For years people — more than he cares to admit are his own people in Tyendinaga — have urged Shawn Brant to shut up and go away. He didn't listen. Finally Brant said he was going to shut up and go away. Apparently he doesn't listen to himself either.
Less than a year after saying he would "never ask for nothing from nobody again," the noted Mohawk protester showed up Saturday at a sod turning event for the new skateboard park at Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory to confront Prince Edward-Hastings MP Daryl Kramp about the Harmonized Sales Tax and its impact on First Nations communities.
"To think they can come into our community and glad-hand or give the perception that we're somehow relinquishing any opposition to the Harmonized Sales Tax based on receiving a skateboard park ... Our young people deserve that and it's going to be a great facility for them, but it can't be taken in sense of a government spending priority when so many other social issues exist," Brant said.
"Hopefully he takes (Saturday) as a lesson and he knows he's not welcome on Mohawk land."
First, when did anyone elect Brant to speak on behalf of the Mohawk people?
Second, how can celebrating one of the few good developments between the federal government and native people be seen as anything but a good thing? Certainly no one we know was saying, "Take the skate park and shut up about everything else."
Just what entitles Brant, an unelected troublemaker who hasn't put his name to a single positive venture for anybody that we can recall, to disrupt things under the laughable assertion he is somehow doing something good for his people?
Kramp, to his credit, kept his cool and pointedly put the entire incident in context.
He noted Brant does not speak for everyone on the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and said his comment "displays a shocking amount of ignorance.
"There's a tremendous group of people on the reserve who are wonderful, caring people who have contributed so much to their community. My goal is to work with one and all and not be intimidated by one person who has no respect for procedure or other people."
Good for Kramp. Brant should listen to his words. However, since he can't even listen to himself, it seem likely he will continue to go around making an ass of himself for some time to come.