MP urges Indians to unite to achieve goals

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Alberta's Indians will make real dreams happen when they join forces, set goals and place a priority on education and business says Wetaskiwin MP Willie Littlechild.

"We have to set goals and examples. The Japanese decided to be number on in the world by setting goals in decades.

"They decided they were going to be number one in the world in the 1950s in textiles and they were.

"They decided they were going to be number one in the world in the 1960s in steel and they were.

"They decided to be number one in the 1970s in automobiles but they missed by one year. In the 1980s they decided to be number one in the world in computers and electronics.

"As we sit here today in 1989 I think we will agree they were awful close," he said to over 300 delegates at the 1989 Working Conference on Economic Development.

Combine the land base of Alberta's Indian reserves with its peoples and an "education and a decision to take risks and no one can tell us how high is up," he said.

The world is changing quickly and new pressures face future Indian leaders, but opportunities are also on the horizon for Native people to grab, he said.

"By the year 2000 there will be a whole new set of pressures on our leadership because of the pending age shift," he observed.

While in Canadian society there's increasing numbers of senior citizens, the revers is happening on many reserves, said Littlechild.

"We have a very large percentage of our population as young people. I see a tremendous opportunity here, especially when I hear 71 per cent of the Alberta Native community is unemployed," he added optimistically on the first day of the conference.