Metis Zone 4 farce: Leadership crisis on Native scene too

Page 6

Editorial

There seems little doubt that North America faces a crisis in political leadership.

Item: The leading contender for the U.S. Democratic Party presidential nomination drops out of the campaign, leaving his supporters ? and the party ? high and dry. Reason: a respected and award-winning newspaper reports that he spend the weekend with a model and former beauty queen in Washington while his wife was back home ? and this in the middle of the campaign.

Item: One after another, members of Brian Mulroney's federal cabinet vacate under the pressure the highest council of our political decision-making process in Canada. Reasons: they vary from a lat night dalliance in a seedy West German strip joint, to negotiation of private financial affairs while doing business with financial institutions on behalf of the Canadian taxpayers; to encouraging business interests in Quebec to attend a political fund-raising social function on the clear inference that to do so will increase chances of landing lucrative government contacts.

And the list goes on as the well-shod Canadian prime minister's team, which held such promise and won such overwhelming support from Canadian voters not long ago, limps along dishonoured, at the bottom of the polls.

It would be encouraging if, at this low point in non-Native public office morality and behavior, Alberta's Native people could look with pride and respect at the performance of their own elected leaders.

This, however, is not always possible. Witness the fact that in recent weeks the Metis Association of Alberta appears to be more preoccupied with slugging it out in the courts than with serving the people.

And from charges and counter charges in the court documents filed back and forth by two factions, "slugging it out" may not be too far from the truth.

There are charges of improper disbursement of funds, of "violent wrestling" by "extremely agitated" Association officials "coming into physical contact" at meetings. There are allegations of physical violence, coercion, shouting, threatening.

It begins to sound more like Allstar Wrestling on television, slapstick comedy with a healthy dose of violence thrown in for the bloodthirsty fans, than serious conduct of business by an organization made up of elected officers with a profound public responsibility and position of public trust.

These people were elected to serve ? not to scrap like schoolyard bullies trying to prove their manhood.

Our purpose here is not to attach blame. The courts will do this. Through litigation, the courts will determine whether Ben Courtrille and Ron LaRocque, of Metis Regional Coucnil, Zone 4, temporarily enjoined by a court order from acting as or passing themselves off as Metis Association officials, are the violent and unprincipled individuals Sam Sinclair and the Association administration claim them to be, or whether the shouting, wrestling and ungentlemanly conduct is more properly attributed to the administration side.

Our purpose here is to make this point.

The Metis Association of Alberta should clean house. Serious, responsible, reasoned debate and deliberation should be restored in place of bedlam. The people involved should look hard at themselves and what they are doing to the image of the organization and the people.

The people deserve better.

The courts should become the venue for a speedy housecleaning. The justice system should be used to identify the culprits from the victims, and to do so quickly. The justice system should not be used to delay, to obfuscate, to confuse.

And let us now head off any "shoot he messenger" types who may criticize Windspeaker for focussing light on this situation. It is our absolute responsibility to do so. We will not back off from it. Our readers expect, and will get no less.