OTTAWA REPORT

Page 2

There's a delicious political irony unfolding right now in the Yukon. Most of the people in the territory - 75% - are white. Many like to think of themselves as the last of the pioneers and they like to think of the Yukon as the last place in Canada where rugged freedom loving individuals can escape the heavy hand of government.

A minority of the Yukon's population - 25% - are Indians. Most of them, and a lot of other people besides, think of the Yukon as Redneck Country. In fact, if racism was a religion some people say the pope and the priests would be Yukoners.

There is plenty of evidence to show that the Yukon is Redneck Country. For example, there are widespread racial attitudes that would embarrass a Mississippi sheriff, there's the right-wing campaign against human rights and last, but not least, there is Erik Nielsen.

Yukon Indians lost control of their homeland when gold was discovered 89 years ago. As a result, tens of thousands of miners, prospectors, gamblers, saloonkeepers and settlers rushed to the Klondike. The pattern of settlement that took place in the Yukon was different form other areas, but the result has been the same. Indian families are crammed into shacks that should be condemned to live out a welfare existence.

But thanks to a quirk in the Yukon parliamentary system, a race of people who can't get jobs pumping gas or making beds may soon be running the government - sort of. Without going into a lot of detail, there's a by-election in process that could make a small but important change in the makeup of the legislature. The NDP candidate in the by-election is Danny Joe, an Indian. For 14 years, he was a chief of the one of the two bands in the riding. There's a good chance he'll win because two-thirds of the voters in the riding are Indians.

If he wins, the NDP will have a majority in the territorial legislature with just nine seats - and five of those nine seats will belong to Yukon Indians. Although the territory's population is 75% white, just five Indians - a handful, literally - will control the government.

If that happens, I'd like to offer a few suggestions to the New Indian-controlled Yukon government. For starters, the new government could change the place names in the territory to traditional Indian names - just as the Inuit have done in the eastern Arctic. Yukon could be replaced by Yu-kun-ah, the Indian name for the "great river" that flows through the territory.

For that matter, goodbye Whitehorse - hello Kwanlin Dun. And so long Dawson, Carmacks and Watson Lake. (I don't care what the Indian names for those towns would be, but the longer and more unpronounceable, the better.)

But there are bigger things at stake. For the past 14 years the Council for Yukon Indians have been working on a land claim settlement based on the "one government model". The last I heard, Yukon Indian don't want the reserve system that exists in southern Canada. They've always wanted to work with other Yukoners in "one government" and soon they may have the perfect chance!"

I think the first thing the new government should do is carry out the "one government" idea by integrating the two races in the territory. Most of the white people in the Yukon (through no fault of their own) had to make do with indoor plumbing and without parents for part of the day because their fathers and mothers were working. I think the new government would have reason, therefore, to regard the non-Indian population as "culturally disadvantaged." I'm certain the new government would want to help people coming from such a "deprived cultural environment" by letting them share the Yukon Indian experience.

For example, grade school children from fashionable Whitehorse suburbs could be bused to Indian schools. Their teenage brothers and sisters who want to go to high school could be sent to a student residence in Old Crow.

The Chamber of Commerce could also share the experience of the Yukon Indian Development Corporatio. The new government could order Ottawa to block all federal loans and grants to white businesses.

What's more, the new government could justify the takeover of white homes and businesses by saying the land and buildings were needed for new programs. The white owners would be compensated, of course, with equivalent land and accommodations in the Whitehorse Indian villages

The one thing I haven't mentioned yet is land claims. Indians might gain the rights to all hunting, fishing an mining. Squatters might have to give up their lakefront property. Who knows that else might happen?

Now, I know deep down that probably none of these things will happen because the members of the new government, including the Indians, want to be re-elected. And they won't be able to do that in the Yukon Party. In fact, anything the government does to help Indians will be cause for suspicion . But if Danny Joe wins the by-election, it'll still be fun to watch the rednecks squirm when the chickens - I mean the ravens - come home to roost.