Canada

Budget cuts will create
new tensions in debate
over aboriginal rights

OTTAWA — Last week the
Assembly of First Nations called a
press conference here to release its
analysis of the federal budget
entitled, ““A Budget in Grief.” As
grand chief Georges Erasmus
began to speak, television crews
and other media who had been ata
previous press conference, began
to pack up their things — appar-
ently for the mainstream media,
Native issues are not news and not
worthy of their time.

According to Erasmus, it is
exactly that indifference that the
Mulroney government counted on
when it targeted aboriginal people
to bear the brunt of the budget
cuts. “First nations and aboriginal
people have been targeted in Wil-
son’s budget because this govern-
ment believes that there are no
adverse political consequences
— no one will get upset about a
few Indians,” Erasmus said.

A Budget in Grief shows how
wrong that is. It outlines, not just
the callousness of the budget, but
also the outright lies used to justify
the cuts. The federal government
said that expenditures to Indian
and Inuit programs rose 10.6 per
year. But statistics reveal that, in
fact, federal expenditures to abo-
riginal peoples and government
have declined an average of 2.2 per
centa year — I1 percent over the
last five years.

This decline has come at a time
of massive population growth —
the status Indian population has
increased 33.7 per cent over the
past five years, with resulting
demands on housing, education
and employment. The Mulroney
government has chosen the worst
possible time for the cuts.

The AFN believes that most
Canadians, if made aware of the
facts, will not support the $52 mil-
lion slated to be slashed from
Native programs over the next five
years. They will not accept 62
Native political organizations hav-
ing their budgets completely cut or
the 11 Native newspapers and 13
northern Native broadcast offices
coming under the knife.

There are constitutional and
treaty rights which the federal
government is violating in this
budget but at another level these
cuts can bee seen as an attempt to

Paul Ogresko

time when aboriginal people were
relegated to the backwaters of
Canadian politics — ignored or
patronized by conservatives and
progressives alike.

That has begun to change, only
because Native people fought for
recognition of their fundamental
rights and set up organizations and
leaders who were determined to be
heard. Erasmus has said there will
be no going back. Native political
organizations until now have
chosen peaceful methods of achiev-
ing self-determination and, when
all else failed, used tactics of pas-
sive resistance, such as road blocks
and sit-ins, to stop encroachment
on their land and rights.

Unfortunately, as the budget
indicates, that got them nowhere.

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COMMENTARY

Erasmus has said there is a new
generation of Native people who
will not be willing to waste their
time in negotiations with the fed-
eral and provincial governments
when it is obvious these bodies will

do everything in their power to get +

rid of aboriginal rights.

Fhe potential for violent con-
frontation is increasing. It will be a
new type of violence because the
internal violence borne of poverty
and despair claims victims every-
day on reserves across this country.
But if these cut go through, as
Erasmus has. warned, it may be a
new type of violence we might
see — not internal but directed at
those responsible — and _ those
responsible are the people who
have drawn up this budget.

GEORGES ERASMUS... government believes that cutting Native
turn the clock back 25 years to a funding won't bring adverse political consequences.

Statistics reveal disparity

@ In 1989, 70 per cent of the reserve Indian
population was dependent on government social

assistance.

®@ Life expectancy for male and female Indians
will be over eight years lower than their Canadian

counterparts in 1991.

@ Indian infant mortality rates are more than
double the Canadian rate (17.2 compared to 7.9

per 1000 babies).

@ Violent deaths in first nation communities
are nearly three times the national average (157
compared to 54.3 per 100,000 population).

@ The people with the lowest average personal
income ($9,300 per year) are reserve Indians, one

(1.8 per cent).

half the Canadian average ($18,200 per year).
@ Over-crowding in reserve homes (about 30
per cent) has risen to 16 times the Canadian rate

@ Nearly 40 per cent of reserve homes have no
central heating, compared to only five per cent of
Canadian homes. _

e [Indian children are four times more likely
than Canadian children to be in the care of child
welfare agencies.

@ Functional illiteracy — those people with
less than a grade nine education — for first
nations is 45 per cent or 2.5 times the Canadian
rate of 17 per cent.

6 « Pacific Tribune, April 2, 1990

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIF!

CRS
— RADA

Senate returns UI bill

The Senate voted again last week to send Bill C-21, the Tories’
contentious bill gutting the uynemployment insurance program,
back to the Commons, the second time the upper house has
demanded amendments to the legislation.

The Senate had earlier demanded changes to the bill but the Tory
majority in the Commons had rejected any amendments, instead
sending the bill back to the Senate unchanged.

Before seeking the amendments, the Senate had held its own
hearings at which scores of organizations condemned the bill for
dismantling one of Canada’s most important social programs.
Several groups, including the Canadian Labour Congress, had
called on the upper house to kill the legislation but the Senate
rejected that course, opting instead to seek amendments.

“If the government wants to play a ping-pong game and sent it
back again, ... (it) should know this time that the Senate is really
serious,” said Liberal Senator Jacques Hebert, chair of the commit-
tee studying the bill.

NAC hits ‘witch hunt’

A fundamentalist sect has charged a Lethbridge feminist with
responsibility for a series of teen suicides over the past couple of
months. Some family members of the victims have also claimed
that Terri Marco, a part-time staff representative for the Alberta
Status of Women Action Committee in Lethbridge, is a witch who
has been inculcating local youth with Satanism and cults.

The truth, says Anne McGrath, Alberta representative for the
National Action Committee on the Status of Women, “is that Terri
is a very kind and warm person. Young people who had been
kicked out of school or their own homes and had nowhere else to
go, knew they had a friend in Terri.” es

One of the teens who committed suicide was discovered in
Marco’s basement by her daughter. “It was very traumatic for them
both,” says McGrath, “‘but it is hardly proof that Terri was respon-
sible for the boy’s death.”

The families are receiving financial backing from the First Bap-

tist Church, whose spokespersons have threatened vigilante action 5

if the authorities do not move against Marco. Marco is now under
protective surveillance.

Public meetings have kept community hysteria at a pitch with
sessions on how to spot cult activity among young people. A
metallic coloured t-shirt was cited as a sign.

McGrath believes the connection between feminism and Sata-
nism came from a Lethbridge conference hosted by the Alberta
Federation of Women United for the Family, an affiliate of
R.E.A.L. Women, at which a guest speaker accused feminists “‘of
smearing menstrual blood on their faces and holding ceremonies by
the light of the full moon.”

The NAC rep says the response to the youngsters’ deaths reflects
the deep-seated racism in the community. “Lethbridge is sur-
rounded by Indian reserves where every week some young person
dies a violent death. There is no community outcry over this
ongoing tragedy.”

Clark tackled over GST

Special to the Tribune

External Affairs minister Joe Clark is a doomed man, his critics
say.

The MP from Yellowhead, Alberta was in his home riding last
weekend and got hands-on experience at just how deeply passions
run against his government’s proposed Goods and Services Tax.

Clark met with 20 members of the Alberta section of the Pro-
Canada Network March 16, as part of its campaign to meet with
every MP in the province on the GST.

During the tense half-hour exchange, PCN Edmonton co-
ordinator Merle Schnee ordered Clark not to “get up and run
away” from the meeting which had been scheduled to last an hour.

PCN Alberta spokesperson, Lucien Royer, put the minister on
notice. “If you vote in favour of the GST we are committed to
working against you in the next election.”

It is not just trade unionists and representatives of peoples’
organizations who are predicting the demise of MPs who voted for
the proposed tax, which will add seven per cent to everything from
funerals to hair cuts to yogurt.

“Joe Clark is doomed,” said Steve Wilcox, president of the
Whitecourt Chamber of Commerce. The association of conserva-
tive, small town, entrepreneurs had insisted Clark attend a public
meeting on the tax.

The Alberta PCN campaign is already showing results. Tory
MPs Alex Kindy, David Kilgour, Willie Littlechild and Louise
Feltham have all stated they will either vote against, or miss the vote
onthe GST. The Conservative majority in Parliament means a total
of 30 government MPs would have to oppose the bill for it to be
defeated.

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