You can't have it both ways

Page 4

The Canadian Alliance thinks it can ride ignorance, hate and resentment all the way to the top of the Canadian government structure.

We can't think of any other explanation for the positions the party takes on Aboriginal issues. They say they respect treaty and Aboriginal rights, then they say everybody's equal. Alberta Chief John Snow nailed it when he said that "equality" in this context means everybody should have treaty rights or nobody should have them.

We agree with Chief Snow and - surprise - we agree with the Alliance.

Yes, descendants of the European people who entered into these contracts (treaties are contracts between nations) should have the rights and responsibilities they gained in the treaties respected. As should the descendants of the Indigenous parties who signed the same contracts. That's equality.

The problem is that Native people have kept their part of the bargain while European Canadians, by and large, have not. Indigenous peoples shared their land with the newcomers and eventually it became more than sharing as the settlers colonized the continent and waged an undeclared war against Indigneous peoples.

Now, Stockwell Day and his party want to break those contracts. In fact, it appears to us they want to pretend the contracts never really existed. They want to keep everything they gained from the treaty relationship, plus keep everything they gave away.

There's no equality in that. There's no respect in that. There's no logic or honesty in that, and certainly no justice.

Decent, honorable people don't act like that.

Most racists scream blue murder when you confront them. Only hard-core haters consciously decide to be racist. The rest don't realize what they're doing until it's pointed out to them and even then they react with denial at first.

Well, it's time Alliance members who think they have the right to decide the way Indigenous people should fit into the Canadian mosaic to see the error of their ways. They have attempted to decide for Indigenous people, without the consent or consultation of Indigenous people. That's paternalism at best and racism at worst.

The Alliance isn't even making new mistakes. The false logic behind the White Paper was deflated in 1969. To return to it now is either aggressively stupid or worse.

This is written several days before the election, so it takes the form of a political prediction. The Alliance will never form a government - will never be fit to form a government - until it takes a hard look at where it's coming from on Native issues. The party's stance in this area is a dead give-away to enlightened voters that just about any party would do a better job.

We can only be grateful that Alliance doesn't understand human rights matters enough to disguise its true intentions. Watch out, though. After this failure at the polls, they probably won't make that mistake again.