Monumental Hypocrisy

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canadian politics

The Harper Government is currently backing two huge “memorial” projects: First, the “Never Forgotten” National Memorial, more commonly called the Statue of “Mother Canada”, planned for construction in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. A friend of mine said she’d like to hear my opinion on this, so here it is: What a fucking waste.

Don’t get me wrong: I absolutely agree that we should be memorializing Canada’s war dead, I just don’t understand why we need an incredibly ugly, Statue of Liberty-sized sculpture coring out the centre of a ecologically sensitive national park. I’m not the only Canadian who feels this way, either: the Globe and Mail issued an editorial this week condemning the plan as “offensively tasteless”, a “brutal megalith” of the style “best left to Stalinist tyrants, theme-park entrepreneurs and insecure municipalities hoping to waylay bored drive-by tourists.” The kindest thing the editorial states about the plan is that it’s “hugely redundant” owing to the fact that there are already hundreds of memorials to Canada’s war dead across the country… not least of which is the very centre and symbol of Parliament Hill, the Peace Tower.

Other complaints about the planned monument include the destruction of a protected natural site in order to raise this monstrosity, and the (minimum) thirty million dollar price tag to build it.

Not being a veteran myself, one could argue that I’m just commenting from the peanut gallery, but considering the disgraceful failures of Veterans Affairs Canada, I’m personally of the opinion that a more fitting memorial to Canada’s war dead might be spending more on the support of surviving veterans… or if the Tories are really that dead-set against helping actual living people, I suppose they could just put the money into maintaining veteran’s gravestones.

The second ugly-ass monument that the Harper Government is trying to build is right in downtown Ottawa near the Supreme Court building. The “Tribute to Liberty” Memorial to the Victims of Communism project has been wracked with controversy, accusations of procedural wrongdoing and governmental interference, as well as the now-familiar Harper Government ambiguities about final cost.

Worst of all is the blatantly ideological motivation of the project: never mind that there’s a new Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, or for that matter the Canadian War Museum literally down the street (which I can personally attest is a profound and powerful site), the right-wing, neo-conservative Harper Government is grimly determined to have their pro-Conservative legacy parked on prime real estate fronting on Wellington Street. Ironically (and with rather morbid symbolism) the space where the memorial will be placed was originally intended for an expansion of either the Supreme Court or the National Library — despite their critical importance to Canadian governance, neither institution is held in much regard by Stephen Harper or his cronies.

To be clear: I have no love for the 20th century’s various versions of “Communism”. My father and grandparents suffered under Soviet rule before fleeing Hungary in the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution. While I personally identify as a leftist, but I have no illusions, no illusions at all, about the viability or desirability of Marxist-Leninist or Maoist Communism — they were not (and are not) “socialist” regimes, but the worst kind of totalitarianism tarted up with a lot of red stars and hypocritical slogans about “comradeship.” I believe strongly in the need for a (small-s) socialist approach to government, the need for workers’ unity, and for a moderate amount of state interference in the free market; I am emphatically opposed to any regime which rejects and abuses basic human rights, civil rights, or the rule of law for the convenience of the ruling class — all of which the supposedly “classless” Soviet Socialist Republics routinely did.

As a quick aside, I’ve always found modern self-professed Communists a little perplexing: If there’s one thing the twentieth century has demonstrated, it’s that the ends never justify the means; rather, the means shape the ends. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Soviet system: however idealistic the bolshevik revolution might have in the beginning, it put Josef Stalin in power within five years. The Revolution in Russia failed, as it would later fail in China, Cuba, Korea and almost every other nation where a “Socialist Republic” was installed. (And in any case, wherever a nominally Communist state still exists, such as China or Vietnam, they have had to embrace capitalist – and to a limited extent democratic – principles to bolster their economies and survive.) “Pure” Marxism just isn’t a viable political ideology… modern Communists have always seemed to me akin to Flat-Earthers, clinging to an obviously disproved ideology out of sheer obtuseness.

But for all my dislike of Soviet-style “Communism” I really, really don’t want to see this ugly monument built. The Toronto Star, earlier this year, published an editorial by no less a personage than Hungarian-Canadian doctor, speaker and author Gabor Maté denouncing the “cynical” Victims of Communism memorial as an “esthetic monstrosity” and “a tribute to moral obtuseness.” He was, in my opinion, understating the case.

For all the government’s pious declarations of “memorializing the fallen”, these two monuments have no real value except to serve as Stephen Harper’s neo-conservative ideological legacy. Each represents, in its own way, a facet of the hypocrisy of the Harper Government: “Mother Canada” is an aesthetically hideous, ecologically insensitive and completely redundant waste of taxpayer money which could be far better spent on actually helping veterans; the “Victims of Communism” is a brutalist concrete structure cynically imposed via government interference and overspending for the mere edification of the ruling party’s ideology.

We should not be celebrating such hypocrisy, much less carving it into everlasting stone.

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Good Riddance

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canadian politics, dean del mastro

It’s the day after my MP was sentenced for electoral fraud. Yesterday morning, I wrote that I didn’t feel “feel particularly excited or triumphant” about the fact that my former MP would be imprisoned for his crime, even if only for a month.

That was before two things happened: First, I watched this video of a handcuffed and shackled Dean shuffling to the paddywagon en route to the Central East Corrections Centre in Lindsay, Ontario. It was a literal walk of shame, a comprehensive image of how far the fall has been for the Right Honorable Dean del Mastro, MP for Peterborough, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Minster of Intergovernmental Affairs, and personal representative of the PM on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. When I said yesterday that I couldn’t “muster the scathing contempt” I’ve expressed in the past towards Dean del Mastro? I watched that video and it all came rushing back. It made it real to me, as I hope it’s now real to him.

This was a man who had everything: the trust of his constituents; a position in Parliament; the confidence of the Prime Minister of Canada; he was an honoured and respected member of the Canadian House of Commons and the Canadian Conservative Party. And in his greed, his arrogance and his desire for power, he pissed it all away. Hell, even the editors of our local very pro-Conservative (and very pro-del Mastro) newspaper acknowledge that Dean did this to himself. He cheated, he lied, and he tried to cover it up, and when he failed at that he tried to bully his way out of it.

And in the meantime, he did nothing, nothing to help the people of this city. He talked a big game about passenger rail and waterfront redevelopment, but the truth is that the city and county of Peterborough have not been substantially improved by the tenure of Dean del Mastro, MP (CPC), and in some ways could arguably be worse. Our unemployment rates are at a record high, our infrastructure is crumbling, and the last time I checked we still didn’t have a high-speed rail link to Toronto. And the party that del Mastro so proudly represented in vicious, underhanded partisanship has managed to embroil itself in scandal and mismanagement while thoroughly trashing the national economy and undermining the basic rights and freedoms of Canadians through their own arrogance, greed, and lust for power.

The second thing was finding out that Dean del Mastro has joined a very short list of MPs who have been convicted of crimes. In fact, if you exclude MP Svend Robinson, who got a conditional sentence of probation for shoplifting, Dean del Mastro is the first MP since 1943 to go to prison for crimes committed while in office. The only previous holder of that “distinction” was Labour-Progressive MP Fred Rose, who was convicted of espionage during the Gouzenko Affair. One-hundred-forty-plus years of Confederation, and there’s been exactly two MPs to receive jail time for crimes committed while in office and my MP, the man who claimed to represent my interests, gets to be one of them.

Yeah, that pissed me off.

I went back and read the post I wrote after his conviction, in which I directed a statement to del Mastro personally, and I find that it still stands. He’s a crook, a liar and a cheat; an insult to the very concept of democracy; an embarrassment to his political party and to the Parliament of Canada. He chose to break the law — not for any noble or altruistic reason, but for base and petty greed. He deserves his punishment, and a good deal worse, and I won’t waste any pity on him.

Perhaps he’ll be granted bail today pending the success of his appeal. I rather hope not. Considering the damage to voter confidence and democratic practices that he’s inflicted in this riding and across the country, I think thirty nights in jail is pretty damned light. Any sympathy I might have had for his incarceration evaporated rather quickly following the discussion of which of his residences he would be confined to during his house arrest; he represented a city which has the highest per-capita rate of homelessness in the country.

Dean del Mastro’s supporters can insult Justice Cameron’s intelligence, and make excuses for his failures, or even whine about the “totally unnecessary” use of leg irons en route to prison, but the simple fact of the matter is this: Dean del Mastro, a rich man, used his money and his privilege to cheat the system and break the law. He chose to violate elections spending rules, and then he chose to cover it up. He did not choose to help the most vulnerable members of his community, his constituency, or his country. He didn’t even try.

He’ll serve time in prison for his crimes, but it’s his failure — his refusal— to shoulder the responsibility of aiding the people he claimed to represent which truly fills me with contempt.

There Is No Joy In Mudville

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canadian politics, dean del mastro

Dean del Mastro, my disgraced former MP, has been sentenced for his crimes.

He will be required to pay reparations of $10,000 to the Conservative electoral association. He will serve one month in prison, four months house arrest, and eighteen months probation, and is also automatically banned from running for public office for five years.

I am of the personal opinion that he deserved the maximum sentence of twelve months prison time, but it is what it is. Considering that many believed he would receive a conditional sentence and therefore be eligible to run in this autumn’s election (and the local Tory riding association has been stalling their candidate choice, perhaps against that possibility?) I feel a certain amount of relief that won’t be the case.

A custodial sentence, as Justice Lisa Cameron stated this morning, is appropriate considering the high degree of moral culpability for his crime. It is worth noting that del Mastro’s co-defendant and official elections agent, Richard McCarthy, was found to have “lesser moral culpability” and received a one month conditional sentence of house arrest and twelve months of probation.

Yesterday del Mastro filed an appeal of his conviction and his lawyer will likely argue that he should remain out of jail on bail, pending the resolution of that appeal. It’s entirely possible that he won’t actually be spending any time in prison for the foreseeable future, but I suspect that whatever the outcome, del Mastro’s political career is effectively over. By the time he’s eligible to run for political office again, two federal elections down the road, the political landscape will have changed so much that he’ll won’t have enough favours to compensate for the enormous political drag of this conviction, even if he wanted to.

As a federal political candidate, Dean del Mastro is finished. Provincially, same problem. I suspect he probably could get elected to a municipal office in a few years, especially locally, but he’ll have an uphill fight.

So… this is good, right?

Not really. It’s good that a politician convicted of electoral fraud will be publicly punished as an example to the next dishonest shithead to come down the turnpike, but I don’t feel any triumph. This whole situation has been a demonstration of the flaws of Canadian electoral law and the parliamentary system. While it wasn’t mentioned in the trial, del Mastro used the shield of parliamentary privilege to effectively ruin Frank Hall, the whistleblower who went to Elections Canada with evidence of del Mastro’s wrongdoing. Despite his conviction, the net damage that del Mastro has caused to voter confidence and public cynicism is enormous.

As I write this, the court is in recess. Del Mastro and his wife are reportedly weeping in the courthouse hallway, surrounded by supporters who are denouncing Justice Cameron’s decision as “stupid.” Social media is going nuts.

I don’t feel particularly excited or triumphant about this. I can’t even muster the scathing contempt I’ve expressed in the past. Yes, I’m glad that justice has been served, and I do feel some satisfaction that the system has worked, at least a little, but mostly I just feel relief that this ugly spectacle is over.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
–Ernest Lawrence Thayer
Casey at the Bat

This Is Not Canada

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activism, canadian politics, politics

Bill C-51 received Royal Assent and was signed into law yesterday. I could go on a long rant about this terrible, anti-democratic legislation, but I wouldn’t be saying anything different than I’ve already said before, and (more than once) so I’ll spare you any more repetition… although you should definitely read the post on C-51 that Michael Harris put out last night, because he says it better than I do.

I was checking my Facebook messages before bed last night, and a friend had sent me across an article from the CBC titled C-51, controversial anti-terrorism bill, is now law. So, what changes? It includes a video interview with Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, who is quite enthusiastic about the new legislation as a way to “keep Canadians safe.” This is the same Steven Blaney who, just three days earlier, accused the NDP and Liberal parties of siding with terrorists when they questioned the government on the Voices-Voix report on the Harper Government’s campaign of harassing and silencing charities, NGOs and the civil service.

Well, so what? It’s just the same old partisan rhetoric, right?

Wrong.

As of yesterday afternoon “encouraging or promoting the commission of terrorism offenses in general” is a crime that can get you jailed… and one which has no clear legal definition within Bill C-51. The Public Safety Minister (and there’s an Orwellian job title) made comments in the House of Commons which signals the Harper Government’s willingness to threaten the opposition — or anyone else — with Bill C-51 if it suits their purposes.

Which brings me back to the other thing I found in my message feed last night: An invitation to an activist training workshop in preparation for the protests against the Pan Am Economic & Climate Summits being held at the Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto next month. The call to action states that protesters will, starting at about 6:30am, “swarm the Royal York Hotel, and disrupt those entering the Pan Am Climate and Economic Summits” before an early march up Bay Street and then a free lunch at City Hall. Despite organizers’ assurances that their goal is “a joyful protest” with “zero arrests” it’s going to be a raucous and noisy demonstration right at the center of Toronto’s transportation network during a Wednesday morning rush hour, with all the turmoil, disruption and police presence that implies.

And if I were ten years younger, I’d be right in the middle of it.

Under Bill C-51, “interfering with the ability of the Canadian government to maintain economic or fiscal stability” and “interference with critical infrastructure” are both terrorist acts. Every organizer of this event, every workshop trainer, every street medic, every activist, every person who attends planning sessions or training workshops, or even links to the Facebook page, could be found guilty of “encouraging or promoting the commission of terrorism offenses in general” on the mere whim of CSIS, the RCMP or the Harper Government.

And that, right there, should scare the hell out of all of us. At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law, we should be extremely wary of a government which has created an extrajudicial State Security agency lacking with little or no civilian oversight, especially a government which has been signalling its willingness to stifle dissent.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with Bill C-51. I hope that the Supreme Court will overturn it as a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I hope that the NDP will win this autumn’s election and keep their promise to repeal it. I hope the democratic values which Canadians treasure, which they’ve fought and even died for, come through.

But this morning I look at the protest planning around the Pan-Am Climate & Economic Summit — no different than the planning for any of a dozen similar protests I was involved with during my twenties — and I wonder if it’s even going to happen. I’m afraid, genuinely afraid, that instead of a boisterous street demonstration we’ll see preventative detentions, CSIS “disrupting” activist organizations, organizers being arrested and jailed without warrant or trial under the provisions of C-51. I’m worried that people I know, ordinary Canadians, will be subjected to “enhanced interrogation” techniques, which are permitted so long as they do no “serious or permanent bodily damage.”

It’s a fine, cool summer morning. The sun is shining, I’m drinking coffee in front of my computer, and I’m contemplating — without any hyperbole whatsoever — whether or not my government is going to waterboard citizen activists this summer.

What has happened to my country?

Back Out on the Water

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sailing

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been looking at crewing at a local yacht club as reasonably inexpensive way of getting back into sailing. Yesterday, I took the plunge and went down to the club because it was their first posted “Sunday Schedule” race.

There wasn’t a race. It turns out that, on Saturday (one of the very few days in the past week when it hasn’t been raining) the club had their annual sail-to-the-next-yacht-club-over-and-have-a-barbecue event. When I arrived, an hour before the posted race start time as I’d been advised to do, I did not find a bustling boat basin readying for the pressures of a race, I found a very quiet club with various people drinking coffee, tidying their boats after a long day’s sail and (I suspect) a couple of sailors nursing hangovers. The day’s racing, it became very quickly clear, was not going to happen.

So that was a bit disappointing, because I was kind of hoping to get out on the water, but I certainly wasn’t going to be a jerk about it. I made the point of introducing myself to some folks, however, and everyone seems nice. K & J, a brother and sister sailing team who arrived shortly after I did, were particularly friendly and gave me lots of advice for what to look for in a boat, dished a bit on how the club works (it all seems very casual) and then announced that they were taking their boat Wind Song out for a sail, race or no race. They very generously invited me aboard, keeping a running commentary on rigging, boat handling, equipment and the state of the harbour mouth, which apparently has silted up rather badly.

We spent a couple of hours out on the water, first on a beam reach due south for about an hour, then on the opposite beam reach north back to the harbour. After we cleared the warehouses on either side of the harbour mouth the wind was from the east at about Force 5 and the swell was moderate, so it was ideal weather for sailing a small boat. Wind Song, a Macgregor 26D, has a cockpit which sits a lot higher above the water than I’m used to, so I definitely felt the motion of the boat, but I’m pleased to say that although I got a mite queasy once in a while, I did not get seasick. (Being in the cockpit helped: I have no doubt that if I were below I’d have been tossing my cookies tout suite.) The height of the cockpit also had the advantage of keeping us very dry; only once or twice did we get hit by spray and we never had any waves break into the cockpit.

I was, however, struck by several things. First, my previous sailing experience is almost entirely on Lake Erie, so the colour of the water on Lake Ontario was notably different; sort of a deep blue-green under the grey overcast of the sky — Lake Erie water is almost always silt-brown (when it’s not algae-green.)

Second, the I’m very glad I thought to over-dress for the occasion and bring a warm windbreaker. My sailing out of Port Stanley was always later in the season, and Lake Erie, by the end of the summer, is pleasantly warm. Yesterday, Lake Ontario was cold, about 10 degrees colder out on the water than in the harbour; protected by bluffs and big buildings the habour basin was almost flat calm: it felt like a summer’s day, albeit a cool and rainy one. Out on the water I was very forcefully reminded that not three months ago the ice cover on Lake Ontario was close to 97%… and that was before the rain started. When I mentioned this to J her cheerful comment was “You don’t want to go swimming in that today!”

I get the impression that the words “pleasantly warm” and “Lake Ontario” are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the same sentence. It’s something to think about… and plan around.

Third, and this was something I’d forgotten, it’s nice to be able to talk on a boat. While it’s been almost a decade since I’ve gone sailing I have been out on powerboats, and they’re not even remotely the same. Usually you have to yell to be heard over the throb of the engines, the slamming of the hull into the waves and the roar of the wind caused by your speed; the deck of a sailboat tends to be a quiet place; it’s easy to have a pleasant chat… or even to just sit back and enjoy the sounds of the water against the hull and the wind in the rigging.

And it was nice, really nice, to just be out on the water. One of the things I’ve always liked about sailing is, once you’ve cast off and are underway, that’s the only thing which matters. The boat becomes the whole world, and you focus only on those things that interact directly with that world: the wind, the waves, the sun and rain, other boats passing nearby in their own personal worlds, the white towers of the sails and the green sweep of the land away to the north. You don’t worry about bank accounts or emails or facebook or selfies or paperwork or finding a job, because those things just don’t matter to the boat or the task of sailing her; they simply don’t touch the world out there. I’ve always found it an incredible release from stress.

So, yeah, I had a pretty good afternoon. I’m more determined than ever to get my own boat and start sailing, and from what I’ve seen of the club I definitely think it’s worth getting involved with for its own sake; lots of friendly people and some real benefits from being involved in the community.

And it looks like I’ve got some free time next Sunday, too…

Not An Aboriginal Problem, A Canadian Problem

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activism, canadian politics, native issues, racism

Yesterday, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issued its absolutely epic report on the impact of Canada’s policies towards the First Nations, particularly its long-running colonial program to disrupt and negate Native culture; for generations it was the official policy of the Canadian government to force the assimilation of Native people into “white” culture, particularly through the practice of removing Native children from their homes and placing them in residential schools, where they would be “civilized.”

Year after year Native children would be removed from their homes, by force or threat of force, taken long distances, made to live for years in crowded, prison-like institutions, punished and abused if they spoke their native language or failed to “act white”. It was the official government policy that Native culture was worthless and had to be destroyed; it quickly followed that Native people were likewise worthless. Abuse, disease, neglect and death were a fact of life in these schools: one of the more horrifying discoveries of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is that the death rate among Native children in residential schools equalled that of Canadian troops fighting the Second World War. For generations.

Think about that.

The Commission has described the practice as “cultural genocide” and they are right to do so. If you look at the numbers, it is absolutely mind-boggling. It is horror on an ghastly, numbing scale. It is a dark and shameful crime perpetuated by our country, Canada, on our own people… and it is one that most white Canadians have tried to block from their own awareness. The vicious, casual racism that many whites direct at Natives in this country has its roots in those policies. Native people are still widely regarded as worthless, semi-educated children who can’t run their own lives; shiftless, drunken, cigarette-smuggling loafers who get everything handed to them on a silver plate by the government… and if you don’t believe that Canadians feel that way, read literally any comment section on any news story about any Native issue or protest in this country. The hate is sickening.

And what’s really tragic is how many Native people have internalized that anti-Native racism. For generations they’ve been told they are lesser and lived under laws rooted in 19th-century racialist pseudoscience — in fact one of the most bizarre conversations I’ve ever had was when a couple of Native activists explained to me the theory of blood quantum, whereby Native people are judged for their eligibility for official status based on how “pure” their blood is. (This was discussed in such a totally nonchalant, matter-of-fact way that it was disorienting, as though I’d stumbled into a Flat-Earther meeting or had my family doctor refer me to a phrenologist.) While it might seem ridiculous, blood quantum matters a great deal to Native communities because government funding, taxation status and property rights are utterly dependent on holding official “Indian” status.

Regularized and even government-sanctioned anti-Native racism in our national character is why Native people can be marginalized, abused, and swept aside even in the twenty-first century. Poverty, crime, substance abuse are all hideously endemic in Native communities… and white Canadians don’t care. Natives are disproportionally over-represented in the prison population and disproportionally under-represented on juries and in government… and white Canadians don’t care. Natives are frequently — almost routinely — victims of violence, abduction, rape and murder… and white Canadians don’t care.

In the face of that, it frankly amazes me that Native people aren’t literally up in arms in this country. The occasional protest, occupation or blockade are only surprising in their infrequency. Native anger in this country is not about injustices which happened hundreds of years ago. It isn’t about — or at least not primarily about — injustices which have happened in recent generations. Native anger is about the injustices which happened yesterday, literally yesterday, the injustices which are happening today, and especially about the injustices which will continue to happen tomorrow.

(At this point I feel like I should insert the usual caveat “painting with a broad brush, not all white Canadians are like that, blah blah blah.” Yeah, I’m not going to bother. If white Canadians, and I’m including myself in this assessment, truly gave a shit about Native suffering, then something would have been done. Take water accessibility, for example: When there was an E. coli outbreak in Walkerton Ontario, it became a national outrage; ninety-one First Nations communities currently don’t have access to clean water and it doesn’t make the news. There has been no political will in this country to resolve the very real issues that Native people face. The whole point behind this blog post — not to mention the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report — is that situation needs to change.)

The relationship between white Canadians and Native Canadians is an open, running sore in our national consciousness… and in our subconscious, too. The first step is admitting there’s a problem: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s purpose is to bring these facts into the open and find a path to begin the healing. Its report is a groundbreaking, historic, and of vital importance not only to Native people, but to all Canadians whether they accept that fact or not. The Commission’s report does not seek to lay blame, but to establish responsibility and makes ninety-four recommendations as a necessary start towards healing the terrible wounds inflicted on the First Nations. Those recommendations include new education respecting Native languages and culture; a public inquiry into the epidemic of missing and murdered aboriginal women; an annual State of Aboriginal Peoples report to be delivered to the House by the Prime Minister; funding for memorials, commemorations and education in order that the terrible losses suffered by the First Nations will never be forgotten; and most of all the government’s recognition of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Committee’s recommendations represent the best opportunity in generations, possibly the best opportunity in Canadian history, to resolve the conflict between colonizer and colonized. Not to sweep it under the rug, but to acknowledge our ugly history, to accept it, and to find a new path beyond it. It calls for an act of courage and unity by Canadians — all Canadians — to learn from the mistakes of the past and fix the system our forebears created. It calls for us to end the injustices and provide a decent life for all our people, native and non-native alike.

So of course, just hours after the Commission released its report, the Canadian government under Stephen Harper has made it clear that they will do nothing about it.

The first indication of that attitude was during the ceremonial release of the report itself. The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Bernard Valcourt, refused to applaud when the Commission recommended a national inquiry on missing and murdered aboriginal women.

If you want an image of everything that’s wrong with the government’s approach to Native people, that’s it, right there: A white Tory politician sitting awkwardly on his ass during a standing ovation. A Conservative cabinet minister, whose portfolio is Aboriginal Affairs, casually signalling with folded hands and an uneasy grin his government’s rejection of the efforts of the Commission.

And I can’t even feel surprised. Of course the Conservatives won’t do shit: The status quo works just fine for them. Natives keep getting uppity about oil pipelines and resource extraction on their land. Providing clean water and decent housing on Native reservations is going to cost money, and it won’t earn votes; hell, there may even be a backlash from reactionary white Canadians, a demographic which traditionally votes Conservative. Truth? Reconciliation? Doing the right thing for all Canadians? Just what in Harper’s record would make anyone think any of those things would be a priority?

I’ve been trying to come up with words for how I feel Harper’s government this morning and I’m really drawing a blank. Not that I can’t find words, but that I can’t find words that are big enough. Callousness doesn’t cover it. Cowardice is too small. Disgrace, stupidity, short-sightedness, failure of vision, lack of integrity, moral turpitude… none of them come close to covering the utter exhausted disgust I feel towards the Harper Conservatives this morning. They didn’t even wait a day before making it clear that they don’t give a damn about Native people. They didn’t even try to hide the fact that they don’t care.

For me, if there was one hopeful thing about yesterday, (however small) it was also to be found in the picture above: Take a look again at the person standing next to Bernard Valcourt, literally towering over the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs? That’s Thomas Mulcair, leader of the New Democratic Party and hopefully (please Goddess) our next Prime Minister. I think it was pretty telling that he was the only party leader to attend the ceremony. I hope his presence signals a willingness by the NDP to commit to the recommendations of the Commission, because it’s going to take enormous effort to address these issues, to repair a broken system and heal broken people. It won’t happen quickly or cheaply or easily. There will be scars. Real courage, real compassion, and leadership are required… and it’s obvious those qualities simply do not exist within Stephen Harper’s government.