Moderator cites history of injustices

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"The History of the Native peoples and the governments is a history of broken promises," says the Right Reverend Stan McKay, the newly elected Moderator of the United Church of Canada.

As the first Native to hold the highest position in the United Church, the country's largest Protestant denomination, McKay feels it's important for both Natives and whites to understand what really happened.

"I hear the same kinds of stories wherever I go, not just in Canada. I was in the Philippines recently and the aboriginal people there are experiencing the same problems. The Lubicon in Alberta, the James Bay Cree in Quebec, they're all victims of unjust land appropriations."

Speaking to a gathering of United Church members from Pincher Creek and representatives from the Peigan Reserve at Brocket on Feb. 6, McKay said Natives

have been cheated out of lands that were justly theirs in the past and are still being

taken advantage of.

"The government of Canada has not acted in good faith with its Native people," McKay says. "On the Saddle Lake Reserve, when the treaties were drawn up, the chiefs and Elders pointed to the hills around their lands and said they were to be included as par of the reserve, because they were traditional hunting lands. But when the treaty was drawn up, those hills weren't included.

"The same kind of thing happened on my own reserve," he adds. "Forty years ago, my people were self-sufficient. We were a hunting, fishing and trapping economy and we had respect for ourselves and for each other. But our reserve was too small. As the land around us started to get used to farming, wildlife habitat disappeared and the animals that provided our livelihood with it."

He adds that at the same time, Hollywood decided it was wrong to wear fur coats, so his people lost both the product they produced and the market for it.

McKay, who has been touring different parts of Canada to meet his fellow clergy and church members, says our society has perfected the system of blaming the victim.

"We criticize the Native for being drunk..for being on welfare, but we don't ask why. We don't ask why our people have no dignity.

"The government uses the welfare system to maintain the status quo and keep the poor, poor. Welfare gives a person just enough money to get by, so the rest of society can feel blameless. But it doesn't make it possible for people to break out of the trap and change their lives."

Though McKay says he doesn't have resolutions, he thinks his church's discussions of the subjects are vital to creating better understanding of the problems among both Native and non-Native people.

He's concerned with the entire church membership, not just the Native component.

"I won't impose my spirituality as a Native Christian on the church, but my leadership and approach will have to reflect my understanding as a Native.

McKay hopes to show how the non-adversarial style of his people can work to resolve conflicts in the larger society. His preference is to work through consensus, prayer and respect, and if a decision isn't possible this way, to delay making a decision.

Though he's uncomfortable with the structure and confrontational style of Canadian society, he's managed to success on its terms, as well as his own. The son of

poor parents, he was sent to boarding school and then decided that he wanted to go to university.

A long-time member of the church, he got help from the Methodist Mission in his village that enabled him to enter a program in theology. He was appointed to the National Native Council of the United Church, In 1988 he was hired as Director of the Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Reserve Centre in Winnipeg. He's also served as his church's representative

to the World Council of Churches. He was elected Moderator of the Church last year,

in August.