A rchive Date
[ 12-11-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Why aboriginals ignore elections
By ROSANNA DEERCHILD - Winnipeg Sun
November 6, 2000It's time to vote. Again. Wasn't it just yesterday we had a provincial election in Manitoba? Geez, here I was just ridding my vocabulary of political jargon such as riding, campaign, platform and bullsh - uh - scratch that. It was exhausting. Wiped me out.
Now I have to do it all over again on a larger scale. Is there no end?
Ah, well. It's unavoidable, I suppose. People everywhere are talking about it.
Who will lead Canada in this, the new millennium? They're calling it a two-party race. We could stay with the Liberals, with their financial responsibility and tax cuts. Or we could go with the Canadian Alliance's Time For a Change campaign.
From coffee shops to water coolers, Canadians are debating the Federal Election 2000.
In Indian country people are - well - pretty quiet. In fact, you could hear a pin drop in most aboriginal communities when it comes to the federal election --or any other election for that matter. Most reserve residents probably don't even know there's a federal election going on.
That's because by and large, Aboriginal people don't vote.
And just like everything, there are reasons for it. Aboriginal people were excluded - outlawed - from voting by the Indian Act that still governs our lives. As status Indians, my grand parents were not allowed to vote. Why? They weren't considered Canadian citizens.
We got the vote some time in the late 1960s, long after women. But just because it's wiped from the books doesn't mean it's wiped from the consciousness. We were segregated for so long, many native people don't feel part of this country.
Whether it's because of the physical separation of reserve living or the race line, they don't feel as though they have a stake, a voice, a piece of the national fabric. So why would they vote for the leader of that nation?
Then there is the school of thinking that says we, as a nation, should not participate in the white man's political games. If we truly consider ourselves sovereign nations, they argue, it would be hypocritical to participate in another political system.
The counter argument to that is that the Canadian system, political or otherwise, is here whether we like it or not. It overshadows everything in our lives. Indeed, it runs our lives. Until self-government is unilaterally declared, we have the opportunity to try and effect decisions of the majority.
Whatever the argument, it's working to keep native people out.
It's a frightening scenario when you consider both parties in this two-horse race are using aboriginal people, much like a carrot on a stick.
No sooner had the race begun than the Liberals and the Canadian Alliance were pushing us out onto their precarious platforms.
Before one side could finish bragging about how much they've given us in self-government negotiations, partnership agreements and dollars for residential school healing, the other one is throwing accusations of overspending and mismanagement.
We are like the child in the middle of a bitter custody dispute. We're not even the favourite child, just the easiest to argue about.
Of course they both have their "aboriginal policies." Neither addresses the problems of high rates of disease, poverty and death.
One parent wants to continue throwing bits of candy in the form of negotiations that eat up dollars the other parents wants to cut off the allowance and ground us forever.
And us, well, we just want to turn 18 and get the heck out of the house.
Rosanna Deerchild can be reached by email at rdeerchild@aptn.ca
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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