Aboriginal people used in vote-splitting scheme

Page 7

For Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon, often described as the "Mr. Clean" of provincial politics, the inquiry looking into allegations of a vote-splitting plan hatched by Tory party insiders is revealing a mess that is starting to tarnish the premier's image.

The Monin Inquiry, headed by former provincial Chief Justice Alfred Monin, is looking into allegations that members of the provincial Progressive Conservative party funded three Aboriginal candidates to run as independents in rural ridings held by the NDP during the 1995 provincial elections. It was an attempt to siphon votes away from the NDP to allow Tory candidates to gain the ridings.

And while the allegations first raised by Darryl Sutherland, one of the three Aboriginal candidates to run, were widely dismissed at the time by observers, a series of startling revelations during the inquiry by lead Tory party members and aides closest to Filmon, have confirmed that such a scheme existed.

Sutherland, a Peguis First Nation member, testified that he was approached by Tory organizers in the Interlake riding and offered $4,000 if he would run as an independent candidate.

"I was unemployed and needed a job. I was only getting welfare at the time so they knew I was desperate, so I did it," Sutherland said.

Filmon's closest political advisor and former chief of staff, Taras Sokolyk, testified that he had taken $4,000 from Tory party campaign funds to bankroll three Aboriginal candidates. He later tried to hide the transaction by returning funds to the party account with the help of Julian Benson, former head of the provincial Treasury department and a powerful Tory insider.

Sokolyk resigned after the allegations were first raised in the media. Filmon and other Tory members continued to deny any knowledge of the scheme.

Yet when Sokolyk's admission of wrongdoing resulted in the sudden resignation of Benson, political observers began to sense that the story "had legs," despite Filmon's insistence that Benson was merely taking his planned retirement.

But when Benson was forced to testify before the inquiry, he too confirmed that funds had been taken from the party account and that he had assisted Sokolyk to replace the funds.

And while Monin, a battalion of lawyers, media pundits and political observers try to follow the money-trail and determine if the premier knew about the scheme and if it actually breaks any laws under the Manitoba Elections Act, little attention has been given to the fact that provincial Tories viewed Aboriginal people as expendable fodder instead of legitimate participants in the political process.

Currently there are only two Aboriginal MLAs in the Manitoba legislature. Both are NDP members.

The affair has raised a number of questions for Aboriginal people in the province, including former Sakgeeng First Nation Chief Jerry Fontaine, who himself was a candidate for the leadership of the provincial Liberal party last year.

Fontaine was defeated in that bid by forces he described as "anti-Native" and said that what the Monin Inquiry has really revealed is that "Aboriginal people are not really considered as worthy of the mainstream political process."

Particularly troubling, said Fontaine, is the knowledge that the Conservative party chose to use the dire financial predicament of Sutherland, who was on provincial welfare at the time, to get him to go along with the scheme.

"They weren't looking for an Aboriginal person in a strong position. In fact they were looking for someone to whom $4,000 looked like an irresistible amount of money."

Fontaine said the revelations at the inquiry and his own experience with mainstream political parties indicates that the creation of a separate Aboriginal political party may be required to get more representation within the political system.

"The way things have gone here it seems obvious that we're not considered good enough to be part of the legitimate party process," he said.

"No one seems to be interested inthat fact, however. The opposition parties are using the affair to get at the government and the media is following the inquiry like it's their own Watergate scandal, but the issues surrounding how Aboriginal people are viewed and used are not being examined."

It's an assessment with which grassroots First Nations' people seem to concur.

"Nothing has fundamentally changed in the 150 years since the White men came here. If we got something, they want it, and if we can be used to get something, they'll use us, otherwise they're not even interested in giving you the time of day, " said Blaine Nelson, a political science graduate and member of the Big Grassy First Nation living in Manitoba.

"Aboriginals have got approximately one-tenth of the province's population and yet we've only got one-thirtieth of the representation in the legislature. That speaks volumes about how the political parties really regard us and this inquiry has got nothing to do with that issue."

Inquiry hearings have wrapped up and Monin has announced that he expects to issue his findings later this spring.