The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) recently had its budget slashed, prompting one Aboriginal pundit to call it an act of “outright intimidation and terrorism.” Perhaps an act of intimidation, but I don’t know about an act of terrorism. That term should not be used lightly in the wake of September 11. Nonetheless, I’m certainly not surprised that this budget cut occurred.

The federal government does have the responsibility to provide health, education and uphold native hunting and fishing rights, because of the treaties it signed with various First Nations across Canada. But its funding of Aboriginal political organizations and lobby groups is merely a matter of policy and subject to ministerial whims.

In this current political climate, those whims will lead to demands for more accountability and the slashing of budgets. The Manitoba Metis Federation and Native friendship centres in that province had their budgets clipped by Gary Filmon’s Conservatives. Those organizations had to wait for a change in the political climate, when Manitobans elected a New Democratic government two years ago, to have their budgets restored.

The larger issue to be looked at is the overwhelming reliance by Aboriginal institutions on government funding. The AFN and many other Native organizations often push for the goal of self-government, using rhetoric laced with calls for more sovereignty. A laudable achievement, but not one that can be realistically accomplished when you must go cap in hand to the same people who are your oppressors. Aboriginal organizations are like denizens in an opium den, except the opiate is government funding. If our people really want to stand up and spit in the eye of our colonizers, then our institutions have to shake their addiction to federal and provincial greenbacks.

I welcome the cuts to the AFN, not because they will make it weaker, but hopefully they will make it leaner, smarter and stronger. Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault’s deed wasn’t an act of terrorism, but an act in realpolitik: It was a wake-up call that the government’s gravy train could be shut down at any moment, regardless of whether the reasons behind reduced budgets are valid or not. No Aboriginal person, community or institution in Canada can stand up and shout, “I am sovereign,” when sovereignty only exists because of the money received from a “foreign” government. And any Aboriginal organization whose reason to be depends so heavily on the whim of one man in Ottawa perhaps doesn’t deserve to exist at all.