@ - Friday, February 15, 1991 - North Share News

A backward flowing agenda

AS I sat dewn to once again offer mankind good advice,
merely by putting certain letters on a piece of paper with
the aid of my elder'y Remington, it occurred to me: Why

bother?

Mankind has a long record of
ignoring my advice. And look at
the mess it’s in. It can’t say it
wasn’t warned.

Oscar Wilde offered a brilliant
insight into human nature when
he made one of his characters say:
**He says things that annoy me.
He gives me good advice.”’

Take Indian land claims and
rights, for instance. (No, you take
them, say the Indian affairs peo-
ple in Victoria, staying as far
away as possible from the running
sore of the Pemberton road
blockades, leaving it to the police
and the courts and the television
cameraman, and doubtless praying
that no lethal rock or bullet sets
off our own Oka.)

Yet a solution to the ‘‘Indian
question” can be set down in a
few paragraphs:

© No Canadians should be ex-
cluded from participation in
community life, and none should
expect to withdraw and still enjoy
the benefits that flow to those
who participate.

© Services must come through
the same channels and from the
same government agencies for all
Canadians.

© Special treatment has made of
the Indians a community disad-
vantaged and apart. Different
status has led to a blind alley of
deprivation and frustration.

© Aboriginal land claims are so
general and undefined that it is
not realistic to think of them as
specific claims capable of remedy.

© Within the context of the
above, Indians should have con-
trol of reserve lands.

These observations and pro-
posals are eminently sensible —
and run completely counter to
current “thinking’’ (i.e., the col-
lective prejudices of the day) on
the subject.

They propose, in so many

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GARDEN OF BIASES

words, that Indians be like other
Canadians. No more rights. No
fewer responsibilities. Yes, able to
control their own reserves — but
the underlying hint is that the
reserves would in time cease being
the cultural and politicized ghettos
they’ve become.

Where did the above-listed ideas
come from?

They are drawn, almost word-
for-word, from the federal gov-
ernment’s -— the Trudeau gov-
ernment’s — 1969 White Paper.

And the minister of Indian af-
fairs at that time was one Jean
Chretien — whom one Indian ac-
tivist told me was the best holder
of that portfolio in Canada’s his-
tory.
Chretien, of course, is now
leader of the Liberal Party of
Canada. And it happened that we
were interviewing each other
recently.

At one point in our talk I began
a wind-up pitch on the subject
along the lines of:

“Mr. Chreticn, in 1969 a White
Paper was produced —”’

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“By Monsieur Chretien,’’ he in-
terrupted calmly.

What did he think of it today?

Chretien's explanation had
merit. As Indian affairs minister
— and he held the job six years,
virtually a modern record — he
heard many speeches from Indian
leaders. And in just about all of
them there were three complaints:

There was an Indian Act, which
was racist. There was a Depart-
ment of Indian Affairs, which was
racist. And there was a system of
federally-controlled Indian
reserves, which was racist.

So his White Paper of 1969
aimed at abolishing all that.

But — offered what they had
long demanded — Indian Jeaders
were horrified. They denounced
the White Paper unsparingly.

I revealed to Chretien when he
finished that I was one of an ap-
parently small group of Canadians
who remembered it and agreed
with it.

Chretien merely said that, in the
context of the times, it was logi-

The rest is history.
About that time, Indian and
Inuit nationalism and aboriginal

rights were discovered — largely
by radical white intellectuals like
the Toronto ‘*Waffler’’ Mel
Watkins — along with white guilt
(again, largely the same
discoverers). These have, as the
buzz phrase has it, set the agenda.

Peter Brimelow has crisply
described the result in The Patriot
Game:

“By granting what are in effect
hereditary racial rights, Ottawa
woutd be seriously impairing the
principle of a society based on
equality before the law, as well as
establishing a disincentive to those
native people who wish to leave
the reserve and integrate into
white society. And the whole thing
is likely to prove extremely annoy-
ing to those whites who live in
proximity to the native peo-
ples and are generally less sen-
timental about them than the dis-
tant elites of Central Canada
are.”’

Indeed, as a Reform party
member in the Yukon said this
week, that territory is being
threatened by apartheid.

Backward flows Canada.

Talk. Have a talk about

making giving a family affair. When you save for your
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A natumul program to enconrage giving and vohuntecring,

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WY Arts Council
funds allocated

AN ADDITIONAL $5,000 has
been allocated by West Vancouver
District Council towards the
renovation of a waterfront home
in Ambleside so that it can
become the municipality’s new
home for the West Vancouver
Community Arts Council this
year.

CS
WEST VANCOUVER
DISTRICT COUNCIL

But Ald. Andre Danyliu ob-
jected to a ‘‘million dollar’’ public
property being given over to a
local club.

‘It also discourages people
from working towards a real arts
centre,’’ said Danyliu, who also
objected, months ago, to allowing
one of the waterfront homes on
that block to be used by the West
Vancouver Little Theatre.

The house to be used by the
arts council and as display space
and arts programming space, is
located on Argyle Avenue and has
been known as ‘“‘The Silk Purse.”’

Renovations for the house will
cost an estimated $40,C00: $20,000
previously allocated by the
municipality and $15,000 raised by
the West Vancouver Community
Arts Council.

“Pm sorry Ald. Danyliu feels
the way he does. This community
shamefully lacks a place for the
arts and in these times of
restraints we’re unlikely to get an
arts centre for some time,’ said
Ald. Diana Hutchinson.

She added that the arts council
would maintain its mandate of
promoting arts and welcoming
people into the place.

“We'll ensure that the grounds
around the building, when finish-
ed, will be inviting to the public,”’
added Mayor Mark Sager.

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