I met a teacher from a northern B.C. reserve once who described what a rape epidemic looks like.
The community was about an hour and a half away on a rough logging road from the nearest small town, which engendered a particular brand of isolation, boredom and desperation. The police presence was scant, visits were sporadic and distrust of the Mounties rife. Every form of substance abuse was rampant and constant, with Gravol being one drug of choice - if one took 30 of the popular anti-nausea drug at one time it provoked hallucinations.
So men raped women and some women raped men, over and over, unchecked. The teacher was from Brazil, so she knew a little about poverty, corruption, violence and drugs, that Pandora's box of blight usually relegated to meaningful TV and helping orphans for pennies a day. She thought the reserve was the worst thing she had ever seen.
It's an important thing to keep in mind when discussing the Idle No More movement and Chief Theresa Spence. Many aboriginals live in appalling conditions of deprivation and hopelessness that, for all intents and purposes, are Third World. That's a perversion. There are many reasons for this travesty but nevertheless it is perverse - and shameful - that such a truth endures in this country.
The numbers that underwrite the perversion have become so horrifyingly commonplace they've lost the power to motivate. According to the Globe and Mail, 52 per cent of First Nation adults are employed, compared to 82 per cent of non-natives; the median income for a family living on-reserve is $11,229; 44.4 per cent of homes on reserve require major repairs; 54 per cent of First Nations adults have less than a high-school education.
As the numbers show, the term First Nation is one of the sickest ironies to be found in politically correct English. It suggests entitlement and the bigoted are quick with the gutter wit when they hear it: first with the hand out; first to the bottle; first to complain. But the reality is First Nations are the inconvienient footnote in the Great Canadian story; afterthoughts and grudging ones at that, the last to be considered and the last to be taken seriously.
That's why, despite the heinous reality for many aboriginal people in this country, it doesn't take a political science degree, a crystal ball or even a working knowledge of Canadian history to figure out how the Idle No More story will end. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Tory government will tease, sidestep and prevaricate the movement, made up of aboriginal supporters connected by social media, into eventual exhaustion. The Assembly of First Nations will splinter as pressure from the populist Idle No More mounts on chiefs who can't deliver on empty promises.
Chief Spence, who has been on a liquid-only diet attempting to force a meeting between her, the prime minister, and Governor General David Johnston, will end up humiliated or forced to eat. There may be some form of bloodshed but, regardless, yet more moderate aboriginal voices will be marginalized and the First Nations rights movement will become ever more radicalized and more militant.
The government nevertheless thinks it can outlast the Idle No More movement. The Tories must have been particularly proud of what was supposed to be their coup de grace - an audit of Spence's Attawapiskat First Nation, whose self-declared state of emergency over housing and substandard living conditions helped spark the current unrest and make her a symbol of the movement, that showed $104 million of federal funds given to community from 2005-2011 was sloppily handled. Yet for all the damage it did to Spence, the audit also begged one damning question: how is it that you, me, and every other Canadian taxpayer spent over a hundred million dollars for six years and all we got is misery, freezing children and a starving chief?
There are plenty of fingers to be pointed. The question is can this perversion within the fabric of Canada be undone? It can, if Prime Minister Stephen Harper somehow decides to seize a moment of history and attempts to craft a new relationship with aboriginal people.
It's doubtful such a thing will happen. Indian bashing plays well to the Tory base, in every sense of the word. More importantly, Harper is responsible for many of the current grievances: he scrapped the $5 billion Kelowna Accord that was supposed to be a fresh start in aboriginal relations; his massive omnibus bill that has so angered First Nations with changes to environmental and aboriginal governance was a cynical, opaque political act; his treatment of Shawn Atleo in the collapse of a First Nations education initiative and assorted budget cuts has weakened the AFN chief politically.
But B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell set a disasterous tone with First Nations with his borderline racist treaty questionnaire, only to mend the relationship to the point where it became one of the bulwarks of his administration. And Harper made a historic apology for residential schools and followed it up with a historic Crown-First Nations gathering a year ago.
It's probably not the issue the prime minister would prefer to build a legacy on but taking solid, modest steps - starting with simply making aboriginals a priority in his government - to negotiate a better deal for First Nations - would be a historic achievement.
This is a rising tide that catches all boats. It's come in for Harper, it's come in for First Nations.
What will float and what will be swept away?
