not prepay their taxes, is that what you're saying?" his Lordship asked.

"No, no," replied Chretien. "I don't pass judgment because I'm not a judge. I wanted to be a judge but I forgot to name myself [as one]."

Of course that quip was repeated in media reports across Canada and even in the United States. The former prime minister charmed the judge, the media, even the Native audience in the courtroom. He proved to be a tremendously charismatic witness.

That Justice Teitelbaum was so quick to raise the question showed us that he, Mr. Chretien and all of the non-Native journalists in that room do not believe they owe anything to Native people at all. The idea is so foreign to them that they refuse-or are unable-to even give it consideration.

There it was laid bare for all to see: the root of the conflict between Native and non-Native people in this country. Never was the fundamental reality of the cultural divide so clearly outlined for all who have eyes to see. Too bad so many chose to close their eyes to it or look away. Or perhaps they just weren't equipped to see it.

In order to be so equipped you'd have to be able to entertain the idea that Native people and non-Native people are equal partners, that both have the right to have their cultures and worldviews accepted as equal by the other.

Chretien couldn't do it. We fear greatly the judge won't be able to do it. And not one single mainstream journalist was able to do it.

The realities of life, to use Mr. Chretien's term, are not something that one side in a partnership can decide. He was essentially arguing, while being clever enough not to use the hot button words, that Native peoples are conquered peoples. And that's a one-sided view of history that favors the non-Native side at every turn. That kind of bias has no place in a court of law or in the minds of a government that mouths the word "partnership" every chance it gets.

If that point of view goes unchallenged in the Cabinet room, in any courtroom, or even in the men's room, then a biased, one-sided and mistaken view of the world will be shaping vital decisions that will affect the future course of this country. And decisions based on contaminated ideas will always blow up in our face at some point. Garbage in; garbage out. Once you get off course, the longer you go before the course is corrected, the more lost you become. In other words, the chickens will come home to roost. When and how are the only questions.

It's time to face these fundamental errors in accepted mainstream Canadian thinking.

Mr. Chretien, it is said, spent a lot of time loking for a legacy, one great accomplishment that will echo through the corridors of history for all time and prove his greatness. Why can't this be it? Why can't it be that he, by consenting to come and bear witness rather than fighting and dodging with all the legal strategies available to him, allowed Canada to finally see itself clearly, to make that vital course correction and to get on the right path towards becoming the truly just society it aspires to be.