The Strange Puzzle of Conservative Anti-Aboriginal Bias

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.

For Whom Might Fontaine Run?

Retiring Assembly of First Nations chief may run for Parliament

Phil Fontaine's retirement as the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations may be the precursor to a run for Parliament, CTV reports.

Apparently, the Liberal party has asked Fontaine to consider running for them in the next election.

Yet interestingly enough, it may be within the Conservative party that Fontaine may find the most productive home. Certainly, his most productive achievements as National Chief of the AFN were negotiated with Stephen Harper's Conservative government.

In 2005, Fontaine and then-Indian Affairs Minister negotiated the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, a settlement worth $1.9 billion to victims of the Residential School system and their families.

In 2007, Fontaine and Prentice again collaborated on a land claims plan that would allocate $250 million per annum over ten years to settle many outstanding claims. The plan also introduced a new independent tribunal to rule on these cases.

Last but certainly not least, Fontaine was present when Prime Minister Harper finally delivered the long-overdue apology for the abuses in Canadian Residential Schools.

This isn't to say that Fontaine's relationship with the Conservative government has been nothing but smooth sailing. Fontaine has noted that the cancellation of the Kelowna Accord was greatly disappointing to him.

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre also sparked a brush fire between the two with some ill-timed remarks last year -- although the outrage surrounding his comments was largely manufactured, and really reflected the dominance of political paternalism toward Aboriginals in the face of the need to reevaluate Canadian policies toward Aboriginal Affairs.

Within the Conservative party Fontaine could forge a potent partnership with Senator Patrick Brazeau -- whose tenure as a Senator has, to date, been productive if not untroubled -- in order to find new ways to help the government help meet the needs of Canadian aboriginals, both on- and off-reserve.

Of course this is all just speculation. While it remains unknown whether the Conservative party has made any attempts to recruit Fontaine -- although they will if they are wise -- it also remains to be seen whether or not Fontaine will run for office at all.

Clever Fucking Idiocy

Pierre Poilevre sparks a firestorm over racist remark

Sometimes, a metaphor can simply be too cute to pass up when looking for a clever way to dig at a political opponent.

If Pierre Poilevre thought his remarks in the House of Commons today were one of those metaphors he's entirely too stupid to put his evident cleverness to good use

In a bid to remind Canadians that it was Michael Ignatieff who thought up the carbon tax on which Stephane fought and lost an election -- itself a noble act -- Poilevre made a crack that will seem to many to be reminiscent of the "secret black baby" comments used against John McCain, except without the effectiveness.

"On that side of the House, they have the man who fathered the carbon tax, put it up for adoption to his predecessor and now wants a paternity test to prove the tar baby was never his in the first place," Poilevre announced.

Which should have provoked a broad response of "what the fuck were you thinking" from his colleagues in the Conservative party caucus.

Liberal party House Leader Ralph Goodale rightly denounced Poievre's comments.

"In addition to being a pejorative term, which might well prove to be unparliamentary, the parliamentary secretary might consider that there are many authorities both in this country and many others that consider the term racist," Goodale said.

Marlene Jennings later continued the counter-attack.

"As a black child growing up, I was called all sorts of pejorative names based on the color of my skin, including the 'n-word' and 'tar baby' -- and believe me, it was hurtful," she explained. "I am offended by Mr Poilievre's insensitive remarks --and I know leaders in the black community across Canada feel the same way."

If Poilevre has an apology in the works -- which he'd damn well better -- it had better be a god damned good one when Canadians finally hear it.

All Canadians -- regardless of political affiliation -- should be outraged to no end by Poilevre's comments.

Challenging Dogma is Bad For Your Academic Health

Questioning efficacy of reserve system has political scientist in hot water

If there's any one rule that has come to predominate politics in Canada, it is this:

Don't ask questions about the state of Canada's aboriginal people. If you must ask questions, don't ask the wrong ones.

This at least seems to be the lesson to be learned from the recent experience of Frances Widdowson, whom many Canadian academics have been slowly stewing ever since a presentation she gave last year.

At the June 2008 meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association Widdowson cited Canada's Aboriginal Reserve system for encouraging unemployment and the social problems that come with it. She insisted that the best way to help Aboriginals is to assimilate them.

This naturally provoked a great deal of outrage from those present, including a man who allegedly asked her if she wanted to "take it outside".

After the presentation -- which according to reports seemingly may not have even been finished -- accusations of hate speech were levelled against Widdowson. There were also calls for McGill university press to be censured for printing Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: the Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, Widowson's book on the subject.

Some have gone so far as to accuse Widdowson of peddling "master race fantasies".

It's even been suggested that views such as Widdowson's may discourage aboriginals from seeking careers in academia.

Widdowson isn't the only individual -- academic or otherwise -- facing difficulties for challenging an entrenched dogma in Canadian thought on aboriginal affairs.

Also in June of last year Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre questioned how well money spent on aboriginal reserves has actually served Canada's aboriginals.

"We spend 10 billion dollars -- 10 billion dollars -- in annual spending this year alone now, that is an exceptional amount of money, and that is on top of all the resource revenue that goes to reserves that sit on petroleum products or sit on uranium mines, other things where companies have to pay them royalties," Poilevre said. "And that's on top of all that money that they earn on their own reserves. That is an incredible amount of money."

"Some of us are starting to ask: 'Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?'," Poilievre asked. "My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self reliance. That's the solution in the long run -- more money will not solve it."

Poilievre's insistence that aboriginals need to learn "independence and self reliance" was treated as offensive by a great many people. But for those who focused on that unfortunate choice of words, the real issue was entirely lost: namely, the endemic poverty that persists on Canadian aboriginal reserves.

Tom Flanagan has also stirred up a great deal of controversy with his own recommendations on aboriginal policy. In his book First Nations? Second Thoughts, Flanagan suggests that, among other things, aboriginals should be given property rights over reservation lands so that they may sell those lands or use them as collateral for bank loans.

The ultimate result of that would be transforming reservation lands from a trust handed down from generation to generation into properties no different from any other property.

In other words, assimilation by property.

Assimilation has formally been on the national agenda before. Assimilation was very much at the heart of the Residential School system, just as it was the very soul of Pierre Trudeau's "citizens plus" model for aboriginals.

Assimilation has been rejected by Canada's aboriginals at every turn, and naturally so. Anyone who believes in the right of aboriginal Canadians to self-determination cannot accept forced assimilation. Those who favour assimilation should understand why this is so.

But what is emerging in this particular debate isn't a battle between racism and tolerance, as many of those who favour the status quo in regards to aboriginal policy would insist. Rather, this is a battle between a call for pragmatism -- however ill-conceived -- and a dogma of liberal guilt.

Canadians can no longer ignore the fact that our aboriginal policies -- policies which reinforces the notion that aboriginal Canadians and non-aboriginal Canadians live separate lives -- have failed.

For $10 billion annually poverty on aboriginal reserves should be a thing of the past. Yet it isn't, and it may come down to questionable priorities.

Funding the fight against assimilation may be a losing battle. In one way or another it could be said that assimilation is inevitable, and that the only question remaining is whether this assimilation will be aboriginals assimilating within Canadian society or traditional aboriginal lifestyles assimilating within the modern world.

Yet should aboriginal cultures fade into history as many aboriginal leaders fear, there is no question that this would be an incredible loss.

Balancing the fight against poverty and the fight to preserve aboriginal culture is a difficult task. There's no reason why both can't be done, but it's clearly time for a paradigm shift in the approach to each. The status quo isn't working.

Many Canadians, sadly, are perfectly content with the aboriginal affairs status quo. The poverty on aboriginal reserves is something that many Canadians never see. Aboriginal reserves are, for many Canadians, something they never see. At most, perhaps they pass one on the highway on occasion and see it from a distance at best.

The outrage directed at Frances Widdowson is simply further evidence of how this insular relationship has fed the dogma that has come to dominate Canadian thinking on aboriginal affairs.

It may be an exaggeration to suggest that Widdowson's academic career is threatened by her thinking on the topic. Then again, it might not be. If her career truly is threatened by her antithetical thinking on aboriginal affairs, then she isn't alone.


Other bloggers writing on this topic:

Lee Harding - "Left Wing vs Aboriginal Status Quo"

Metis Bare Facts - "Hypocrisy in the World

Obscuring the Point With Manufactured Controversy

The wolves are out for Pierre Poilievre -- never mind that he has a point

The Canadian political landscape is awash in outrage over some comments made by Nepean-Carleton Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre just hours before yesterday's historic residential schools apology.

In a radio interview with CFRA News Talk Radio, Poilievre questioned how effective the billions of dollars spent on reducing poverty on Canadian Indian reservations has been.

"We spend 10 billion dollars -- 10 billion dollars -- in annual spending this year alone now, that is an exceptional amount of money, and that is on top of all the resource revenue that goes to reserves that sit on petroleum products or sit on uranium mines, other things where companies have to pay them royalties," Poilevre noted. "And that's on top of all that money that they earn on their own reserves. That is an incredible amount of money."

"Now, you know, some of us are starting to ask: 'Are we really getting value for all of this money, and is more money really going to solve the problem?"

Of course, some people predictably don't like Poilievre's comments -- or, rather, like the opportunity to excoriate the Conservatives for a politically-incorrect gaffe.

In particular, Liberal Indian Affairs critic Anite Neville denounced Poilievre's comments as "ignorant" and "disgraceful".

"I invite him to take a tour of many of the First Nations communities in this country and see how people are living," she announced.

Now, there may be much to said about the timing of Poilievre's comments, or about his specific prescriptions for solving the problem (notably "hard work" and "independance" and "self-reliance").

But the real unfortunate twist -- for everyone involved -- in this particular controversy is that Poilievre hasn't said anything that Canadians don't already know: that our federal government spends billions of dollars per year on Indian reservations, with no discernable result to show for it.

Most Indian reservations are as impoverished as ever. Money alone hasn't solved this problem.

Canada's poverty-fighting measures on Indian reservations reflects William Easterly's two tragedies of poverty fighting. The first tragedy is the poverty itself, as poverty always is. The second tragedy reflects the fact that, for all the billions of dollars spent, there has been little discernable improvement in conditions on the reserves.

The sad truth of the matter is that Canada's Indian reservations have all too often been treated as a money pit in which various politicians and commentators have been more than content to pour billions of dollars into without any kind of accountability (accountability for how the money is spent, or even accountability for results) because, by golly, they don't have to live there.

A methodological shift is clearly needed regarding how Canadians approach poverty on Indian reservations.

The money, for the most part, should actually be treated as a non-issue. Fighting poverty costs money. How the money is actually spent is where the shift will be necessary.

It's impossible to believe that Canada's aboriginal population is so impoverished because they're all shiftless and lazy. In fact, many people who have actually worked with aboriginal people in the workforce know things to be quite different: like any other group of people, work ethic isn't a cultural trait -- it's a personal trait.

On Canada's Indian reservations there are thousands of individuals eager to build a better life for themselves, their families and their neighbours. They simply lack the resources to actually do it.

As Poilievre himself notes, a shift in spending away from funds being put into the hands of Band leadership -- who all too often turn out to be almost entirelty unaccountable -- is necessary. Instead, larger portions of federal funding should go toward microfinance that would allow those aboriginals so inclined to start small businesses and, in time, provide stable employment where it is needed the most.

By its very nature, this would also engender a shift in decision-making ability away from government bureaucrats and toward aboriginal community members who know best what their communities need.

In short, what is needed are fewer planners -- government bureaucrats who make funding decisions based on what they think is best -- and more seekers -- individual community members who know what their needs are, and just need the resources to meet them.

We as a country also need to realize that, no matter how much money is spent on fighting poverty on Indian reservations, there is no miracle cure for it. The dilemma of poverty on Indian reserves simply won't be solved tomorrow. Wiping out poverty on Canada's Indian reserves should be viewed as a 100-year project -- one that would have long ago been conluded if we had started on 1 July 1867 -- but one that we need to start making progress on now.

Poilievre is right to be alarmed by the amount of money spent on Indian reservations with no discernable improvement in conditions. Anite Neville should be, too, but unfortunately there's too little political gain in saying "I'm concerned about that, too."