First Nations ill-served by media darlings like Chief Theresa Spence
QMI Agency
First posted: Wednesday, January 09, 2013 08:00 PM EST | Updated: Thursday, January 10, 2013 07:34 AM EST
As Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares for his big powwow with First Nations leaders, it's time to bring down the curtain on the bogusly-based theatrics of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.
With her supposed hunger strike having already stretched reality to its breaking point, and her reserve's financial records lacking forensic believability, her once well-intended supporters must accept that they were duped.
Spence is now devoid of any moral credibility, and those who persist in defending her are only weakening their own voices.
So here are a few words of advice for the grassroots Idle No More movement.
Never mention Attawapiskat again in the same breath as Theresa Spence. And don't allow people like Mi'kmaw activist and Ryerson prof Pam Palmater to appoint themselves to speak for you.
You are being used.
The feds have poured billions into reserves across this country, including millions to lost causes like Attawapiskat. They struck a welcoming reconciliation process over the sins of past governments and signed a land deal that gives the Algonquin title to the majority of the Crown land in eastern and northern Ontario.
After all that, why would any self-respecting aboriginal want Pam Palmater speaking for them?
To her, the Harper government's agenda has one purpose -- the calculated "genocide" of all First Nations people, this as the court ruled 600,000 Metis and off-reserve aboriginals should have full status.
But the consensus media, conned by Spence yet unwilling to admit it, still run to Palmater like water to low ground without asking what gives her the right to speak for Idle No More.
Why do they run to her? Because she puts herself out there, that's why, and because she gives good sound bites, and does not shy away from repeating the indefensible slander of racial elimination.
After all, she's First Nations.
She has a Don't Touch Me card.
If the Idle No More activists are really upset about the danger to aboriginals that purportedly lies within the Harper government's omnibus bill, then we suggest that they actually give it a read.
There is no danger there.
Instead, there's stuff about First Nations self-governance recognition, financial transparency, matrimonial rights, and safe drinking water.
This hardly sounds genocidal.
