Tough Talker

Page 4

In her dreams, Mary Ellen Turpel is a hawk soaring in an open blue sky

above the Canadian wilderness.

Soaring to great heights is something Turpel, Canada's most

accomplished Aboriginal lawyer, has done most of her 32 years.

Just check her curriculum vitae. Head legal negotiator at age 29, for

the Assembly of First Nations during the 1992 talks that led to the

Charlottetown accord. Harvard and Cambridge graduate. Winner of

scholarships and awards.

Quite a list, except Turpel isn't all that crazy about discussing her

accomplishments. It takes weeks to convince her to grant an interview.

Even when she finally sits down to talk, she has one more go at it:

"Surely there are other people out there who are more interesting to

profile in a newspaper. I'm only a kid."

Time magazine doesn't agree. In a special December issued called The

Global 100, a roster of young leaders for the new millennium, Turpel was

one of the two Canadians listed -- up there with software wunderkind

Bill Gates and Wynton Marsalis, the renowned jazz trumpeter. (The other

Canadian was Power Corp. executive Andre Desmarais.)

Ovide Mercredi, national chief of the Assembly of first Nations, thinks

Turpel is brilliant and should be the first Native to sit on the Supreme

Court. Former prime minister Joe Clark is a fan, not only of her

intelligence and professionalism, but also of her willingness to take

risks.

"What is interesting to me is she has a view of a larger context. On

the one hand, a view for Aboriginal people, said Clark. "but without

giving any of that away, she also has an over-arching Canadian view."

So how did a self-proclaimed "half-breed" -- she's part Cree, part

Scottish -- accomplish so much so quickly? After growing up in a

dysfunctional family with an alcoholic father, how did she get ahead in

a society that has held back so many Native people?

The youngest of four sisters, she says she matured very quickly because

of the problems at home. She learned from the mistakes of her sisters.

"When I grew up we had a pretty rough household," recalls Turpel. "I

saw my sisters getting pregnant and my parent were fighting all the

time. There was always drinking."

At 13, she became seriously ill. The year-long convalescence was one

of the turning points in her life.

"I was very sick and that was a function of us just being poor. I had

to take off a lot of time from school and spend a long time in the

hospital," she recalls.

"I read constantly... I sort of put two and two together that the only

way I would get ahead and take control of my life was to get an

education."

There is another thing that Turpel, a University of Toronto law

professor, points out. She was always considered the "bright light" of

her family and she believes this was linked to her fair skin.

Her sisters were darker, and looked more Indian. Turpel remembers

teachers telling her, "you are not like your sisters, you're smarter.'

I think the reason why is because I'm light-skinned."

She was so light-skinned that she was the target of a whisper campaign

during the Charlottetown debate. Indians opposed to the deal said

Turpel wasn't really an Indian. Even during interviews for this

profile, more than one person suggested checking into her background.

On the other hand, Turpel is proud that she did not get ahead through

affirmative-action programs for Natives. While she supports such

programs, Turpel values the fact that her accomplishments have been

earned by merit and hard work.

She recalls facing a "mild version" of discrimination during her years

at Osgoode Hall law school: "Students called me Pocahontas. I would

walk in and someone would say 'there is Pocahontas. She is going to

take the A."

Turpel understands discrimination: "My father was an alcoholic. We

were away from his reserve (Norway House in Manitoba) in an urban centre

in southern Ontario and he was very unhappy about that. He suffered

quite a bit of discrimination."

A charming woman, it is easy to foret that Turpel is tough -- part of

it is her background and part of it is her intellect.

During the Charlottetown negotiations, Turpel was the legal brain for

the Assembly of First Nations, which represents Natives on reserves.

She participated in a memorable televised debate with journalist William

Johnson of the Montreal Gazette during CBC's Prime Time News. Like a

hawk hunting for prey, Turpel was sharp and unrelenting.

Johnson, who calls Turpel's defence of collective rights, "unscholarly"

and "totalitarian," acknowledges Turpel appeared to have won. But he

says four tapings were staged and the producers spliced portions to

ensure Turpel cam out ahead.

"Natives are sacred and she had to win. At the end, she became very

agitated and wouldn't let me speak, said Johnson. "It wasn't the

strength of her arguments."

Paul Tellier may disagree. Tellier, Privy Council clerk at the time,

faced Turpel across the constitutional table and tried -- without

success -- to intimidate her.

Turpel tabled the AFN demand that Aboriginal peoples receive a veto

over any changes in the Constitution that directly affect them. Bob

Epstein, a consultant to the Quebec Cree who has closely followed

constitutional talks, recalls the standoff.

"He tried to ridicule her and laugh in her face but she just stood her

ground," Epstein recalls. "We got the veto."

Clark says Turpel doesn't feel required to show her toughness but

"anyone involved in constitutional negotiations will tell you that they

would prefer to have Mary Ellen on their side rather than on the other

side."

And she is tough under pressure. At one point during the 1992 talks,

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney adjourned a meeting of provinces while

Turpel was placed in a room with Quebec lawyers to work out a

compromise.

"Premier Bourassa would come to the door every 10 minutes and ask if we

had a deal. It was a bit of a pressure cooker but we worked something

out," she recalls. By maintaining her cool, Turpel broke through

uebec's stubbornness on Aboriginal issues.

"You have to be very tough. You have to show people 'Look I can tango,

you want to tango, we'll tango' and I have the confidence and the good

education behind me."

Part of the challenge of handling the Indian file during the talks was

dealing with the often sexist attitudes of her clients -- the Indian

chiefs. Many of the chiefs weren't used to dealing with a female lawyer

who had all the answers. Some chiefs believed Turpel was too political

in her role as an adviser to national chief Mercredi.

It is something she denies vehemently.

""I was far from Ovide's political person. I was probably the most

critical person he had on his side. I would tell him -- don't do it.

Others were yes people and I would tell him he was doing something

wrong," she says.

Turpel's self-confidence is grounded in her impeccable academic

credentials. At 16, she was in university first at McGill and then at

Carleton. In short order, she obtained her law degree from Osgoode

Hall, her masters in law from Cambridge University in England and her

PhD in law from Harvard University.

In the mid-1980s, Turpel became a legal adviser to the Native Women's

Association of Canada, which worked closely with the AFN,. A small

clique of young Native lawyers formed including Turpel, Mercredi and

Manitoba Grand Chief Phil Fontaine.

"I was talking to Phil (Fontaine) recently and he remembers the good

old days. We created the concept of self-government in those days. At

that time we would just celebrate to have the word mentioned.

After her success at Harvard, Turpel moved to Dalhousie University in

Nova Scotia where, in addition to teaching law, she became a prolific

writer -- 30 articles, chapters in books and commentaries in four years.

She stayed out of politics and refused to get involved when Mercredi

and Fonatine ran against each other for national chief in 1991. One of

the first things Mercredi did after winning was choose Turpel as his

chief constittional adviser.

Turpel found the referendum defeat of the Charlottetown accord

difficult to take but says now she understands -- Native people were

undecided and did not have enough time to digest the accord's impact.

She tried to channel her disappointment by writing a book with Mercredi

called In the Rapids, which reviews found a dry guide to

self-government.

Turpel now believes the Constitution is "unamendable" because any

changes require unanimous support among the provinces.

"It is something that Trudeau did to literally screw the country. I

mean he felt the charter of rights was worth it. I think he was wrong."

This summer Turpel is moving to the University of Saskatchewan to fill

a new position -- that of Aboriginal scholar. She will work to forge

links between the university and Indian communities.