Dear Prime Minister Harper,
My apologies for using this medium, but your official web page limits communication to a certain number of characters and this letter is longer than the limits imposed there.
I should begin by explaining that I'm old enough to have been called upon to deal with the armed occupation of Anicinaabe Park in Kenora in 1974. It was a very unfortunate and very dangerous period in Aboriginal/Non-Aboriginal relations …one that ultimately led to heightened confrontations, injury and the "liberation" of the very island on which Chief Spence now holds her vigil.
Leading up to those terrible times, there had been, like now, a long series of reports on the conditions suffered by the first people of this land. This was juxtaposed with the improved education levels and heightened expectations among all Canadian youth. Unfortunately, the persistent inability of Canada to fix the appalling conditions of First Nations combined with the unmet expectations of their young people led to an extremely volatile environment. This letter is, in part, to remind you that you and your ministers are both creating and dealing with very similar conditions.
Today's Aboriginal youth are free of many of the debilitations suffered by the survivors of residential schools. Most are bright and all are much better educated than their parents. They also have new tools. But conditions in their communities continue to be abysmal. One Anishnaabe community I work with has been on a boil water order for 16 years. 16 years, yet no resolution is scheduled! Can you imagine your family living in conditions like that? Can you understand that in this particular community, there is a whole group of 16 year-olds who are being told in their schools and on shiny government promotional posters that anything is possible for them, yet the grind of daily survival is telling them something quite different? Which would you suggest the young people in this community do first, Mr. Harper: their homework or should they haul wood and boil water for their grandparents?
Another community I work with was completely destroyed by pollution, flooding and the results of upstream industrial development. This is not an exaggeration. The facts have been reviewed and validated by Canada’s own lawyers. These people were driven from their homeland. Thousands of acres of their reserve continue to be illegally and daily trespassed upon by Canada and its agency, the Canadian Lake of the Woods Control Board. This trespass and the admitted violation of these people's rights has gone on for 87 years yet this community has received no compensation, no remedial measures have been undertaken and there appears to be no justice on the horizon through the Canadian Specific Claims process …and this community is only one among more than a dozen First Nations in the basin whose lands are similarly illegally occupied.
But notwithstanding the long-standing, pressing need for essential services and generations of proven, admitted, blatant violation of rights, Canada’s response has not only been ineffectual, it is getting worse. This year, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada's capital budget for the Northwestern Ontario region that could fund things like basic water treatment has been cut by two-thirds. Canada's negotiators and lawyers who work for the Specific Claims branch charged with resolving validated claims complain that, because of cut-backs, they cannot afford to travel to the affected communities to conduct respectful, face to face negotiations.
The Idle No More movement is the voice of very real and very justified frustration among First Nations people in Canada. It is the voice that the Chiefs have been hearing for some time and the voice they have been warning you about. The folks who are participating in the round dances across this country might not be elected but the legitimacy of their voice springs from the fact that it is they who live in the appalling conditions; it is they who bear the injustice of unsettled claims and it is their lands, their waters and their relatives who suffer the daily damage caused by a dysfunctional Treaty relationship with Canada. The good news is that the "Idle No More" voice is fresh, it's new and it is still hopeful. It expresses itself in dance and still contains the potential for working together toward solutions. There are no casualties, no martyrs, no warrior heroes …at least not yet. There is hope for constructive change.
When the young Anishnaabeg took up arms and occupied Anicinaabe Park, their action had been presaged by a whole series of due-process representations, petitions and non-violent demonstrations. When the young people finally took their direct action in the park, the response of many of the Government decision-makers was a refusal to meet with them. They said: "We will only meet with duly elected leaders." That strategy of using a trite technicality to ignore legitimate, critical concerns only inflamed the situation. That strategy did not serve our nation well at the time and it will only make matters worse now.
You have a choice, Mr. Harper. I urge you to take the approach that Mayor Jim Davidson did in 1974. He recognized that the action of the young people was a legitimate plea. He could not provide any guarantees of success, he had no authority but he was a caring human being and he was prepared to hear out the message. He was prepared to listen and then to undertake to do what he might be able to do. That one meeting between Louis Cameron and Jim Davidson, both caring human beings, led to other meetings and, to this day, I am convinced that it was the leadership of those two men acting only on the basis of their shared humanity, their shared, sacred treaty commitment to live together in harmony, that saved lives.
I appeal to you to meet with Chief Theresa Spence. She is appealing to you as a human being, as a Treaty person. You can meet with her on that basis. You might even consider taking your family with you. Your children might learn something important. I know that they would be welcomed, respected and honoured.
There are many challenges and realities you face as an elected government leader but you have the opportunity as a human being to confirm to Chief Spence and to all Canadians that the situation faced by First Nations is unacceptable and that you carry a personal commitment to do what you can to get our relationship right. Such a meeting would provide you with an opportunity to, in turn, appeal to all Canadians, to engage Canadians of all backgrounds, to make similar personal, constructive commitments to get this fixed. You can remind Canadians that we are all Treaty people, and, in a democracy, the honour and duty of the Crown falls on each one of us.
I am convinced that there are principled ways forward and the Chiefs, along with their young people, have the ideas, the will and the energy. I have been working in the field of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations for over 40 years and I can tell you that our Treaties really do hold the potential for principled but also practical solutions to virtually all our present challenges.
I urge you to observe and honour our treaty relationship; to accept, as all Canadians must, the challenging obligation to find a way to share this incredible land together for as long as the sun shines and the rivers flow. Please, as a human being and as a Canadian citizen, meet with Chief Spence, hear her out, understand the message she carries, then, as Prime Minister, undertake to meet with First Nations leaders with a renewed resolve to work together to find principle-based solutions that can be applied in our time.
You have an important opportunity before you. In the spirit and intent of our treaty relationship, please choose wisely.
Sincerely,
Cuyler Cotton
Kenora, Ontario
