Straight Talk About Canadian Aboriginals
Chief Clarence Louie Osoyoos BC
ROY MacGREGOR
FORT McMURRAY — From Thursday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Monday, Apr. 06, 2009 11:30PM EDT
The man with the PowerPoint presentation is miffed. He is speaking to a large aboriginal conference and some of the attendees, including a few who hold high office, have straggled in.
'I can't stand people who are late, he says into the microphone. Indian Time doesn't cut it. '
Some giggle, but no one is quite sure how far he is going to go. Just sit back and listen:
'My first rule for success is Show up on time.'
'My No. 2 rule for success is follow Rule No. 1.'
'If your life sucks, it's because you suck.'
'Quit your sniffling.'
'Join the real world. Go to school, or get a job..'
'Get off of welfare. Get off your butt.'
He pauses, seeming to gauge whether he dare, then does.
'People often say to me, How you doin'? Geez I'm working with Indians what do you think?'
Now they are openly laughing ... applauding. Clarence Louie is everything that was advertised and more.
'Our ancestors worked for a living, he says. So should you.'
He is, fortunately, aboriginal himself. If someone else stood up and said these things - the white columnist standing there with his mouth open, for example - you'd be seen as a racist. Instead, Chief Clarence Louie is seen, increasingly, as one of the most interesting and innovative native leaders in the country even though he avoids national politics.
He has come here to Fort McMurray because the aboriginal community needs, desperately, to start talking about economic development and what all this multibillion-dollar oil madness might mean,for good and for bad.
Clarence Louie is chief and CEO of the Osoyoos Band in British Columbia's South Okanagan . He is 44 years old, though he looks like he would have been an infant when he began his remarkable 20-year-run as chief. He took a band that had been declared bankrupt and taken over by Indian Affairs and he has turned in into an inspiration.
In 2000, the band set a goal of becoming self-sufficient in five years. They're there.
The Osoyoos, 432 strong, own, among other things, a vineyard, a winery, a golf course and a tourist resort, and they are partners in the Baldy Mountain ski development. They have more businesses per capita than any other first nation in Canada .
There are not only enough jobs for everyone, there are so many jobs being created that there are now members of 13 other tribal communities working for the Osoyoos. The little band contributes $40-million a year to the area economy.
Chief Louie is tough. He is as proud of the fact that his band fires its own people as well as hires them. He has his mottos posted throughout the Rez. He believes there is no such thing as consensus, that there will always be those who disagree. And, he says, he is milquetoast compared to his own mother when it comes to how today's lazy aboriginal youth, almost exclusively male, should be dealt with.
Rent a plane, she told him, and fly them all to Iraq . Dump 'em off and all the ones who make it back are keepers. Right on, Mom.
The message he has brought here to the Chipewyan, Dene and Cree who live around the oil sands is equally direct: 'Get involved, create jobs and meaningful jobs, not just window dressing for the oil companies.'
'The biggest employer,' he says, 'shouldn't be the band office.'
He also says the time has come to get over it. 'No more whining about 100-year-old failed experiments.' 'No foolishly looking to the Queen to protect rights.'
Louie says aboriginals here and along the Mackenzie Valley should not look at any sharing in development as rocking-chair money but as investment opportunity to create sustainable businesses. He wants them to move beyond entry-level jobs to real jobs they earn all the way to the boardrooms. He wants to see business manners develop: showing up on time, working extra hours. The business lunch, he says, should be drive through, and then right back at it.
'You're going to lose your language and culture faster in poverty than you will in economic development', he says to those who say he is ignoring tradition.
Tough talk, at times shocking talk given the audience, but on this day in this community, they took it and, judging by the response, they loved it.
Eighty per cent like what I have to say, Louie says, twenty per cent don't. I always say to the 20 per cent, 'Get over it.' 'Chances are you're never going to see me again and I'm never going to see you again.' 'Get some counseling.'
The first step, he says, is all about leadership. He prides himself on being a stay-home chief who looks after the potholes in his own backyard and wastes no time running around fighting 100-year-old battles.
'The biggest challenge will be how you treat your own people.'
'Blaming government? That time is over.'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Another person's Comment on the above:
I'm not sure I see the importance or relevance of this. I wish I could be given hundreds of millions of dollars (maybe they deserve it maybe they don't for aboriginal claims), thounsands if not millions of acres of land, no obligation to pay taxes, the right to self government and laws don't apply to the reservation and the ability to set up casinos wherever I want or database centers to run gambling and make millions. I too would set up my own golf courses, wineries, tourist reservations, you name it.Hard not to succeed when everything has been handed to you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My comment:
You may recall a news story in Saskatchewan dating back more than 5 years, relating events which occurred in the small town of Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, involving a chief of a local Indian Band, and his [and, presumably his supporters and council] efforts to develop industry and create jobs for his people, and the strong, but entirely negative response of the organized Indian chiefs and politicians of the rest of the province.
Similarly, the Meadow Lake Indian Band in question, had received plenty of guilt payments from the federal and provincial governments and their Liberal and NDP office-holders. But, instead of sqaundering it, or putting the money into gambling dens, this chief and council invested it in a log-stripping and processing factory or plant, providing employment, as well as logs ready for use in home construction. Meadow Lake is in the north-western forested area of Saskatchewan with plenty of trees available for the purpose.
Some, or even most of the processed logs were used to construct homes for local Indians, and the remainder were offered for sale on the open market, bringing in income to make the operation more viable, etc.
This exercise provided a valuable learning opportunity, not only in the gaining of management and work skills, but in self-reliance.
Instead of hailing the achievements, the usual suspects mentioned above, vociferously and viciously attacked the local chief and his council for relieving "whitey" of his obligation to provide housing and welfare to Indians.
This group of enemies of their people must be among the 20% that Chief Louie mentions as opposing his philosophy as outlined in the accompanying article.
I agree with another person's comments I appended just below a copy of a Globe & Mail newspaper report of a talk by Chief Louie last April, at least insofar as they describe the reasons for my disgust with the rewards and handouts given to the Chiefs by our governments, however, given that I cannot change or influence the attitudes of many Canadians and, particularly their elected office-holders, it is still heartening to see that there are some outspoken Indians who recognize the Indian Industry B.S. that is keeping Indians poor, uneducated and stupid.
I heartily recommend a recent book by two Canadian academics, Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard, who published in 2008 a book entitled "Disrobing The Aboriginal Industry - The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation". Reference to where to buy the book and some review info is listed below.
These two have encountered considerable criticism and vituperative comments from those skewered by their research and words. They have even - who would have guessed it? - been accused of racism by Indian politicians and supporters of the Indian Industry. One of the most vicious of those is, Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, a self-described "author, educator and activist who is committed to Indigenous peoples' dignity, freedom and nationhood".
Taiaiake was born in Montreal in 1964 and was raised on the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve.
One of his comments is: "Evidently, Widdowson and Howard get up in the morning and eat a dog’s breakfast of outmoded communist ideology and rotten anthropological theories washed down with strong racial prejudices inherited from their own unexamined colonial upbringings, all of which would turn anyone else’s stomach."
Another is: "I found a collection of distortions, omissions, and exaggerations, that provides a reading experience like that of slogging through an undergraduate essay by, say, a kid from Alberta ruminating on Québecois nationalism, or an Alabama schoolgirl writing on the root causes of black-on-black violence. What a disappointment.
Another is: "it is understandable how the authors can, or must, advocate for the destruction of the natural environment by industrial development, and why they must hate and seek to destroy the people most closely connected to and committed to the preservation of nature in the face of capitalist exploitation of the land: Indigenous people.
This reaction is typical of those who oppose the message conveyed by the "Disrobing" book. In the last quote from Alfred one can see the nonsensical mythological romantic notion held by so many liberals and supporters of the Indian Industry that Indians are selfless and natural guardians of nature. This is a concept that does not accord with the facts of history, but helps liberals to view Indians as mystical and holy, and, therefore, beyond criticism and untouchable.
Given the strong liberal guilt that infuses so many non-Indian Canadians, as well as the cowardice and opportunism that defines politics in Canada today, statements like those of Chief Louie are very welcome and indeed almost revolutionary, despite the unfortunate basis on which his Band, and a few others, have developed their enterprises.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The "Disrobing" book may be found on the website of Amazon.ca [cheapest price - $18.87 plus shipping] or on some other distributors' websites. The relevant references are:
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry
The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation
Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard
How aboriginal deprivation is maintained by a self-serving "industry" of lawyers and consultants.
Paper (0773534210) 9780773534216
Release date: 2008-10-24
CA $32.95 | US $29.95
Order by mail / fax : Order form
Cloth (0773534202) 9780773534209
Release date: 2008-10-24
CA $95.00 | US $95.00
Order by mail / fax : Order form
6 x 9
336pp
4 figures
Subjects:
Native Studies Political Science: Canadian Public Policy: Canadian
-----------------------------------------------
Another Reviewer's Comments:
Despite the billions of dollars devoted to aboriginal causes, Native people in Canada continue to suffer all the symptoms of a marginalized existence - high rates of substance abuse, violence, poverty. Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry argues that the policies proposed to address these problems - land claims and self government - are in fact contributing to their entrenchment.
By examining the root causes of aboriginal problems, Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard expose the industry that has grown up around land claim settlements, showing that aboriginal policy development over the past thirty years has been manipulated by non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants. They analyse all the major aboriginal policies, examine issues that have received little critical attention - child care, health care, education, traditional knowledge - and propose the comprehensive government provision of health, education, and housing rather than deficient delivery through Native self-government.
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry presents a convincing argument that the "Aboriginal Industry" has failed to address the fundamental economic and cultural basis of native problems, leading instead to policies that offer a financial benefit to the leadership while entrenching the misery of most aboriginal people.
Other Review quotes:
"Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry does an excellent job of pointing out logical inconsistencies in the Aboriginal political movement - a matter of great practical as well as academic importance." Tom Flanagan, author of First Nations? Second Thoughts
"Insightful, carefully argued and meticulously documented." John Richards, Simon Fraser University
----------------------------------------------------
Frances Widdowson is a faculty member, Department of Policy Studies, Mount Royal College.
Albert Howard has worked as a consultant for government and Native groups, and is currently an instructor and Director of Programs, Kennedy College of Technology, Toronto.
----------------------------------------------------
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry
Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
A STORY
Introduction: Discovering the Emperor’s Nudity 3
PART ONE ORIGINS
1 The Aboriginal Industry: Weavers of Illusory Silk 19
2 Denying the Developmental Gap: Preserving Culture in a Jar 49
PART TWO TABOOS, FABRICATIONS AND SOPHISTRY
3 Land Claims: Dreaming Aboriginal Economic Development 81
4 Self-Government: An Inherent Right to Tribal Dictatorships 106
5 Justice: Rewarding Friends and Punishing Enemies 129
6 Child Welfare: Strengthening the Abusive Circle 160
7 Health Care: A Superstitious Alternative 173
8 Education: Honouring the Ignorance of Our Ancestors 191
9 Environmental Management: The Spiritual Sell-Out of “Mother Earth” 215
PART THREE SPHERES OF DECEPTION
10 Traditional Knowledge: Listening to the Silence 231
Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? 249
Notes 265
Index 319
--------------------------------------------------------------
ROY MacGREGOR
FORT McMURRAY — From Thursday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Monday, Apr. 06, 2009 11:30PM EDT
The man with the PowerPoint presentation is miffed. He is speaking to a large aboriginal conference and some of the attendees, including a few who hold high office, have straggled in.
'I can't stand people who are late, he says into the microphone. Indian Time doesn't cut it. '
Some giggle, but no one is quite sure how far he is going to go. Just sit back and listen:
'My first rule for success is Show up on time.'
'My No. 2 rule for success is follow Rule No. 1.'
'If your life sucks, it's because you suck.'
'Quit your sniffling.'
'Join the real world. Go to school, or get a job..'
'Get off of welfare. Get off your butt.'
He pauses, seeming to gauge whether he dare, then does.
'People often say to me, How you doin'? Geez I'm working with Indians what do you think?'
Now they are openly laughing ... applauding. Clarence Louie is everything that was advertised and more.
'Our ancestors worked for a living, he says. So should you.'
He is, fortunately, aboriginal himself. If someone else stood up and said these things - the white columnist standing there with his mouth open, for example - you'd be seen as a racist. Instead, Chief Clarence Louie is seen, increasingly, as one of the most interesting and innovative native leaders in the country even though he avoids national politics.
He has come here to Fort McMurray because the aboriginal community needs, desperately, to start talking about economic development and what all this multibillion-dollar oil madness might mean,for good and for bad.
Clarence Louie is chief and CEO of the Osoyoos Band in British Columbia's South Okanagan . He is 44 years old, though he looks like he would have been an infant when he began his remarkable 20-year-run as chief. He took a band that had been declared bankrupt and taken over by Indian Affairs and he has turned in into an inspiration.
In 2000, the band set a goal of becoming self-sufficient in five years. They're there.
The Osoyoos, 432 strong, own, among other things, a vineyard, a winery, a golf course and a tourist resort, and they are partners in the Baldy Mountain ski development. They have more businesses per capita than any other first nation in Canada .
There are not only enough jobs for everyone, there are so many jobs being created that there are now members of 13 other tribal communities working for the Osoyoos. The little band contributes $40-million a year to the area economy.
Chief Louie is tough. He is as proud of the fact that his band fires its own people as well as hires them. He has his mottos posted throughout the Rez. He believes there is no such thing as consensus, that there will always be those who disagree. And, he says, he is milquetoast compared to his own mother when it comes to how today's lazy aboriginal youth, almost exclusively male, should be dealt with.
Rent a plane, she told him, and fly them all to Iraq . Dump 'em off and all the ones who make it back are keepers. Right on, Mom.
The message he has brought here to the Chipewyan, Dene and Cree who live around the oil sands is equally direct: 'Get involved, create jobs and meaningful jobs, not just window dressing for the oil companies.'
'The biggest employer,' he says, 'shouldn't be the band office.'
He also says the time has come to get over it. 'No more whining about 100-year-old failed experiments.' 'No foolishly looking to the Queen to protect rights.'
Louie says aboriginals here and along the Mackenzie Valley should not look at any sharing in development as rocking-chair money but as investment opportunity to create sustainable businesses. He wants them to move beyond entry-level jobs to real jobs they earn all the way to the boardrooms. He wants to see business manners develop: showing up on time, working extra hours. The business lunch, he says, should be drive through, and then right back at it.
'You're going to lose your language and culture faster in poverty than you will in economic development', he says to those who say he is ignoring tradition.
Tough talk, at times shocking talk given the audience, but on this day in this community, they took it and, judging by the response, they loved it.
Eighty per cent like what I have to say, Louie says, twenty per cent don't. I always say to the 20 per cent, 'Get over it.' 'Chances are you're never going to see me again and I'm never going to see you again.' 'Get some counseling.'
The first step, he says, is all about leadership. He prides himself on being a stay-home chief who looks after the potholes in his own backyard and wastes no time running around fighting 100-year-old battles.
'The biggest challenge will be how you treat your own people.'
'Blaming government? That time is over.'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Another person's Comment on the above:
I'm not sure I see the importance or relevance of this. I wish I could be given hundreds of millions of dollars (maybe they deserve it maybe they don't for aboriginal claims), thounsands if not millions of acres of land, no obligation to pay taxes, the right to self government and laws don't apply to the reservation and the ability to set up casinos wherever I want or database centers to run gambling and make millions. I too would set up my own golf courses, wineries, tourist reservations, you name it.Hard not to succeed when everything has been handed to you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
My comment:
You may recall a news story in Saskatchewan dating back more than 5 years, relating events which occurred in the small town of Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, involving a chief of a local Indian Band, and his [and, presumably his supporters and council] efforts to develop industry and create jobs for his people, and the strong, but entirely negative response of the organized Indian chiefs and politicians of the rest of the province.
Similarly, the Meadow Lake Indian Band in question, had received plenty of guilt payments from the federal and provincial governments and their Liberal and NDP office-holders. But, instead of sqaundering it, or putting the money into gambling dens, this chief and council invested it in a log-stripping and processing factory or plant, providing employment, as well as logs ready for use in home construction. Meadow Lake is in the north-western forested area of Saskatchewan with plenty of trees available for the purpose.
Some, or even most of the processed logs were used to construct homes for local Indians, and the remainder were offered for sale on the open market, bringing in income to make the operation more viable, etc.
This exercise provided a valuable learning opportunity, not only in the gaining of management and work skills, but in self-reliance.
Instead of hailing the achievements, the usual suspects mentioned above, vociferously and viciously attacked the local chief and his council for relieving "whitey" of his obligation to provide housing and welfare to Indians.
This group of enemies of their people must be among the 20% that Chief Louie mentions as opposing his philosophy as outlined in the accompanying article.
I agree with another person's comments I appended just below a copy of a Globe & Mail newspaper report of a talk by Chief Louie last April, at least insofar as they describe the reasons for my disgust with the rewards and handouts given to the Chiefs by our governments, however, given that I cannot change or influence the attitudes of many Canadians and, particularly their elected office-holders, it is still heartening to see that there are some outspoken Indians who recognize the Indian Industry B.S. that is keeping Indians poor, uneducated and stupid.
I heartily recommend a recent book by two Canadian academics, Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard, who published in 2008 a book entitled "Disrobing The Aboriginal Industry - The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation". Reference to where to buy the book and some review info is listed below.
These two have encountered considerable criticism and vituperative comments from those skewered by their research and words. They have even - who would have guessed it? - been accused of racism by Indian politicians and supporters of the Indian Industry. One of the most vicious of those is, Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, a self-described "author, educator and activist who is committed to Indigenous peoples' dignity, freedom and nationhood".
Taiaiake was born in Montreal in 1964 and was raised on the Kahnawake Mohawk reserve.
One of his comments is: "Evidently, Widdowson and Howard get up in the morning and eat a dog’s breakfast of outmoded communist ideology and rotten anthropological theories washed down with strong racial prejudices inherited from their own unexamined colonial upbringings, all of which would turn anyone else’s stomach."
Another is: "I found a collection of distortions, omissions, and exaggerations, that provides a reading experience like that of slogging through an undergraduate essay by, say, a kid from Alberta ruminating on Québecois nationalism, or an Alabama schoolgirl writing on the root causes of black-on-black violence. What a disappointment.
Another is: "it is understandable how the authors can, or must, advocate for the destruction of the natural environment by industrial development, and why they must hate and seek to destroy the people most closely connected to and committed to the preservation of nature in the face of capitalist exploitation of the land: Indigenous people.
This reaction is typical of those who oppose the message conveyed by the "Disrobing" book. In the last quote from Alfred one can see the nonsensical mythological romantic notion held by so many liberals and supporters of the Indian Industry that Indians are selfless and natural guardians of nature. This is a concept that does not accord with the facts of history, but helps liberals to view Indians as mystical and holy, and, therefore, beyond criticism and untouchable.
Given the strong liberal guilt that infuses so many non-Indian Canadians, as well as the cowardice and opportunism that defines politics in Canada today, statements like those of Chief Louie are very welcome and indeed almost revolutionary, despite the unfortunate basis on which his Band, and a few others, have developed their enterprises.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The "Disrobing" book may be found on the website of Amazon.ca [cheapest price - $18.87 plus shipping] or on some other distributors' websites. The relevant references are:
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry
The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation
Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard
How aboriginal deprivation is maintained by a self-serving "industry" of lawyers and consultants.
Paper (0773534210) 9780773534216
Release date: 2008-10-24
CA $32.95 | US $29.95
Order by mail / fax : Order form
Cloth (0773534202) 9780773534209
Release date: 2008-10-24
CA $95.00 | US $95.00
Order by mail / fax : Order form
6 x 9
336pp
4 figures
Subjects:
Native Studies Political Science: Canadian Public Policy: Canadian
-----------------------------------------------
Another Reviewer's Comments:
Despite the billions of dollars devoted to aboriginal causes, Native people in Canada continue to suffer all the symptoms of a marginalized existence - high rates of substance abuse, violence, poverty. Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry argues that the policies proposed to address these problems - land claims and self government - are in fact contributing to their entrenchment.
By examining the root causes of aboriginal problems, Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard expose the industry that has grown up around land claim settlements, showing that aboriginal policy development over the past thirty years has been manipulated by non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants. They analyse all the major aboriginal policies, examine issues that have received little critical attention - child care, health care, education, traditional knowledge - and propose the comprehensive government provision of health, education, and housing rather than deficient delivery through Native self-government.
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry presents a convincing argument that the "Aboriginal Industry" has failed to address the fundamental economic and cultural basis of native problems, leading instead to policies that offer a financial benefit to the leadership while entrenching the misery of most aboriginal people.
Other Review quotes:
"Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry does an excellent job of pointing out logical inconsistencies in the Aboriginal political movement - a matter of great practical as well as academic importance." Tom Flanagan, author of First Nations? Second Thoughts
"Insightful, carefully argued and meticulously documented." John Richards, Simon Fraser University
----------------------------------------------------
Frances Widdowson is a faculty member, Department of Policy Studies, Mount Royal College.
Albert Howard has worked as a consultant for government and Native groups, and is currently an instructor and Director of Programs, Kennedy College of Technology, Toronto.
----------------------------------------------------
Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry
Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
A STORY
Introduction: Discovering the Emperor’s Nudity 3
PART ONE ORIGINS
1 The Aboriginal Industry: Weavers of Illusory Silk 19
2 Denying the Developmental Gap: Preserving Culture in a Jar 49
PART TWO TABOOS, FABRICATIONS AND SOPHISTRY
3 Land Claims: Dreaming Aboriginal Economic Development 81
4 Self-Government: An Inherent Right to Tribal Dictatorships 106
5 Justice: Rewarding Friends and Punishing Enemies 129
6 Child Welfare: Strengthening the Abusive Circle 160
7 Health Care: A Superstitious Alternative 173
8 Education: Honouring the Ignorance of Our Ancestors 191
9 Environmental Management: The Spiritual Sell-Out of “Mother Earth” 215
PART THREE SPHERES OF DECEPTION
10 Traditional Knowledge: Listening to the Silence 231
Conclusion: What Is to Be Done? 249
Notes 265
Index 319
--------------------------------------------------------------
posted by politicalcommentariescanada | 11:42 PM
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