Friday, September 10, 2021

Conservative Governments have been good for Indigenous Rights and Reconciliation

I remember the day that Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for Canada’s role in operating the Indian Residential School System. The sky was overcast and ready to cry and the trees were leaning in.

We were on our way to Sundance and were now parked on the gravel shoulder of highway number 6 listening to his speech live on the car radio in the middle of Manitoba’s boreal forest.

I am travelling with a Residential School Survivor who isn’t much older than I am. I didn’t know that. Not  until I returned home to Grand Rapids and started working with Survivors at the Misipawistik Wechetowin Healing Program. I didn’t know that it happened to people in my generation.

I can tell you that my travel companion was tough and did not like Stephen Harper. It seemed that not many Indigenous peoples were fans of Stephen Harper and his Conservative Government.

Nevertheless, here we sat on the side of the highway one hundred kilometres from where we were coming from and over 400 kilometres from where we were going waiting to hear him speak. We rolled down the windows and smoked. I didn’t smoke much until I started working with Survivors but I was smoking a lot then, sometimes you needed a smoke to talk, sometimes you needed one to listen.

There were few other vehicles on the highway that morning somewhere near Devil’s Lake where the bush is thick and the only thing on the radio is CBC. The grey sky lowed and hugged the tops of the tamarack and pine.

The silence lifted that lone voice in the wilderness up to the sky with the smoke of our tobacco. It was clear that no matter what we had thought of this man the sincerity in his voice and his apology that morning was true. When his voice broke, my tough friend whispered, “he’s going to cry”.

It mattered and I will never forget that day. It is one of my “Do you remember where you were when you heard?” moments. In the days and years since people and history will say whatever and parse words but I remember where I was and what I felt when I heard Prime Minister Stephen Harper Apologize in the House of Commons to the Survivors of the Indian Residential Schools System.

It should be regarded as one of the high points in Canadian Indigenous reconciliation, but it isn’t and it is this bizzarro world called Canada in which the Conservative government’s Indigenous record is ignored or forgotten.

It is though the Conservatives can only be judged on John A. McDonald’s record despite the fact that Liberals have been running the country for the majority of its modern history and bear the responsibility for maintaining the Indian Residential School System during their time in power.

Taking a historical analysis of post war Canada shows that a Conservative government has been good for Indigenous rights and reconciliation.

The Conservatives did not get into power after World War II until 1957 after 22 years of Liberal rule. In 1960, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker granted First Nations the right to vote. Until then a First Nations person would have to enfranchise or give up their Indigenous Rights in order to vote. Diefenbaker’s defense of equality for Indigenous Peoples was something he expressed as a young lawyer defending First Nations and Metis people back home in Saskatchewan. His actions noted in the groundbreaking autobiography Halfbreed by Metis author Maria Campbell. “He would represent anyone rich or poor, red or white. If they had a case and no money he would help,” wrote Campbell about Diefenbaker adding. “He helped us and the important thing was he did so when no one else would.”

Nine years later in 1969, Pierre Elliot Trudeau and the Liberals ruling with a majority government tried a bureaucratic Genocide called the White Paper that would have enfranchised all First Nations people with a stroke of a pen.

The Conservatives would not have a chance to form a truly ruling government for decades, ignoring the brief and impotent reign of Joe Clark.  Brian Mulroney brought them back into majority rule and in 1991 Mulroney’s government launched the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples with a goal to a take an exhaustive and critical look at the relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples. The RCAP report is a defining document in Canada and serves as academic and legal foundation throughout the country and around the world.

In 1985, Mulroney's government passed Bill C-31 which would remove the gender bias in the Indian Act which removed First Nations status from any woman who married a non-First Nations man. This could be an Indigenous man included Metis, Inuit or a First Nations Man who had already lost his status. It was one of the most heinous means of bureaucratic genocide and it was upheld for almost a century before a majority Conservative government changed the law.

In one of Mulroney’s last official Acts he signed the Nunuvut Land Agreement on May 25, 1993 creating the largest Indigenous controlled territory in North America. The Nunuvut Territory would become official under a Liberal government but this was when it was made. It is a day, I would imagine, that some Inuit remember “where they were the day that they heard”.

On June 12, 2008, it was a Conservative Prime Minister who gave me the grandchild of a Residential survivor and a Survivor a moment of healing and reconciliation. It was that same Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper who 10 days earlier on June 2, 2008 launched the Truth and Reconciliation Commission an act that to this day defines who we are as a country.

I am not going to defend all the actions or policies of the past Conservative Governments but I do think it is important to look at these facts in their real time and historical context. The belief that a Conservative government is always bad for Indigenous rights and reconciliation is not accurate.

 

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Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Me and the Mandalorian

Me and the Mandalorian

Were riding in a Delorian

He said you want to go Exploreean

I said Yeah

I said Yeah, Yeah, Yeah


Me and the Mandalorian

We were singing Gloria and

We picked up Van Morrison

We said La

We said La La La


It's True The Mandalorian

Is quite the historian

He'll teach everything you missed

Everything Indigenous

Heya Hey

Heya Hey Hey Ya

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Yeah Yeah Yeah

Yeah YEAH

La La LA

La LA la

La LA

Heya Hey

Heya Hey Hey Ya

Heya Hey

Heya Hey Hey Ya



Friday, April 23, 2021

In the service of the Lord

(Chorus)

In the service of the Lord, Lord, Lord

In the service of the Lord 

In the service of the Lord, Lord, Lord

Living in the service of the Lord


When I did not want to walk no more

I started walking in the service of the Lord

(repeat)

(Chorus)


I could not stand a life of just Me, Me, Me

I started living in the service of the Lord

(repeat )


(Chorus)


When I did not want to Live no more

I started living in the service of the Lord

(repeat )


(Chorus)

I started

Living

In

The Service of

The Lord


Amen

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

The Power of the Flower

I believe in the power of the flower
but it can  trip you up
when you overuse and abuse
then it's not enough
then it's on to stronger stuff

Delicate minds of all vintage
On this ground carefully tread
Use what works for the body
and not so much for the head

Big Business
Big Money
Big Industry
What grew for free
Making air clean
Now Big and Dirty

Shatter and vapes
what does it take
chasing dragons now
instead of chilling out.
Wow, man. Wow.

We have to be careful
When we use medicine
Want to be right living
Want to do the right thing

Temperance Break
is all it takes
to get it back to full power
I believe in the power of the flower

Another Decade older and What have we done?

Another Decade Older and What have we done
More pollution and waste and wars that can't be won

No one left but what we've become
Another decade older and What have we done

Songs that cannot be unsung
we are twisted and wrung
You are right and you are wrong

Take this bad mind
and put it down
Just Stop
Take a breath
Stop moving
everyone

Take a deep breath
Stop all the running
and consuming
until all is consumed.
What do you pay for those shoes?

Lets see how long it will take
When they are not using everyone
To do what they say can't be done

Lets turn away
Stop giving it power
Take one day
Take one more hour
It is all the same
We have to stop
Giving it power
This insatiable growl
It's here to devour
Yours, mine and ours
rushed into the final hour
Feed the right wolf in ourselves
and in one another

Do not feed the spirit that cannot be satisfied.
A parasite of the soul and of the mind
Pack up in the night and leave it behind

(written  January 2020)



Sunday, April 18, 2021

We have to protect our Metis Nation Territories Lands Air and Water

We have to protect our Metis Nation Territories
Lands Air and Water

We have to express our Aboriginal and Indigenous Rights
We need to create our future with more than memories
Living within our lands and hunting and trade territories

1.4 Million acres
In the Manitoba Act
Respect the Canadian Constitution
and reconcile our restitution

*

Exercise your Aboriginal and Indigenous Rights
Protect the Land, Air and Water

Protect Mother Earth
Protect Mother Earth
Exercise your Aboriginal and Indigenous Responsibilities
Protect the Land, The Air, The Water 
Protect Mother Earth
Protect Mother Earth

*

I am where
I am from

Occupy the Homeland



Thursday, April 1, 2021

Clearwater Clarity

 

I don’t know why I had to go

I had the time that day

That much I can say

I would make an offering

Place tobacco on the ice before the break

Before solid becomes liquid on Clearwater Lake

 

It is two days after spring

The transformation begins

Today I can walk on the water

Soon I will swim

 

It is my wife’s teaching

Anishinaabe ways

I carry all those good things

With me to this day

 

Tobacco on ice

Not clear crystalline

Prayers giving thanks

For my life, my wife and all our children

 

Asking strength for the sick

Sick from affliction

Sick from confliction

Sick from addiction

 

 

Still Frozen Clearwater Lake

I did what I was told

I made my offering and prayer

Now it was time to drive home

*

 

Standing on frozen sand and a sudden wave of memory

6 years old sitting in a wooden Adirondack deck chair for the first time it comes to me  

Metis families and new friends laughing and mingling about in bright colors and sunshine and the clearest water in the world and laughter and laughter

It was some kind of Metis thing.

Some kind of Metis thing.

It wasn’t just us.

Just our family.

 

It was the first time I knew that the Metis Nation was bigger than us.

It was my parents work and others in the early days of the MMF

An expression of the dreams of a dozen or so people not so many years ago

That brought us together and created that moment of sun speckled unity in a glorious pastel rainbow

I knew that I would be applying for membership

To go and speak about a Federation

That is for all of us

 

*

Without Historic Metis Communities we will have no rights

Without Land there is no Homeland

No Land No Nation.

 

*

 

That is where you are from

Said My Mom

After the hospital in The Pas

That is where we went

We were living in that unheated cabin

With ice coming through the walls

On Clearwater Lake

 

Where in our poverty

She broke from the contemporary colonial orthodoxy

That formula is best for babies

They made people believe that powder produced in the factory is the future and proper path

Mom breastfed me out of desperation like John Steinbeck’s Rose O’Sharon in Grapes of Wrath

 

I was breast fed rebellion

On Clearwater Lake

It has been half a century

I am finally awake

 

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Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Marked Down and Discounted

 

One month after The Chief died

His jersey was marked down and discounted to half price

Less than half price on the official Toronto Maple Leafs' online store

George Armstrong was a Toronto Maple Leaf for 21 years

He was captain for 13 and he led the team to 4 Stanley Cups

I stole that from a Wikipedia page

And that line from the Hip

He was the greatest captain during the greatest run in the greatest franchise in English Canadian Hockey History.

He was the Chief

And when the broadcasters eulogized on his nickname they suggest it was a simpler time back then

It wasn’t meant as an insult.

It wasn’t racist.

That is the subtext to what they were really saying

Classic Canadian Erasure

It was a simpler time back then.

First Nations were still being restricted by an Apartheid like Pass system when he became a Leaf in 1950

It was a simpler time back then

Children were being dragged away to residential schools and ads in newspapers are selling 60’s scoops to rich White folks around the country and south of the border.

It was a simpler time back then

He played the first 10 years with no right to vote for First Nations across the country represented by the Maple Leaf he wore on his chest.

It was a simpler time back then

Indigenous Veterans were being neglected on the streets of the city, the gravel roads and bush trails across the country after serving in World War II.

Even Tommy Prince, Canada’s greatest Warrior would not be treated Equal as Canada’s greatest cowards.

They sold their rights to be Indian to fight for Canadian Freedom and were discounted after their service.

Marked down and discounted.

Marked down and discounted.

Marked down and discounted.

They should not have said that they called him Chief because it was a simpler time back then.

They should have said the truth.

They called him Chief

Because he was the Chief.

He had been through more than anyone in that room.

He was hardened.

Hard as flint scraping and scorching shards of steel into molten balls of fire.

He was the Man.

He was the Leader.

He was the Captain.

He was the Chief.


***

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Kettle and Stoney Spring

 

I swear.

Once I heard an Oriole

Riffing with John Coltrane on a sunny day

Just outside our open window

It was the first day of spring

Equinox was the song 

 

*

Here in the swamp

Back da bush

The frogs are incessant

Incessant in their song of life

*

Sing me into this new world

I have been resurrected again

Waking up from the dream world

I rise from the frozen mud

Despite once indistinguishable

Only moments ago

One and the same

From Mother Earth

Only moments ago

Silent as death

Yet I rise and sing to the sun

I sing to the clouds

I sing to the rain

I sing for the water creatures

I sing for the land creatures

I sing for the in-betweens

I sing for the creatures in this world

I sing for the creatures in the Dream World

I sing for myself and for life

I sing the blossoms exploding

 

**

Flowers light the way to Medicine Plants and berries

Wild roses follow along the trail and then

Those myriad tiny orchid blossoms tangerine with bright red tips

The wind blows and they dance like schools of angel fish

White flowers amongst thorns promise luscious blackcaps

Ready to be picked just before Powwow song and dance

Rivulets of sweet joy run down Sugar Maple and Black Walnut

The Maple reveals golden amber delight

In the Black Walnut - decadent dark chocolate ambrosia

Molasses thick with sweet medicine and magic

Smoke fills the sugar shack

Children share memories of the Forest Fall Fair

Steam clouds filled with the aroma of cotton candy float in the air

 

***

The robins flock and boss their way around the yards

The crimson cardinal, the blue of the Jay, the yellow of finches flash

The trumpet of the swans, the whoop of the cranes beckon beyond

The revealing patterns in the drumming of the woodpecker’s version of song

The tickety tick tap tapping of little striped ones feverishly hopping from this branch to the next one

The feisty red heads that find a branch that can boom and spend the day pounding on it like the reincarnation of Keith Moon

The Pileated that is the size of a duck but rarely seen revealed only by its distinct heavy hammering knock knock

Though last spring with my 3 red headed grandchildren in truck

We saw 3 Pileated Woodpeckers all sitting together on that stump

I could practically touch the trio they were that near

Perhaps one day the legendary Ghost Bird will appear

 

***

Word will soon come that old so and so hooked some bass out where no will say

Springtime explodes in Kettle and Stoney Point in a glorious way

Explodes with color, sweetness, song, magic and life

Explodes like thousands of frogs singing after a warm spring rain

Explodes like Orioles riffing to Equinox with John Coltrane.



-30-