Summary
Reliance on fine points of law or murky and ever-changing bureaucratic processes and policies to avoid doing the morally right thing has always been a Canadian hallmark when it comes to dealings with Indigenous peoples. And it's something that hasn't changed under "Canada's New Government."
Get used to seeing that term, by the way. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has decreed that all government correspondence must contain those words: the Conservative Party of Canada is "Canada's New Government" and they don't want anyone to forget it, even for a second. And they certainly aren't even a little bit liberal, are they? Here's a list of the un-liberal things our new federal government has done just recently.We've been holding out hope that the Indian Affairs minister wouldn't buy into this way of looking at the world, that his Progressive Conservative pedigree would mean that he wouldn't subscribe to more Reform Party-like thinking. We're starting to wonder if it's time to put away that torch. Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse's account of a meeting with the minister (see page 8) makes us wonder if the paternalism of the past isn't new again.See the full content of this document
Extract
Wanted: One Sign We Matter
As one First Nation leader after another takes note of the federal government trend of moving away from constructive engagement and towards top-down authoritarian paternalism, we see, as Assembly of First Nations...
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