On the edge of Indian Country

Page 5

Life here on the western edge of this beautiful country called Canada is untypically quiet - too quiet. Indian Country is getting ready for a hot summer. (Yeah, I know, so what's new?)

The New Democratics are taking their last gasps at running this province into the ground. Every other province in Canada is getting its financial house in order and moving towards balanced budgets. The NDP in B.C. seems to think that it can spend their way out of a depressed economy. It didn't work in Ontario under Bob Rae's NDP government and it won't work here.

Typical of this particular government, it has rung up nine consecutive deficits and is heading in the wrong direction while every other province is balancing their books or attempting to balance them. Unless you happen to belong to a union in this province you won't get ahead.

First Nations people, just by the fact that we are at the wrong end of every social ill, don't belong in any great number to any union, so we are left out there as well. Premier Ujjal Dosanjh has inherited a party in disarray and at the end of its mandate.

He will join the ranks of other leaders who were firsts. For instance he will join former B.C. premier Rita Johnson and former prime minister Kim Campbell as footnotes in history. Both were first women in those positions, but inherited titles only to see their parties unceremoniously dumped in favor of other governments-in-waiting. Premier Dosanjh is the first Indo-Canadian to be premier in Canada but that will be a short-lived honor.

First Nations people who were expecting something from this lame-duck government in the latest provincial budget would be hard pressed to find any mention at all in the annual tide of red ink. Any First Nations in the BC Treaty Process expecting big cash settlements around their respective treaty tables will find the cupboard bare when the government gets around to making offers.

In this pre-election year the NDP is very unlikely to offer any First Nation anything substantive after it fumbled the ball on the Nisga'a Final Agreement. Under the then-premier Glen Clark they rammed through legislation in a clumsy manner that enraged British Columbians.

The NDP is quickly losing even its most trusted allies after dithering over a leader to succeed the disgraced Glen Clark. While they were in a holding pattern, getting their internal politics in order and choosing Premier Ujjal Dosanjh, the business of running this spectacular province played second fiddle.

Newspaper reports indicated that CUPE had a big financial commitment in the recent NDP leadership race and expected to win at the bargaining tables when they walked out and closed down most of the province's schools. That didn't happen when the NDP were faced with a hostile electorate who were forced to find alternate means for looking after their children after one week of having their children locked out of schools because of striking school support workers. The NDP wisely legislated the support workers back to their jobs while mediators were forced to find solutions to this mess.

Against this background, First Nations people will find that their issues aren't seen as significant with this government or the general public. If you look back to when the NDP assumed power in the early 1990s they were greeted by First Nations in this province with open arms. After so many years of hostile and negative treatment by the Socreds it was felt by most Aboriginal people that anything would be better than the open hostility that was shown to us by business-minded governments.

With friends like the NDP we don't need enemies. First Nations should be bracing for a return to the blockades if the Liberals are successful in the next provincial election. They have consistently shown their true colors on all First Nations issues in the Legislative Assembly. The Liberals are business-first as opposed to the unions-first NDP. B.C. is living up to its reputation having the most polarized politics in the land and First Nations are left on the sidelines as interested observers

We must find new solutions or we will fade away and truly become a vanishing race.