Conservatives launch new Aboriginal Caucus
Reality dealt the notion of an anti-Aboriginal bias within the Conservative party a savage kick to the nads recently, as the party unveiled its Aboriginal Caucus.
The caucus is made up of four aboriginal MPs -- Rob Clarke, Rod Bruinooge, Leona Aglukkaq and Shelly Glover -- and Senators Gerry St Germain and Patrick Brazeau.
By contrast, the Liberal party has three aboriginal Senators and a single aboriginal MP. The NDP has a single aboriginal senator.
Yet with many people in Canada insisting that the Conservative party has an anti-aborginal bias -- as embodied by the comments and academic work of MP Pierre Poilevre and strategist Tom Flanagan -- the fact that the Conservative party has the largest aboriginal caucus out of any party in Canada. Yet that particular dilemma, as are so many in Canada, is purely political.
In reality, this matter seems to revolve almost entirely around a difference in opinion regarding to how aboriginal issues in Canada are best dealt with -- a difference in opinion cleaved by a massive ideological divide.
On one side of this ideological divide are entrenched political figures within aboriginal bands and organizations who relish the political clientelism that has been promoted by the Liberal party and NDP for decades. To these people -- and those who support them -- the very notion of transforming aboriginal politics is utterly offensive, even clientelism has proven to be an abject failure.
Thousands upon thousands of aboriginal people in Canada continue to live in poverty despite the billions of dollars spent trying to solve this problem.
When individuals such as Flanagan, Poilievre or Frances Widdowson dare speak out about this fact they are often accused of uttering "hurtful" remarks about aboriginal Canadians -- if not outright hate speech.
But the fact that the Conservative party has succeeded in not only admitting to Parliament, but in actually electing more aboriginal parliamentarians than their allegedly more "sympathetic" political counterparts should give pause to many Canadians when they stop to ponder which party is truly looking for answers to the problems that have plagued Canada's aboriginals for so many decades.
It certainly isn't the political parties who have benefited politically by pandering to organizations who sputter with outrage if the Prime Minister meets with the "wrong" aboriginal groups that don't support the old system of poverty-perpetuating clientelism.
That the Conservative party has the largest caucus of aboriginal representatives should give these people pause as well. It probably won't, but it should.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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Well, maybe I can help you understand.
ReplyDeleteThe Conservative Party espouses the assimilation of Aboriginal people, following the incrementalist program described by Tom Flanagan in First Nations, Second Thoughts. The highlights of that publication include the following:
- the recommendation that land claims and treaties should be abrogated:
- the recommendation that Aboriginal self governments should be reduced in their powers, functions and authorities, to the level of municipal governments;
- the statement that Aboriginal cultures are inherently inferior to "Western" cultures;
- measures that would allow purchase of the Aboriginal treaty and land-claims protected land base, the one indissolable asset remaining.
Interestingly, the Conservative lack the balls to actually state that their goal is assimilation.
Once again, Balbulican, I don't buy it.
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, I've never seen a modern-era Conservative party policy paper that calls for assimilation. I have seen such things from the Liberal party, for one.
And furthermore, I'd say the fact that the Liberals and NDP can't seem to elect an aboriginal candidate for the life of them casts many, many aspersions on their claims to represent first nations.
Last but not least, it seems that it takes a Conservative government to take constructive steps on issues such as land claims.
That's not a very good rebuttal, Patrick.
ReplyDeleteYour first point: No Official Conservative Party Document has explicitly used the word "assimilation. Correct. Please see the last line of my post.
However, every policy formally adopted by the party explicitly or implicitly endorses the following goals:
- the reduction of the Aboriginal land base;
- the reduction of self government powers to the municipal level;
- the overriding of treaties, claims and self government powers, functions and authorities by Canadian law;
- the tranfer of responsibility for education to the provinces, with consequent diminution of the nation to nation relationship
- the elimination or reduction of programs intented to support Aboriginal languages.
Doesn't matter whether you use the word "assimilation" or not, Patrick: that's what it is. Those are precisely the strategies proposed by Flanagan, who refers to that approach as "incrementalism".
You suggest that the "NDP and liberals can't elect an Aboriginal candidate to save the life of them"? I guess you didn't know that the Liberals have an Aboriginal member of Caucus (as well as Senators.)
As for your suggestion about the Conservative Government's progress on land claims: I'd be very interested in your views on the Minister's refusal to meet with the Land Claims Coalition, his last minute cancellation of the major presentation he had committed to (and for which over 400 leaders had flown to Ottawa) at the LCAC national conference this spring: his refusal to adopt a land claims implementation policy: his failure to implement the existing policy: his refusal to act on the findings of the Auditor General, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Justice Thomas Berger, and all the other commissions and evaluations that have found that his Department (and the Crown) are failing miserably in honouring the terms of their existing claims.
Oh, and the revampled Kelowna Accord that was going to be introduced "speedily"? How's that coming along?
Sorry, Patrick. That may fly with folks who don't know any better. Don't try it on me.
In fairness, right up until the Harper Government, there was little difference between the Conservative and Liberal handling of Aboriginal issues. Mulroney's government did a better job on comprehensive claims: the libs did a better job on training and economic development. Both defaulted on more promises than they honoured.
ReplyDeleteThe current Harper government is in my opinion the worst I have seen in terms of its handling of Aboriginal affairs.
Balbulican,
ReplyDeleteYour original argument is not only poor, but excessively so.
First off, your insistence that assimilation is Conservative party policy regarding aboriginal affairs requires some substantive support.
Allegations of a "hidden agenda" have never proven anything.
But what I will tell you is this: an aboriginal affairs policy that called for assimilation may be nothing if not realistic.
For example, I recently had the distinct pleasure of volunteering my time at an Aboriginal drama and music exhibition here in Edmonton. On offer were a Metis Blues band, an aboriginal rap group, and several dramatic pieces.
Whether people like yourself care to admit it or not, some form of assimilation -- I hope it's a much more benign form than the traditional assimilation models -- is taking place in regards to Canada's aboriginal people.
But the question that individuals like yourselves have to answer at the end of the day, Balbulican, is this:
Initiatives like the Kelowna accord -- throwing more and more money at the problem of aboriginal poverty -- have been tried for decades in this country. Yet thousands upon thousands of aboriginal Canadians continue to live in poverty.
The poverty itself is merely the first tragedy of poverty. Yet individuals like yourself seem utterly blind to William Easterly's second tragedy of poverty -- that so much money would be thrown at the problem with so little effect.
At some point, Balbulican, individuals like yourselves have to account for the failures of the policies you've so avidly supported.
Fortunately for yourself, you don't seem to live on an impoverished native reserve. I guess that's pretty convenient for you.
For the people who continue to live in poverty because you continue to support outdated and failed policies? Not so much.
"First off, your insistence that assimilation is Conservative party policy regarding aboriginal affairs requires some substantive support. Allegations of a "hidden agenda" have never proven anything."
ReplyDeleteOh, it's not hidden at all, Patrick. You simply ignored every specific policy point I identified.
Tell me, are there any of them that you actually dispute, or don't see as assimiliationist?
"But what I will tell you is this: an aboriginal affairs policy that called for assimilation may be nothing if not realistic."
Ah. Got it.
a) Conservative policies are NOT assimilationist.
b) Ok, even if they are, that's a GOOD thing.
Heh.
"Whether people like yourself care to admit it or not, some form of assimilation -- I hope it's a much more benign form than the traditional assimilation models -- is taking place in regards to Canada's aboriginal people."
"People like myself"...care to expand on that? You mean, people who believe that Canada should honour its claims and treaties?
Look, sonny: I have been married to an Ojibway woman with a Post-doc in biology from McGill for just about as long as you've been alive. I trained the Inuit filmmaker who won the best First Film award at Cannes ten years ago. So please - don't presume to explain to me what "assimilation is about." Aboriginal culture is alive. Like every other living culture, it absorbs and adapts elements from every other culture it's in contact with. That's not "assimilation", any more than Luc Bresson's adaptation of Hollywood cutting rhythms is "assimilation".
"Initiatives like the Kelowna accord -- throwing more and more money at the problem of aboriginal poverty -- have been tried for decades in this country. Yet thousands upon thousands of aboriginal Canadians continue to live in poverty."
May I respectfully suggest that you know fuck all about the eighteen month process that led to the Kelowna Accord? That you are completely unaware of the fact that it marked the first time that First Nations, Inuit, Metis, Federal, Provincial and Territorial government ALL agreed on a path forward? That there were actual, workable strategies for housing, education, economic and political development, devolution, land claims resolution ... for the first time, agreed to by all stakeholders? Did you know that? Seriously? Or are you just echoing some conservative talking points here?
"Fortunately for yourself, you don't seem to live on an impoverished native reserve. I guess that's pretty convenient for you."
That is an astonishingly offensive observation.
Tell me, you smug prick: over the course of your career, how many on reserve jobs have YOU created? How many Aboriginal people have YOU trained or mentored? How many Aboriginal businesses have YOU launched? How many actual years have YOU spend working on reserve, in the Territories, in the North?
Aw, fuck it. Dance the happy dance of the ideological ignorant. I actually thought you were someone worth talking to. My error.
You identified the work of one academic who isn't nearly as influential on Conservative party policy as you'd like to insist that he is.
ReplyDeleteAs far as proof of a pro-assimilation Conservative party policy goes, that passes as awfully thin gruel.
I would be far from the first person to state that assimilation by Canada's aboriginals is either a good thing or a bad thing. At least not in so many words.
Forced assimilation, in particular, is a very, very bad thing. I believe that we are seeing a forced assimilation by way of the consequences of the failed policies in regard to Canada's aboriginals -- namely, poverty.
Chosen assimilation -- which I have seen a great amount of evidence of -- I would view as morally neutral. Not a good thing, not a bad thing. And while I believe that Canada's aboriginal people need to retain their culture for both their benefit and the benefit of Canadians as a whole, I recognize that I personally have very little say over how they will retain or advance their culture.
I don't pretend that government policy can have that kind of power.
"May I respectfully suggest that you know fuck all about the eighteen month process that led to the Kelowna Accord? That you are completely unaware of the fact that it marked the first time that First Nations, Inuit, Metis, Federal, Provincial and Territorial government ALL agreed on a path forward? That there were actual, workable strategies for housing, education, economic and political development, devolution, land claims resolution ... for the first time, agreed to by all stakeholders? Did you know that? Seriously? Or are you just echoing some conservative talking points here?"
And all of these agreements were struck within a funding and spending model that has proven disastrous over the course of not merely years, but decades.
The Kelowna Accord did not deliver the kind of fundamental change that the failures of decades of these kinds of policies have made evident is needed.
How dare you lecture me about being "ideologically ignorant". Speaking of being a smug little prick, I'm not the one who stares the failure of more than thirty years (at least) of aboriginal policies in the face and says "we need more of this. Anyone who disagrees is some kind of heretic."