June 2000 Fraser Forum: Phil Fontaine's Extreme Response
As the policy failures, immense costs, and lack of accountability in the Indian Industry are being gradually revealed, the captains of that industry grow increasingly strident. They worry, with reason, that the very foundation of their power and position - the ascendency of the collective over the individual - is being challenged as inconsistent with modern realities and fundamental Canadian values.
This was dramatically illustrated last month by the reaction of the chief Indian, Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations, to a thoughtful, and indeed sympathetic, editorial in the National Post (April 29, 2000).
The editorial pointed out an apparently inescapable contradiction that lies at the heart of Indian policy. One goal is economic success; the other is to "protect native culture from white assimilation." These two goals, said the newspaper, are mutually exclusive. "[C]ultural assimilation goes hand in hand with economic assimilation. You can't have one without the other."
Actually, you can, as is well demonstrated by peoples as diverse as the Orthodox Jews, Hutterites, and expatriate Chinese communities. All are flourishing, free-standing cultures without benefit of government subsidy or legal protection - indeed, carrying on often in spite of terrible persecution. But the Post's point still has validity. It does take an exceedingly robust culture to pull off that mix of economic integration and cultural separation.
The editorial goes on to make the by now commonplace observations that on-reserve Indians are far worse off using most social indicators than those off-reserve (though the estate of the latter is still not good), and notes the continuing failure of throwing money at a failed policy instead of rethinking what is happening here. "The current system, we can all agree, is simply not working" it concludes.
Well, ten days later, Mr. Fontaine was back with a letter to the editor. The rhetoric was startling.
The editors were "... advocating the cultural genocide and destruction of a race of people." The editorial, he said, called for the "First Peoples" (Mr. Fontaine's words) to "become whiter."
The editorial he called "hate speech" (a criminal offense). One of the statements, he claims in his letter, "... promotes hatred and distrust toward an identifiable group." This, of course, is a legal test for the existence of hate speech. Can you spell "lawyer"?
Those opposing Mr. Fontaine's policies he says "... have a vested interest in preventing justice from being served." Some "corporate and political interests" are now showing their "final solution." The letter ends with something close to hate speech itself regarding Conrad Black, proprietor of the Post.
All of this calls for a bit of analysis. Let us begin with "cultural genocide." Genocide is the killing of a race of people. No one can kill a culture, however. Only the people who espouse that culture can kill it - by walking away from it.
Genocide is a heinous crime. To use the word in this way trivializes those around the world and throughout history who really have experienced it.
The same sentence accused the editorial of advocating the "destruction of a race of people." It did not. It called for a debate on how the well-being of Indians in Canada could be improved.
The article did not insist that Indians "become whiter." It said there was a choice between "richer, healthier, and whiter" or "... poor, sick, and red." Debate that if you like, but don't distort it.
The editorial did not "... promote hatred and distrust toward an identifiable group," and if I owned the Post I would sue Mr. Fontaine for saying that.
Equally, it is difficult to see who in the corporate or political world has "a vested interest in preventing justice from being served." To the contrary, every taxpayer and every politician (outside of the Indian Industry, at least) has every interest in resolving this enduring and costly problem for Canada.
The reference to a "final solution" and by necessary implication a comparison to the Holocaust is simply despicable in terms of poisoning what should be a civil dialogue. No lesser word will do. (Mr. Fontaine's return volley, given the spirit of his reply to the Post, might be to say that the treatment of Indians by whites has been despicable. Answering specific charges with general condemnations is an old technique. But two wrongs don't make a right, however you slice it.)
So what is going on here? Mr. Fontaine is not an unintelligent man. Indeed, he is said to be charming in happier circumstances. What can explain (though not justify) such extraordinarily intemperate language? There are a number of possible explanations.
The first is that such tactics often work. A guilt-ridden urban public that knows little and cares less about the real interests of Indian people just wants the issue to go away without the hard work of understanding it. The more abuse you throw at the public, the more money it is prepared to send back to quiet the commotion. Historically, this has been a useful and productive technique. So Fontaine's response could be explained as business as usual.
The second explanation is rather more ominous for the Industry, whose members' status and income are based ultimately and completely on Indians being considered as different from ordinary Canadians. If you have no legally different Indians - well, now, wait a minute! You then have no need for chiefs! No need for band councils, special economic development consultants, the aboriginal Bar, and - in Mr. Fontaine's case - the Assembly of First Nations. So, naturally, the questions posed by the Post editorial have to be discredited out of hand. True discussion might reveal some merit.
The third explanation is the simplest. It is that Mr. Fontaine actually believes what he is saying. That is the most chilling possibility of all.
However different might be their history and culture, Indians are human beings like any others, full stop. If there is a single lesson of the twentieth century, it is this. The most reliable way to freedom and prosperity and self-realization for human beings leads through individual choice and private property.
The failed Indian policy, the broadening and deepening of which Mr. Fontaine would defend, calls for collective choice and collective ownership. If someone chooses such a route for their own private life, that is their business. To force it on Indian people by law and financial incentive, as we do in Canada and as Mr. Fontaine would have us continue to do, is simply immoral.
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