Question: Can the FN case be advanced without a "Brant" (i.e.) going for PM?

quote:It's said that when something is useless and worn out, it's given to the coloured folks. In Canada, we have received the white man's castoffs for years. The same thing is happening now south of the border.

My old friend, the late Everett Soop, once drew a cartoon that showed the minister of Indian Affairs with an Indian passenger on a power toboggan. The caption read, "We're out of gas, now you can drive." That's how things look south of the border.

Whenever the Department of Indian Affairs wanted to unload its problems, it gave them to the Indians. The first problem to be transferred to First Nations' control was the welfare program, way back in the 1960s. Over the years, the department steadily unloaded programs and problems, along with limited funds, to the band councils. This was followed with rundown army bases, boarding schools and other surplus junk.

George Bush has left the United States in such a mess that no white man will want to be president. The country is involved in two wars, it is mired in debt, its reputation is tattered internationally and its economy is headed into a recession. It looks like a good time to hand the reins of power to a minority....

Aboriginal people in Canada are the equivalent of the blacks in the U.S. Would Canadians elect an aboriginal person as prime minister?

We have Native people in both the House of Commons and the Senate, as well as in several provincial legislatures. But these aboriginal politicians have been elected in constituencies where we form the majority of voters. Getting elected elsewhere is another matter.

In spite of all the hype and good feelings south of the border, the polls showed that 16 percent of American voters stated that they could not vote for a black person as president, no matter what.

I feel that an aboriginal candidate in Canada would be up against the same prejudice, especially here in the West. Given the level of racism in Western Canada,

I don't think it's likely that we will elect an aboriginal prime minister in the foreseeable future. The public has a lot of maturing to do before that.

In any event, the election of Obama to the highest office in the United States has given hope to minorities. We will have to see if his election changes America and, by extension, what impact it has on Canada.

May I make the above agreement unanimous?

It is for that reason that I thought the approach by the last previous lieutenant governor of Ontario, James Bartleman, was right on. He always held that his voracious reading as a child gave him the imaginative capacity to see a different future for himself.

Now I've discovered that that degree of integration is not what a great many FN people would imagine for themselves.  And, of course, this is the kind of information that I had hoped to come by when starting this thread.

That said, it seems to me that this makes the whole question of how to improve the lives of FN people while achieving a greater separation of governance vastly more complicated - certainly for those people who live on treaty land and who seek to expand their land holdings to achieve economic independence. Perhaps for people already in cities, there is another agenda in mind?

Obviously, waiting for Godot (the leader) is not a productive position. But if it " takes a village to raise the child", if "many people and groups" must be involved - and there is complete agreement there -  WHAT IS the role of education to be? What kind of education, given that there must surely be some opportunity given for merit, for excellence in academic achievement, some opportunity for the Bartlemans  to make the case for their people generally?