Retyped for your information are some viewpoints on the situation in Oka, Quebec, and the relationship between the Federal Government and Canadian First Nations in general. ************************************************************************ CALGARY HERALD EDITORIAL - Thursday, July 19 FEDS MUST ACT NOW The Oka siege has become a national issue which Ottawa can no longer avoid. But if the federal government continues to keep up its charade of non- involvement then it must immediately back away from any use or implied use of armed forces in an already over-heated situation. One police officer has already died because of the poor political judgement of a municipal politician. Now, moving troops or even threatening to move troops says that brute force is the only response the federal government knows how to make; that it too has misjudged the situation. By placing troops on standby and moving administrative and support staff to Longue-Pointe the Department of National Defence completely undermined the federal atttempts to stay out of the negotiations between the barricaded Mohawks and the government of Quebec. However Ottawa's dubious decision to treat the Oka standoff and the blockaded suburban Montreal commuter bridge as local matters has already been called in question by the rising tide of solidarity demonstrations from Indian bands as far away as British Columbia. More outbreaks and disruptions can be expected as long as the oka dispute remains unsettled and thus the focus of national attention. Therefore, political action must take priority and the federal government ought to recall Parliament to deal with a national emergency. In August, 1986, when less than 200 Tamil refugees landed on Canada's East Coast, the Tories eagerly recalled Parliament to show they were prepared to deal with this so-called national crisis. THe situation in Oka and Chateauguay is much worse but the prime minister and the minister of indian affairs do nothing. The Tory eagerness of 1986 has been replaced by complacency which will only further erode any confidence the people of Canada, especially native people, might have had in the federal government. The federal government must act now because sooner or later, now or in the next election, it must face up to its responsibilities. ************************************************************************ CALGARY HERALD - William Gold's Diary - Thursday, July 19, 1990 'INDIAN "WAR" PARALYSES GOVERNMENT' Perhaps only in Canada could something so terrifying be happening in an atmosphere which finds the people numb and the government paralysed. There's a war on. Right here. Right now. Our Indians are in rebellion in 1990 just as surely as the Metis under Louis Riel were in rebellion in 1885. And we don't seem to know what to do about it. After all, this IS Canada, isn't it? This is the country that for so long has felt so superior to all the troubled nations everywhere else. This isn't Belfast, Beirut or Bogota. Our Indians aren't Sikhs in India or Kurds in Iraq. There is no resemblance, surely, between Canada and Cambodia or even Chile. This is a placid place, not like Pakistan or Peru. Forget the dreams, Canadians. We're in the real world now. The playground stuff of inviting the Brits or the French or the Americans to knock the symbolic chips off our shoulders no longer becomes us as grown-ups. We can no longer prove our civility by lofty postures at the United Nations or by dotting our troops between less perfect combatants in Cyprus. Look what was going on at home on Wednesday. * The enduring stand-off between Quebec Provincial Police and Mohawk warriors was still in progress at Oka and the Mercier Bridge. * As many as 300 Indian chiefs from across the country were coming together at Kahnawake to plan their strategy against the backdrop of a reserve whose residents have little to learn from anyone in the matter of guerrilla armaments. * The tears were scarcely dry on the cheeks of the mourners at the funeral earlier in the week for the QPP corporal shot to death in the botched assault. * Road blockades were set up in places as diverse as British Columbia and central Ontario. There were hunger strikes in the Maritimes, demonstrations on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and in Calgary a chief was warning of violence to come if Indian claims were not resolved somehow, soon. And in the north, aboriginal peoples were questioning a land claims deal that once looked like a sure thing. * At least part of the native strategy was becoming clear. Canada's circulatory system, its roads and rails, has historically been both lifeblood and our point of utmost vulnerability. So, in this time of trouble and torment, what are the rest of us doing? Nothing much. We don't seem to be able to believe it is happening. In Calgary, we again fell into the trap of believing that the docile tepees, bannock stands and chicken dances were all the reality about natives we needed. What about the federal government? Some troops and Mounties are moving about. That's about it. No one is saying what's next. There hasn't even been a repeat of the offer made last month when Elijah Harper in Winnipeg was blocking the Meech Lake deal; the offer to set up a full scale royal commission into native matters. Was that just another Meech bargaining chip? Is it, like the Senate the West wants, off the table now? The government may make a move between the writing of these words and the reading of them, but regardless of what it may have done by this morning Canadians won't be freed of their obligation to face some hard questions. If we preach the old refrain of law and order to these people, won't that just be whistling in the wind? And if they don't listen what will we do next, start killing Indians? If so, how many? Will we tackle the tough ones on the armed reserves or vent racist spleen on the defenceless ones in the urban cores? Or will we, finally, face the consequences of our own history and the actions of our forefathers, and start to work for peace? ************************************************************************ CALGARY HERALD - Don McGillivray - Thursday July 19 'INDIANS LOOKING FOR SOME REAL ANSWERS' Ottawa - One of the more amusing scenes in the recent Meech Lake drama was the trek to Manitoba by a high-powered team of federal negotiators. Their job was to get Elijah Harper out of the way. They carried a six- point offer from Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as trade goods. Led by Senator Lowell Murray, the federal team included Stanley Hartt, Mulroney's chief of staff, Paul Tellier, clerk of the Privy Council, and Norman Spector, secretary to the cabinet for federal-provincial relations. In Ottawa, that list spells power with a capital P. And the feds planned to set up a divide-and-conquer pressure cooker like the one used to bamboozle the provincial premiers. But the Indians were too smart for them. They moved to block the tactics used on the premiers. And they rejected the prime minister's six points as "trinkets." The word stings. And it announces that aboriginal Canadians are no longer selling their heritage for glass beads. But one of those trinkets, strangely enough, is now being advanced as a way of dealing with aboriginal demands for restoration of rights. In June, Mulroney offered the Indians "a major Royal Commission on Native Affairs." He proposed Ed Broadbent as chairman. When Broadbent was a more popular political rival, Mulroney jeered at him as "Mr. Perfection." But now that Broadbent has presumably been tamed with a patronage appointment, the prime minister seems to believe he's available for other odd jobs. But whether headed by Broadbent or somebody else, a royal commission would still be a trinket, a shiny bauble to distract attention. People are now digging it out of the Meech Lake rubble because they don't know what else to suggest in the confrontation at Oka and the general demand of aboriginal people for a new deal. A royal commission seems to be the first thing that occurs to Canadians when grappling with a confused and complex situation. But it won't work this time. Inspired by Elijah Harper's stand, native people are seeing through the tricks used in the past to keep them quiet. A decade ago, they might have hoped for some good result from the constitutional conferences promised by Mulroney in the so-called companion resolution to the Meech Lake accord. There were to be three of them "entirely dedicated to aboriginal constitutional matters." But in the 1980's there were three constitutional conferences on "matters that directly affect the aboriginal peoples of Canada." The words are written into the 1982 Constitution itself. But that didn't make the conferences successful. And even baubles can seem less glittering the second time around. Conferences are substitutes for action. Royal commissions are substitutes for action. And special sessions of Parliament, such as the one proposed by the federal Liberals, are substitutes for action. What's to be done? The federal government needs to make aboriginal affairs an urgent matter on its list of things to be tackled. One sure way to do that is to make the Indian Affairs portfolio one of the key jobs in the cabinet. It is no longer something that can be given for a while to a junior minister or to somebody who has failed in other cabinet postings. It should be given to someone who is ready to handle a major portfolio such as Trade, External Affairs, Finance or Justice. It's not easy to think who this might be in the present Mulroney cabinet. No one shines in that awkward squad. But that only increases the opportunity for someone who can make a success of a job full of turmoil and trouble. The present situation is tense enough to make it a high profile chance. And the potential prize is large in a party that may be choosing a new leader in three years or so. The prime minister needs to choose the best person he can find, then let the new minister get on with the job. He should curb his own tendency to meddle. It won't be easy. But Mulroney himself is too deeply into the trinket business to be credible now to the clear-eyed aboriginal Canadians with whom the federal government must deal. ************************************************************************ For more information contact web:car by e-mail or in writing Aboriginal Rights Support Group Committee Against Racism P.O. Box 3085, Station B Calgary, Alberta T2M 4L6