OTTAWA REPORT

Page 2

Dear Santa:

How are you? I hope you're able to bring everything on my Christmas list because I have been a good little boy. I mean, golly, I haven't criticized politicians all year - except when they deserved it. Anyway, Santa, here's my list:

My first request isn't for me, it's for Brian Mulroney. I know he's a millionaire and now he's the most powerful man in the country, but he doesn't have everything! Make him realize, Santa, that self-government is not just an idea that makes good economic sense, make him recognize instead that our people have the right - the right that was given to us by the Creator - to govern ourselves.

By the way, Santa, could you please bring the same realization to the premiers as well? If you don't have enough to go around, could you please make sure that Bill Vander Zalm, Don Getty and Grant Devine get their share first?

The next person on my list, Santa, is Minister of Indian Affairs Bill McKnight,. Please bring him $500 million to build new housing so our people won't have to live in tiny, drafty, run-down firetraps anymore. And bring him another $500 million for economic development so our people can have jobs instead of welfare. That adds up to $1 billion and I haven't even got around to money for schools, roads, water, sewers and hydro - not to mention things like land claims.

I know that times are tough, Santa, so if you really can't afford to bring the cash, I'll tell you what. Instead, bring Bill McKnight just half the concern and half the compassion that David Crombie displayed when he was the minister.

And speaking of David Crombie, Santa, he's next on my list. Since he's in charge of the Secretary of State, he doesn't need quite as much money. So could you please bring him, says, just $100 million for Native organizations, friendship centres, communications societies and women's group? And if you don't have an extra $100 million to spare, could you please bring David Crombie just a little bit of the straight-shootin', no-nonsense attitude that Bill McKnight has so that he doesn't raise expectations or make promises he can't deliver?

Now that I think about it, Santa, you really don't have to bring the money. We'll get along without it - somehow. The one thing we really need doesn't cost anything at all - just a change of heart on the part of a lot of government people.

For example, the next one on my list is Minister of communications Flora MacDonald. She's trying to decide what to do about the recommendations in the report

of the Caplan-Sauvageau task force on broadcasting. The task force said that Native people should have the right to receive radio and television programming in their own language. Santa, please being Flora MacDonald enough courage to change the federal Broadcasting Act to give Native language the same legal protection as English or French.

Santa, I want to tell you about five people who used to work for the government who deserve a special gift. The first is Richard Price. He was charged with a criminal offence for leaking the notorious Buffalo Jump report to the media. He was then fired from his job as a policy advisor in the Department of Indian Affairs.

The second one is Dennis MacPhee. He quit his job as the top financial figure in the Manitoba region because he said he was tired of working for a department that routinely cheated Indians out of millions of dollars.

The third is Robert Laboucane. He was fired from his job as an economic development officer in Alberta. He was fired because he held a news conference to tell the media that, when it came to economic development, the department was saying one thing and doing another.

The fourth person is Walter Rudnicki. He quit his job as a senior policy advisor in Ottawa. He said he quit because he was disgusted by the department's refusal to act on a recommendation to renegotiate Treaty Number 8.

The fifth is Cam Mackie. He quit as manger of the Native Economic Development Program. He saidthe program was being corrupted because worthy projects were being torpedoed for political reasons.

Santa, please bring all five of the whistle-blowers a 24-karat solid gold whistle and the Aboriginal Order of Canada.

So that's my list, Santa. I know you're checking it twice to see who's been naughty and nice. But before you decide just where i fit in, let me say that I hope Dasher and Dancer and the rest of your reindeer have not been grazing on any of that radioactive tundra from the Chernobyl explosion. And give my regards to the elves. And say hello to Mrs. Claus for me.

Yours truly, Owenadaka