Is Justin Trudeau sinister or fake?

It is only two weeks into 2019 and there is renewed vigour to Canada’s attacks on indigenous people.

First, land defenders in BC supporting and insisting on consultation with hereditary leaders of the Wet’suwet’en were assaulted, arrested and forcibly removed from their own lands.

In a disgusting twist of irony, someone on Twitter pointed out that defending one’s land was the claim Gerald Stanley took when he was acquitted of killing a Cree man, Colten Boushie — and locally the defence that Peter Khill took in the shooting death of Jonathan Styres. This is now the same stance that indigenous men and women are being beaten and arrested for by the RCMP at the behest of a court ordered injunction for a pipeline.

When it comes to working out a nation to nation relationship with indigenous people — Canada is dumb. I wish there was a more eloquent or succinct way to put it. That is, without drawing assumptions that Canada is evil. It’s hard when you are indigenous to not feel like there is ill will at play

Perhaps that is naive to assume there are no sinister plots. After all we’re still talking about the colonizer. Is the Liberal platform of Justin Trudeau’s leadership a “fake it till you make it” approach when it comes to indigenous people? Pledge to end boil water advisories. Promise to help bridge the gap and modernize on reserve infrastructure. Propose a “true nation-to-nation relationship”. Fully commit to the UNDRIP on an international stage.

Now on the back end — propose legislation that ends sovereignty and pitch it to small and underfunded reserve communities first with the promise of perpetual funding. Tell us that Canada has to “do better” and pledge on live tv that Liberals will make new changes to legal framework for indigenous people. Pay billions to buy a pipeline that everyone wants to halt. And when you get revealed by indigenous people as a phony— just engage in a bit of good old fashioned table turning tossed with some “that’s what you get” cabinet shuffles — proving once and for all that a native inspired tattoo and a ride in the back of a truck on the Rez does not make one a true ally to indigenous people.

It’s things like this that get you reamed out at town hall meetings by indigenous people in attendance Justin.

Jody Wilson-Raybould’s shuffle out of Justice and over to head Veterans Affairs definitely feels like a swift kick in the you know where. Is this our punishment for not being good little Indian boys and girls?