Aboriginal invitees to Parliament-defective duck

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NASIVVIK

"Aboriginals to join MPs' panel: Five Groups Granted Permanent Status". The title of this recent newspaper article perked my attention to full alert. As a keenly interested observer of such developments, it sounded to me like history being made. Or at least, being sneaked in through a side door beyond the scrutiny of its supposed beneficiaries-the Aboriginal people of Canada.

The article reported that, "Aboriginal leaders will now sit side by side with MPs in the study of legislation, after being made permanent members of the Commons Aboriginal affairs committee through a motion passed last week behind closed doors."

Now, this could have been a real milestone, a reason for dancing in the streets of Aboriginal communities. However, any urge to celebrate was dampened somewhat by a key paragraph in the article.

"The aboriginal leaders will sit at the committee table and will have the same rights as MPs to ask questions of witnesses, but they will not be allowed to vote." So, any "Glory Be!" to be expressed would be highly conditional.

NDP MP Pat Martin is reported as citing last year's bitter committee debate over the failed First Nations governance act as a basis for supporting the motion to include Aboriginal leaders.

"It was so obvious to me that a bunch of white men in suits were sitting around the table passing laws affecting lives (of Aboriginal people) and they were waiting their turn for a lousy five minutes at the table as witnesses."

"There's no genuine participation of Aboriginal people in the crafting of Aboriginal legislation, and it's offensive. It smacks of colonialism. It's just fundamentally wrong," he said.

On the other side of the question, Conservative MP John Duncan, who voted against the motion, said "it sets a legislative precedent almost unheard of in the democratic world. I was completely astounded that the motion carried...these people are not elected to our House," he said.

"Committees are there to bring in people as witnesses, not as active participants. This will create a very divisive situation."

Diversity in the House of Commons ensures Parliament represents the views of all Canadians, he said, noting two Aboriginal MPs already sit on the committee. My! Aren't we fortunate to have two Aboriginal MPs sitting on that committee? And, will we rest until we get many, many more?

Far from enhancing Aboriginal representation in Parliament, this provision looks like an attempt to put Aboriginal make-up, not on Parliament itself, but on one side-room of it. Instead of a genuine, deliberate make-over, of designing room for a sizable Aboriginal presence among the seats occupied by MPs, this ends up looking like a clumsy attempt to apply runny, water-based Aboriginal mascara on one small spot of Parliament.

The measure they've adopted appears to be a classic "We'd really like to have you around, but as much less than equals. In fact, you can come only as invitees with no vote!" It is a tiny, tentative, shuffling step toward limited, conditional inclusion of Aboriginal people in the legislative process. It is not the fundamental leap that will eventually be necessary to get full-fledged, equal footing in Parliament for Aboriginal representatives.

Being non-voting invited guests of the legislative process will only whet the appetite of the Aboriginal participants in this half-measure process, designed by a well-meaning "bunch of white men in suits...sitting around the table passing laws affecting lives of Aboriginal people." This may, in the end, serve to pave the way by default for a far-reaching, fundamental reform which will one day see a contingent of Aboriginal MPs in numbers sufficient to have their influence fan out to all corners of Parliament, not just in one committee.

A duck, it is said, has to quack like a duck and waddle like a duck in order to be called a duck. This measure to include Aboriginal leaders in one committee room of Parlament is a duck, which can quack like a duck only when invited. It can waddle like a duck only when specific legislation requires it to do so. It is a duck highly restricted to doing what nature has designed it to do: to quack and waddle to its heart's content like the duck that it definitely is.

In between waiting for invitations to be part of proceedings of the Aboriginal Affairs Committee, the five on-again, off-again non-voting members can serve a very important purpose. They can formulate proposals on how Canada can design places in its Parliament for Aboriginal representatives in ways that reflect the geography and circumstances under which their people live.

As a model for getting many more Aboriginals in Parliament, I'd be dusting off the New Zealand model of Parliamentary representation for the Maori people as an example to start with.