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Page 5
Dear Matt (if I may):
After much deliberation and soul searching, the management team of "Me, Myself and I" has reached a consensus about your performance in year one as the national chief, la grande fromage, of the AFN, the Assembly of Indians.
Our performance evaluation technique is culled from the infamous School of Hard Knocks. Like youse guys at the AFN, we wanted to have OUR OWN consultation process. My colleagues at the school have insisted that we release the results of our extensive consultation process-forthwith.
Recommendation 1
Hire me to muzzle me.
About that urban vote you want to start up? Who do you think you're fooling? You would like to represent urban Indians? Yet, you reject all requests to be accountable to us. Tsk. Tsk. If you want our vote, then you better invite us to your meetings. Heck, you could even hire a few of us. Certainly your staff seems to think that I am looking for a job. Your staff also believes that I should be praising you, to focus on the positive and not the negative. I am being accused of being like all the so-called "white journalists." Didn't anyone tell you that the media is not here to wave your flag?
Recommendation 2
Chase old ghosts out of your closet.
Now on to some unsolicited, probably unwanted, advice: Stop hiring horses that can't run anymore. Obidey, a former national, is nobody's friend and everybody's favorite philosopher's empty cup. You are taking the advice of a man whose confrontational approach to mediation has never and will never work. Everybody in Jean Crouton's government still remembers when Obidey scored a touchdown with the Charlottetown Accord 10 years ago. We could have been the third order of government with Obidey running around wearing the crown of eleventh premier. Fortunately, the third order was not allowed, due in large part to Obidey's neglect of his own constituents. Canada said No! Indians said No! You should learn how to say the same word. The word on the street is he is still campaigning for the top job-just ask Georges, or Philip.
Recommendation 3
Indians will drink until the cows come home. Kill the cow, and keep your religion out of politics.
Now I want to deal with your problems with alcohol. I mean really, Matt. You should know better than to wag your finger. Indians like to drink. Almost everyone I know who works for you drinks. One of your consultants and I have passed many long nights competing to describe the long legs of Australian Shiraz, the lingering aftertaste of a Napa Cab, and the subtle aroma of an oak-aged Chardonnay from southern Ontario. We smoke cigars and sing to the music of Redbone cranked so high that most of British Columbia must've heard us singing the "Witch Queen of New Orleans." On one occasion we sang so loud and drank so hard that Mount Baker spewed some dust all over us. But you know something? Neither of us wanted to be the national sheaf. Nor did we want to be sheaf of an Indian band.
I was not surprised to hear and read about so many people agreeing with you on your drinking and dancing comments. The fact is that alcohol has been used as a tool by the colonizers. Alcohol was the killer of the souls of many of our ancestors and the drink is responsible for many social ills that exist today. Alcohol is a killer. But you are using the grog brought to us by settler nations as the war club of choice. You hold it over the reformed alcoholics' heads, playing on their feelings of guilt. You hold the club over the insecure social drinkers in your Ottawa office who shall never dance without a rearview mirror. Your comments were riddled with religious zeal and sanctimony.
Recommendation 4
Keep your distance from Stockwell Day.
Duh!
Recommendation 5
Banish the Indian agent!
Your buddy, Bob Nault, is getting away with highway robbery. He seems to be dancing circles around you and the rest of the AFN. Your vice squad is doing a hundred times better than you and your political staff and advisors. Take ome of their advice instead of listening to the jealous and jilted lawyers and consultants that hang on your coattails. Go after Bob "I'm a cowboy and I'm gonna get the Indians" Nault. INAC's minister is a bully and you are the scrawny little bushman in a political battlefield built by Mickey Mouse. Eat some spinach. Grab some kryptonite and fight like a man! Banish the patriarchal chains we keep dragging around.
Recommendation 6
Talk to your own people and stick with those who care.
Yesterday I saw you on the APTN news. I know your people don't think much of Native media, placing their hopes instead on a cold and right wing mainstream media. But you looked good (cut your sideburns though) on the InVision report. During a week when all of Canada's daily editorials are taking sides with Cowboy Bob, you should be sliding up to APTN's capable host, Carol Adams at InVision. Bob Nault's office is apparently on her speed-dial. Are you? The mainstream press has an agenda and it's not to make you look good. The days of wine and roses with the Canadian press and its broadcast underbelly are over. On the left coast of British Columbia they have eliminated their Aboriginal department and replaced it with a Bureau of White Men's Rights. The television, radio and print press is standing silently on the sidelines applauding the shift to the far right. Soon they want all the white people here to vote on our rights.
Where will you be when this happens? Having coffee with the parliamentary press bureau?
Conclusion
Get with the program.
To "get with the program" you must go to the watering holes of "hot summer Indians" that can be found near most main streets of Kanada. In Vancouver, the registration office is at the Balmoral Hotel. When you check in ask for the "Ira Hayes" suite. The room has the bare essentials-a bed, a poster of Iwo Jima and a copy of the New Testament. This should get you ready for Halifax where your rooms will cost the equivalent of a new teen centre in Tunder Bay. Oh yes, and if you want to talk to me about how the program works, I'm the guy in the corner of the bar at most hotels, swirling Cabernet and Chardonnay fronted by a sign that says: Dances with national sheafs.
Cheers.
Jeff Bear is a member of the Maliseet Nation of Tobique, N.B., living in Vancouver. Meganumbe was one of the first treaty negotiators, a Maliseet, who helped negotiate the provisions of the 1725 treaty which stands as the template for the 1760 treaty referenced in the Marshall court case.
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