As racial tensions in the United States spontaneously combust, and with Aboriginal Day just a few minutes away, it seemed right and just to meditate on Indian and Non-Indian relations. The short version is, considering what happened elsewhere due to culture, politics, religion, and socio-economic realities, we got away fairly unscathed. All that’s left to resolve is the peculiar tendency within our own leadership to obstruct any and all paths towards a lasting reconciliation.
Ironically, the white man has aided and abetted the most malicious members of the Indian leadership class by being too deferential. We needed that accountability act - indeed, with force if necessary, our political caste should have been put into glass wigwams, lodges, igloos, etc. so we might finally get meaningful results from our oligarchs. Instead, they talk about “racism” and make empty gestures, from protests to school renamings, to distract from their incompetence.
No one holds back we, the First Peoples of Canada, more than the sad sacks we call by old titles and grand names. And where other, more enterprising bands have succeeded - those who have not forgotten that our relationship with the white man is “trading partner” - they’re often called compromisers, “red apples,” or worse. The only place to beat the war drum and block traffic is in front of the hollow redmen’s shiny, new offices, whose kin wallow in abject poverty.
The potential for us Indians is infinite. After all, our traditional lands, ceded or not, are full of resources which modern civilization requires. Ever since Dief the Chief was waylaid by the fifth column of Pearson’s Liberals, in league with the Kennedys, the “roads to resources” agenda has ground to a halt. I have no time for Theresa Spence and her co-agitators, but the problems of Attawapiskat and countless other reserves could be solved by access to the rest of Canada.
I ought to be able to drive from Prince George to Hall Beach, Nunavut, or from Windsor to the top of Quebec. As it is, propelling oneself from Thompson to Churchill, Man., is impossible save for a winter road - and we must recall a full military installation was stationed on the shores of the mislabelled Hudson “Bay” for decades - even though I can drive to Tuktoyaktuk from Halifax if I so desire. That’s Canada as a roadmap - a dominion stuck in underdeveloped limbo.
That’s the next chapter for aboriginals in Canada, if our leaders stop using victimhood as their primary lexicon. And it would be wise to get moving on questions of development sooner rather than later, as it is only the white man upon whom the guilt tactic works. One of my reasons for avoiding the Orwellian term “Indigenous” at all costs is that I am well aware our fellow people of colour or former colonials do not owe us anything. When they take over, that wedge is gone.
Analysis of those words by my more hardened critics might lead them to construe these as a nigh 12D level of incendiary, racist comment. To put it bluntly, Canada’s elite chose to make us a multicultural country; new immigrants do not have two row wampum belts or a 1763 Royal Proclamation in their historical gestalt, regardless of their own colonial legacy; ipso facto, once a critical mass of non-white leaders take control, we Indians will be left holding a useless weapon.
So the time to deal is now. Indeed, right this instant, as the prime minister is handing out cash faster than budget officers can count it. But we must not make the mistake of letting our chiefs and councils hoard it all for their families - they’ve bought new trucks and nice vacations at our expense for long enough. No, if proper capital can be found, it must be put towards lasting change for our people in the form of development and jobs that will give us dignity and pride.
Our relationship with the white man has always been one of trade. For decades, that has been ruined by weakness and malfeasance. We must put it right before the opportunity passes.
