A letter re accountability to Saskatchewan Senators

Dear Senators from Saskatchewan:

I wish to strenuously object to the passage by the Senate of the Financial Transparency and Accountability Act.  Please allow me to explain why.  

First of all, this proposed Act was initiated as a Private Members Bill by an MP from Saskatchewan who does not even have any First Nations home Reserves in her federal electoral district.  That in itself, without addressing the specific contents, of the proposed Act is a clear indication of the untoward spirit and intent of her Bill.  It is highly unlikely that any First Nations have asked her to do this.  If she is representing her constituents in proceeding with this bill, she is representing the underside of some very ignorant and racist notions about what actually goes on with First Nations and the Aboriginal Affairs Department.  I find it difficult to understand how a chamber of sober, second thought would want to lend credence to such motivations.  

Secondly, passage of this Act would further inflame the passions and motivation of the Idle No More movement and other initiatives underway by Aboriginal movements.  If I am correct, as one who fully supports Idle No More, I suppose I should really welcome the passage of this Act. But my better judgement would urge you not to add fuel to the fire.  I believe the issues that Idle No More and others are dealing with are sufficient to ensure that this movement will continue until its demands regarding land and water and First Nations sovereignty and the Treaties are met.  Aboriginal people need some indication that the Government of Canada, even if only the Senate, is treating them with respect and dignity, not further disdain and superiority.  

Thirdly, Canada must come to terms with the historical and legally established fact that First Nations never did concede sovereignty in their own territory.  Truthfulness (transparency) and accountability are character traits within the indigenous world view, not matters that can be legislated.  It is, as it were, a law written on the heart, and not a piece of paper or written document that will bring truth speaking and accountability about.  To impose a law would be counterproductive, and probably achieve the opposite of transparency and accountability.  To wit, note the difficulty that the House of Commons, and more recently the Senate, has in ensuring accountability, despite the accountability act that Steven Harper brought in.  The Parliamentary Budget Officer has to go to court to ensure he gets the information required to do his job, same thing goes for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and MP's refuse to let the Auditor General give an accounting on their salaries.  In fact, I am making two points here: 1) clean up your own act first before you go pointing the finger at others; and 2) you have no right to tell First Nations about standards of accountability and transparency, not only because the House and Senate and corporate CEO's are not doing it, but more importantly, because that is First Nations business, not yours.  Nothing in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 or the historic Treaties says anything about First Nations giving up their sovereignty or their capacity to govern themselves.  

Fourthly, there is nothing in the Indian Act (racist as it is) and regulations of the Aboriginal Affairs Department that prevents departmental officials from doing what Bill C-27 proposes to do.  In view of the controls that AANDD has, this proposed Act is redundant.  It is not necessary.  Why should special legislation be passed when AANDD can already do what the legislation wants to authorize?  I have some answers for that question but I don't think you would want to hear them.  

Finally, I have worked with First Nations and other Aboriginal organizations for almost 30 years, and I have a very good sense how onerous and oppressive current controls by AANDD are on a FN government.  They also create a double standard.  To impose further controls and paperwork upon the staff and government officials of a FN Band would in many cases be impossible to bear.  If this Act is passed, it should be accompanied with a whole lot of new money to help pay for the bureaucracy it would create.  Furthermore, many FN's are spawning businesses or economic development initiatives which, if they had to publish what this Act is demanding, would put these businesses at a distinct economic disadvantage in a very competitive world.  Once again, by voting in favour of this Act, you would be imposing a double standard.  Non-Aboriginal business have no such standard of accountability, and many of the big corporations are engaged in activities for which they should also be held criminally accountable.  Once again, clean up our own house first.  A good example is the best teacher. 

How did we get to this place?

I just signed a petition asking the Governor-General of Canada to use his reserve powers to force the resignation of Steven Harper as Prime Minister.  At first I was reluctant because I know it probably won't achieve the outcome.  Besides, he is just a puppet of the corporations that currently control the Government of Canada.  To wait for an election seems pointless to me for a number of reasons: 1) democracy is broken in Canada, thanks in part to the first past the post system; 2) with the damage Harper has done over the past two years with a so-called majority government, this country cannot bear another 2 or 3 years of the same and even worse; 3) a corporate state such as ours is politically and morally blind; if its back is not broken, it will exercise its influence over whatever party is in power (except possibly the Greens); and, 4) with only 60% of eligible Canadian voters exercising their right, it is quite probable that Steven Harper could get another majority with only 23-24% of that vote.

After taking a long walk in the Saskatchewan winter snow, taking all this into consideration, I signed the petition after all.  As a pacifist, regardless how dire, dismal and treacherous the circumstances, I must always choose hope even when the situation appears as desperate as ours.  Besides, I have always lived my life on the basis of principles, not pragmatics (maybe that's why I have so much time to do all this writing).  The principle involved here is that we must fully exploit all peaceful, non-violent means to deal with the despot in Ottawa, even if they don't work.  Should the situation deteriorate, the resistance to the corporate state will stay strong and vibrant knowing we exercised all the democratic and civil rights and means available.  By no means, however, does this rule out civil disobedience to unjust laws.

But the big question I keep asking myself is, how did we get ourselves into such a mess that we have to resort to drastic measures such as petitions to get the Prime Minister to resign. What happened in Canada that a minority Tea Party-like movement has actually seized the reigns of government?

As citizens, we have been subjected to shutting down Parliament to prevent cooperation among parties representing the majority, criminals, scam-artists and racists being hired by the PM as senior advisers and other positions, wholesale destruction of the environment, denial of climate change and firing of scientists who are there to protect the environment, allowing undemocratic interests such as oil, energy and mining corporations to dictate policy, subverting democracy with deception, suppression and robocalls, appointment of Senators of unsound character and questionable ability, termination and undermining of Treaties with the original Nations residing in Canada, defamation of decent and civil-minded leaders of the democratically elected opposition to the government, abandoning our peace-keeping approach and engaging in wars with combat and destructive weaponry, putting health of Canadians at risk by cutting food inspectors and reducing labelling, getting rid of CIDA and having mining companies operating overseas engaged in oppressive activities deliver foreign aid, subverting democratic debate with Omnibus Bills, even considering buying a high-tech bomber such as the F-35 and then lying about how much it costs, declaring environmentalists as dangerous radicals, officially investigating Cindy Blackstock on the level of a terrorist simply because she advocates on behalf of Aboriginal children, undermining the attempts of the Parliamentary Budget Officer to bring about accountability in Parliament, etc., etc., etc.  Cumulatively, this makes the sponsorship scandal which brought down the Liberals seem like peanuts. And yet far too many Canadians are content to sit there and take it.  Thank God for Idle No More.

To answer the question of how we got here, I believe one of the key factors, though not the only one, has to do with rage and fear.  People have fear about what they don't know about and are enraged when they only have partial facts.  Throw in a bit of pseudo-morality which you want to impose on the whole society into that emotional powder keg of rage and fear, and what you have is a very destructive force.  In the U.S., they call this the Tea Party, but in Canada we have the conservative-reform-alliance party. Now, I still operate under the assumption that the majority of people in Canada are decent, progressive and reasonably informed citizens (possibly an illusion).  Yet in Ottawa we have a government that does not represent this majority.  So what happened?

I put much of the blame on the media.  Preposterous and outlandish views sell.  So when Preston Manning came along giving vent to a certain type of grassroots people in Western Canada and rural Ontario who were feeling left out and ignored by "central" Canada, instead of dismissing them as bizarre, eccentric or even "radical", as is so often done in the media, they paid attention to this movement and thus reform and alliance movement became accommodated by the mainstream.  It is important to note that when the Greens came along, the mainstream media never gave them the kind of attention given to Reform and Alliance.  Perhaps the Greens are too reasonable and sensible, and that, of course, won't sell newspapers or get advertisers for the TV news shows.  Or perhaps Green policies may actually do something about the environment, or poverty or encouraging First Nations to be Nations. Goodness gracious! We can't have that!

The problem is that before they fully took over the government, corporate influences had to control the media first - which they have done. So by abandoning investigative reporting, feeding people half-truths and ignoring certain questions entirely, reinforcing certain stereotypes, and featuring highly opinionated pundits and commentators of a certain ideological stripe, the media ensures that a significant portion of the voting public does not have the facts people require to make informed choices in a democracy.  Who fills the vacuum? Why, the corporate interests, of course.

Maybe its because I used to be a reporter and editor, or because I have run for public office several times but the words of Leonard Cohen in "Anthem" keep ringing in my ear:
"I can't run no more 
with that lawless crowd while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me."
That is why I am going to continue to "ring the bells that still can ring" and "forget my perfect offering." Why?
Because, "there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."