The federal election is hurtling towards Canadians and the casualties will once again be the First Nation peoples. It is impossible for First Nations to have a voice in a system that was built on broken promises and inherited from colonial thinking.
Two elections ago, our First Nation peoples were fighting the vote even though a victory meant that perhaps the conservatives would be voted out of power. Many small thinking First Nation people “bought” into Justin Trudeau’s biggest lie: “No relationship is more important than that of Canada and the Indigenous”.
Trudeau had a cadre of “Indigenous” prospects that ran in the 2015 federal election, most notably Jody Wilson-Raybould who was courted and one of Trudeau’s “shining” Indians. Sadly, Jody Wilson-Raybould found that her position was indeed the supreme token position granted to an Indigenous woman. In the SNC-Lavalin corruption scandal, Wilson-Raybould was basically being forced as Justice Minister and Attorney General to get a deferred prosecution agreement for SNC-Lavalin.
First Nations will argue that change is possible from inside the box or as I see it – the head of Medusa. It is not. Sadly, it is the position taken by many First Nations so that they can justify taking mainstream jobs and money but lie to themselves that they “… are fighting from inside the box”.
The mainstream box is a fort. You cannot fight inside without tearing down a whole wall in the fort thus making it open and vulnerable for structural failure as a system. So, First Nations plug away – fiddling with the gate, removing a post then retiring, exhausted saying “I did my best”.
Complacency was never a First Nation value, but as our First Nation traditions get watered down and assimilated you will see many complacency awards given to First Nations who do not rock the boat but who accept their pittance with gratitude.
The traditional First Nations teaching is to tell the truth. The spoken word carried spiritual weight and allowed our ancestors to speak with authority. If you broke your word, you would forever be ridiculed as a laughing stock. It is the integrity of our Elders’ voices that gave legitimacy to the negotiations at Treaty. Their word was their bond and it spoke for nations, it spoke for the people as a whole. Collectively they knew when to move with one mind and one purpose, unlike today’s world
It has long been pointed out that a key point of Indian savagery was based on the fact that the Indians “had no written language”. We had no need of a written language – as stories, laws, and history were carried through unchanged in ceremony and song from generation to generation. But the act of saying one thing and doing another was elevated to an art by the non-native colonizers that helped secure Treaties with the Indians. They listened to the Indian Nations then wrote down what was most beneficial to the “great white mother” and her envoys.
How can First Nations fit their value of “truth telling” and the spiritual weight of the spoken word in a system that relies on written words? Existing mainstream systems do not rely on ‘truth’ but rather on convoluted words and gaming in the system…enter the existing justice system.
Canadian law is like this. Two lawyers have all the same “evidence” and square off against one another interpreting a “the” as a “then” – basically crossing their eyes with the same info and relying on a judge or persuasion to make their case. In a system of Whiteman made law, White men triumph. This is not justice.
This is one of the systems that Canadian federal elections protect.
What is “Canada?” Every Canada day people go barbecue, drink beer (eh) and set off firecrackers or hang around lakes and beaches. There is no national reckoning though Canadians search for one every year. National celebrations also usually trot out some Indians dressed up in their regalia to remind everyone, that there was some kind of a culture here, before they received their “how to set up a country” instructions from Great Britain. The best that can be done is showing some coins with the queen or beavers or both and possibly a canoe. Canada … pfft whatever.
This is the real background to the upcoming 2021 election. Trudeau is simply tired of having to trot out the NDP and hold hands to pass legislation in his minority government. Trudeau believed “Liberal Majority federal government” opinion polls, and thought calling a July 2021 federal election made perfect sense. Never mind that the COVID 19 pandemic looms with people struggling – some without work, in danger of losing their homes or rentals and literally going hungry in a country resplendent with stolen riches.
Trudeau also knew that his star Indian candidate Jody Wilson Raybould would be just shy of her six year threshold to obtain a federal pension. Wilson-Raybould needed to stay in office until at least October 2021 to be eligible to get monies from the federal government.
Would Trudeau be this petty? Of course, he would. Indigenous women are at the lowest point of Canadian societal totem poles. Jody Wilson-Raybould tried to threaten a white male of privilege, there is no greater crime than this.
So Indians are back to thinking it would be a good idea to vote. Since 2015, this has become a non-issue. In 2015, First Nations were saying that voting in the federal election meant that First Nations were giving up their sovereign nation-to-nation approach and falling under Canada.
This same argument was used when Justin Trudeau and his new team of token Indians trotted out Bill C-15, an act “TO RECOGNIZE” the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Few sovereign Indian thinkers were showcased or given amplified voices. Instead, Canada brought forward their best sell outs and token Indians to get this bill passed. Trudeau’s elite Indian squad danced hard inside the fort hard, stomping with their hands out … dancing for individual ego and money – there was nothing collective in their actions.
So, voting now, once the token Indians have ceded international standing with Bill C-15 may not be a big issue anymore. We have been told prophecies that our people would break treaty. It seems the time of standing as nations is done.
