UPDATED: 2007-06-26
Impoverished native community pins hopes in Parliament protest.
By JORGE BARRERA, NATIONAL BUREAU
Calgary Sun
He is no stranger to blockades, marches and sit-ins that have punctuated the recent history of his community. Now, with the stirrings of a possible restless summer across the nation growing louder, Wawatie's community is again gearing for confrontation.
"There's a lot of things happening," says Wawatie. "I guess that's life."
Life on many reserves exists in a parallel reality that fl ows beyond the sight lines of most Canadians. Now and again, these parallel universes collide; sometimes with force, as in the 1990
Again the country is bracing for another possible collision on Friday, a proclaimed day of action on Native issues. This one, the result of another broken promise.
A poster calling on the Conservative government to honour the Liberal's $5 billion Kelowna Accord is taped to a window inside Assembly of First Nations national Chief Phil Fontaine's 11th fl oor offi ce in downtown Ottawa. The scrapping of the accord and a budget thin on money to battle poverty triggered Native anger across the country. Fontaine unveiled plans for a day of action. The spectre of blockades immediately emerged. Since then, Fontaine and band chiefs have been trying to quench the fire they started.
That is how it works, says professor Taiaiake Alfred, director of
"These things tend to happen in cycles. Whenever there is militancy and assertions on the part of Native people, they tend to be co-opted by governments using the institutions in place like band councils and the AFN," says Alfred. "The energy is sapped. They usually find a way to buy it off and it goes back into a latent phase."
Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice recently unveiled a plan to fix the broken land claims system. Fontaine called it "historic." Th e same word was used for the Kelowna Accord.
But band councils, elected bodies that operate like municipal governments with a chief instead of a mayor, are losing their grip.
A widespread upheaval of the band structure is coming and it will alter the relationship between Natives and
Kanesatake Grand Chief Stephen Bonspille, who was elected, says the band system has been a poisoned pill.
"It is divisive. There is no consensus building. It is majority rules all the time and that is the European way of doing things, it is not who we are," says Bonspille, whose community was at the centre of the
Mohawks of the
"In traditional times we did lose an awful lot of land. We can't say one system of government was the savior because we know it wasn't," says Maracle. "By the time we got the Indian Act system in place most of the land was already gone. All the elected council did was try to do the research to help the band regain some of its treaty area."
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The washed-out colours of home video footage play across the television with images of marches,
logging road blockades, the shutdown of Hwy. 117 in the year of
of every confrontation is a young, barrel-chested man named Jean-Maurice Matchewan.
Grey now dusts Matchewan's short cropped black hair, but he is once again preparing for another gruelling round of battles to pull his small, impoverished, 450- person community, 300 km north of
"Some people have said I am a militant guy. The only way the government will listen is if you do something that is serious," says Matchewan, who was selected chief by the community last August.
"Sometimes you get nowhere after a big protest. But we don't give up. You may get tired, but it has to be done."
The community is again planning to camp out on Parliament Hill -- which sits on Algonquin land -- on Friday, the proclaimed day of action on Native issues. The RCMP confiscated their tents the last time they took over the front lawn in 1988.
Many outsiders who have come to know
"There is absolutely no doubt, Indian Affairs used the division within the community scandalously, as a weapon," said Order of Canada recipient Boyce Richardson, a fi lmmaker and journalist who made a documentary about
A senoir Indian Affairs official flatly denied the accusation.
"I wouldn't work with the department if we acted like this," says Pierre Nepton, associate
HISTORY
A painting of former chief David Makokoose hangs behind Matchewan's television set. Makokoose was chief of
Off Hwy. 117 , down 7 km of graded gravel walled by green, the road opens to a cluster of houses where children run loose, their toys in the ditches, like the 24-hectare reserve was their back-yard.
The number of children worries Matchewan. He walks into one house, a young woman is resting on a mattress in the living room, a young child clings to the skirt of an older woman sitting at the kitchen table. Jackie Keyes, 47, says 10 people live here.
"Some sleep in the basement, some in the living room and the two bedrooms, " he says. "It's difficult."
The reserve has been bursting at the seams for years. Many houses are infested with mould and Health
In 2001, Indian Affairs decided to walk away from a $20-million deal to expand the land base, build new houses and a new school.
Nepton says the money was never promised. The original agreement, however, includes a breakdown of funding. The matter is now before the courts.
The department also pulled away from an internationally lauded agreement on co-management and sustainable development, versions of which are now demanded by First Nations in other parts of the country.
The department says it was taking too long and, at $5 million, too expensive.
The on-reserve Algonquin blockaded their one community to keep the imposed band council out. Indian Affairs cut off funding for education, health and welfare for a community with 90% unemployment.
"It was a starve or submit scenario," says NDP MP Charlie Angus, who worked with the community.
It was "the imposition and diktat of raw power by the department against a small community, without the resources or ability to defend itself," wrote former Liberal MNA Michel Gratton in a
The community chose to starve. They shut down the generator in midwinter and went back to living off the land for 18 months, skinning moose in the school and setting nets under the ice.
"We showed our kids about survival," said Michel Thusky, 53. "The community had no income, the children did not go to school, the community took a stand."
MEDIATOR'S DECISION
Last year, Indian Affairs froze its relations with the community after Jean-Maurice Matchewan was again selected chief through a codified process called "blazing" where the elders make a selection confirmed by consensus from the community.
The dissidents set up their own election and declared themselves the new administration.
A mediator was called in and Quebec judge Rejean Paul ruled Matchewan the legitimate leader (India Affairs) doesn't like Matchewan, and they don't like the people in place, but that is too bad, that is the choice of the people," says former MP and Quebec environment minister Cliff ord Lincoln, who continues to help the community.
After a large plate of freshly caught walleye, nicely breaded, and a side of potatoes, Matchewan sits outside his basement home with Thusky. The two have battled together for 20 years and they are girding for more. Thusky's bask is hurting still from a January confrontation with loggers. A large trampoline in the neighbour's yard is overwhelmed by children. Three young boys have a puppy cornered under a shed. The puppy snaps and barks, the boys laugh. Matchewan wanders over and gives them a soft reprimand in Algonquin.
They all understand it and speak it. It is the language of this place. Braveheart is a favourite movie around here. Many say they can relate to William Wallace and his attachment to the land - how self is born of place.
"They don't like to have Indian people have anything they want. They just want to keep them on reserve, put them on welfare. They don't care, they don't want to listen, they just want us to stay where we are," says Matchewan of Indian Affairs. "Me, I don't agree with that."