As Cree youth complete 1000 mile protest trek to Ottawa, PM Harper is in Toronto to greet... pandas!

Shows the man's priorities.

Why bother greeting a bunch of pain-in-the-ass natives when you can enjoy a photo-op with cuddly pandas from China instead?

Alas, we already know that in ten years those cuddly panda bears will be going home to China. They are strictly loaner-pandas.

The Cree are still going to be here ten years from now, twenty years from now, 100 years from now, demanding their rightful place in Canadian society.

Canadian media discover racism against First Nations

Indians.

You know who I mean.

Aboriginals. Native Peoples.

The folks we stole the land from.

It's one honkin' big story today that First Nation folks are outrageously over-represented in Canada's prison population.

A few voices on the margins of the colonist world have been trying to tell this story forever.

Not to mention the entirety of the Native population.

But it's getting worse. All the trend-lines are pointing in the wrong direction.

And suddenly the media big-boys are presenting a hand-wringing spectacle designed to grab your attention for the two or three days their focus groups tell them you can pay attention.

A few days of sanctimonious headlines, some throw-away government commitment to studying this, and we'll be back to business as usual. 

Maybe this time things can be different...

Idle no more!

Big Chief Harper's favorite Indian casts rude aspersions on Chief Spence

Think what you will of Theresa Spence's hunger strike; at least she was doing something.

Something that contrasts starkly with Patrick Brazeau's anti-Spence smear campaign.

Brazeau has been flitting around the country on his Senate expense account waxing wise on the error of Chief Spence's political protest.

This latest diatribe was so far past any standard of professionalism or common decency that it scarcely merits comment.

Unfortunately, it's exactly the kind of performance that the Indian haters will seize upon.

This should get him extensive face time on the Sun TV channel. Ezra Levant drools over this stuff.

Local MP calls for end to Idle No More protests

Larry Miller's bit of rascist posturing is not without irony.

Calling for an audit of Attawapiskat months after the last one was completed is designed to make Larry look like he's careful with the taxpayer's dollar and tough on ne're-do-well natives all at the same time.

I think he's angling for a cabinet post. He'd fit in well with Toews and Fantino.

But what's funny is his whining about how his constituents have been inconvenienced by INM protests blocking roads etc.

Larry Miller is the Member of Parliament for Grey-Bruce. There is a school of thought that claims most of Grey and Bruce counties were never forfeited by the local native bands. In other words, Larry's constituents are squatting on Indian land.

Racist Canadian media find new stick to beat Chief Spence

It's a big story today, and every major Canadian news outlet has some version of it. Most of the minor ones too.

With some top-notch investigative journalism the big-city sleuths have uncovered another dirty Attawapiskat secret.

Clayton Kennedy, the partner of Chief Spence, once went BANKRUPT!!!

Yes, that's a big story. And how does a man who once went BANKRUPT, and an INDIAN man at that, get to wield influence over Chief Spence and her Band?

It's just wrong wrong wrong...  by God, I think they've found the smoking gun... no wonder 100 million just disappeared into thin air!

Funny how bankruptcy in this situation is a big deal.

Bankruptcy if you're a white Canadian like Paul Reichman or Peter Munk or the Eatons or the Aspers is just a fact of business life.

If you're a native man it disqualifies you from ever raising your head from the pit of shame.

But doesn't the fact that Chief Spence relies on Kennedy for advice reveal a certain lack of judgement?

I wouldn't know. I have no idea what kind of advice he's been giving her.

But the story does bring to mind a certain Bruce Carson.

Carson was one of Prime Minister Harper's top advisers for several years. As in adviser to the leader of the entire country of 32 million, not adviser to the leader of an impoverished Indian band of a few hundred families.

Bruce Carson was a convicted swindler who had declared bankruptcy.

There you go; Harper and Spence have more in common than they realized.

Oh how I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the meeting tomorrow. The hypocrisy will be hanging in the air thicker than the smoke from the sacred sweet grass.

The Indians are bringing the sweet grass.

The Harper contingent will be providing the hypocrisy.

(Clarification: I apologize to Mr. Kennedy and to Chief Spence for lumping him in there with a convicted swindler. The only commonality between Kennedy and Carson is the bankruptcy. In addition to declaring bankruptcy, Carson had accrued several fraud related convictions which apparently did not disqualify him from being a senior adviser to the Prime Minister.)

Canadian media take lead in smear of First Nations

Sometimes an Access to Information request is ignored entirely.

Sometimes an Access to Information request spends years being bounced around between government departments before any information is successfully accessed.

But every once in awhile an Access to Information request results in the oh-so-timely release of information that the Harper gang finds it in its interest to release.

That would be the case with the lead story on the CBC news this morning, a story that is on the front page of every Canadian paper today.

Those irresponsible Indians in Attiwapiskat have pissed away over 100 million dollars in seven years.

This comes just days before Attiwapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, in the fourth week of a hunger strike, is finally scheduled to meet the Prime Minister.

Just plain pissed the money away, they did. Over 80% of their expenditures lack PROPER DOCUMENTATION!!!

That's got the racist trolls drooling all over every comment section on every news site in the land.

Which is exactly what it was designed to do.

One hundred million dollars is a lot of money. That would buy almost 2/3 of an F-35 fighter jet.

That's almost one third of what it cost the Canadian taxpayer to help smash Libya.

It's about a quarter of what Canada gave the country of Mali in "aid" during the same period.

It's less than one percent of what Canada's mission in Afghanistan has cost the Canadian taxpayer.

And while I am not for a moment suggesting that there are no management issues in Attawapiskat, this story is nothing more than a well-orchestrated smear of Chief Spence, the Idle No More movement, and First Nations in general.

Where to find racism in Canada

I'm guessing that if you've got time on your side you'll be able to sniff it out anywhere.

But if you're in a rush and want to find manifestations of nauseatingly crude racism in a hurry, just click onto any major Canadian news site. Find a story about First Nations and then go to the comments.

See what I mean? What'd that take, about 15 seconds?

Canada is of course a bastion of anti-racism. We long ago dispatched the n-word to the dustbin of political incorrectitude. Paki jokes? Not in Canada my friend.

But bring on those Canadian Indians/First Nations/Aboriginals/Native Peoples and it's open season!

The Idle-No-More movement has caused an avalanche of news stories in Canadian media, and hence an even bigger avalanche of racist commentary.

If I had the stomach I'd write a book about it. After all, the mainstream white Canadians who type those comments are doing most of the writing for you. It would be an easy gig...

If you've got the stomach for it.

Which I don't.

I am appalled by the level of sheer ill will that any mention of Native Rights arouses in the Canadian populace. What, hundreds of years of oppression but you're pissed off because you're gonna be a half hour late to the discount mall in Port Huron?

I am further appalled by the ignorance that underlies this kind of commentary. To be sure, there have been missteps aplenty on the First Nations side. There has been corruption and incompetence in Band leadership, just as there is in white communities.

There are people who "work the system," just like in white communities. There are lazy people and drunks and abusers just like in white communities.

But white communities don't have the burden of a five hundred year colonialist legacy to drag them down every day. They don't have the legacy of residential schools. They don't have the legacy of spending all of their history as second class citizens.

Contrary to what Postmedia columnist Michael Den Tandt has said, it's not about eliminating the Indian Act and treating everyone equally.

It's about honoring the agreements that our forbears the white colonists made with their forbears.

As a white from a heritage of colonialism in South Africa, I imagine you would have given some thought to such questions, Mr. Den Tandt.

Joe Clark idle no more

You'd have to go back over thirty years to rediscover Joe Clark's moment in the spotlight. That's when he was briefly the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister of Canada. He was widely seen as a well-meaning doofus not cut out for the rough and tumble of federal politics.

He was also widely seen as being done in by the much more politically savvy Brian Mulroney.

Clark went on to serve in Mulroney's cabinet for a few years before fading into a gentle twilight of university teaching posts.

But now he's back!

Former PM Clark has dared to go where the current PM fears to tread; all the way to the Ottawa River to meet with Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.

Chief Spence is in the third week of a hunger strike to draw attention to First Nations grievances with the Harper gang. Clark came away praising Spence's vision as "humble and achievable."

Good for you, Mr. Clark! What a refreshing change from the macho posturing of the current administration.

Is it too late for a political comeback?