Indigenous?...therefore Invisible?

Where have all the Aboriginals gone? VANOC, the 2010 Olympic committee, has boasted the presence of Aboriginal content; mainly the games taking part within the territories of the four First Nations. True, the misinterpreted Inukshuk logo is there, dancers and performers were there at the opening ceremonies, the design of the medals are of a West Coast flavor, yet, Aboriginal people remain in the background or almost invisible. Name me one Aboriginal sports caster, Aboriginal host, Aboriginal commentator….and name me one Aboriginal athlete! There were four people who lit the Olympic flame; not one of them was Aboriginal. Canada boasts about being "Inclusive." I guess if you're Indigenous, you're Invisible.

Olympic Torch...Aboriginal Scorched

Just read the article, “It’s always about money: VANOC and the aboriginal torch relay” published in the Jan.14, 2010 edition of the GLOBE AND MAIL.

It’s commendable that VANOC has gone into the far reaches of Canada and included a number of remote Aboriginal communities to share the flame and that they (Aboriginals) would be full partners from the beginning and VANOC would “make sure that Aboriginals got Games-related jobs and positions on Olympic-related committees and boards.” Apparently, this is “just a fraction of the efforts VANOC was making to ensure that Canada’s aboriginal communities didn’t feel left out.”

Feeling left out!!

Yes, VANOC has adopted the inukshuk as its Olympic symbol which is very much misinterpreted but that’s another story. The real question that should be asked is where are the Aboriginal athletes who are going to the Olympics? The GLOBE AND MAIL showcases Olympic athletes on a daily/weekly basis but Canada’s Aboriginal People are no where to be seen. Talk about feeling left out. Apparently, ensuring a number of Aboriginal athletes competing at the 2010 Games was not “interwoven into virtually every discussion” from the beginning. Apparently too, Aboriginal participation and especially funding to athletes is to be left to the legacy of the 2010 Games. What about now or, better yet, what about six/seven years ago when it was announced that the Vancouver/Whistler bid was awarded the Games. According to what has transpired since, VANOC and any other sport organizations has “left out” the need for Aboriginal participation. Kudos to those immigrants who, within a year or two of becoming “Canadians” qualifed and now represent Canada at the 2010 Olympics.

In my experience in sport, Aboriginal people do not lack ability but lack the opportunity. I guess VANOC and all other sport organizations choose to ensure Aboriginal people remain marginalized. “Maybe that’s the story native leaders should be talking about at the Olympics.”

Olympic Flame...Government Shame?

Seems as the 2010 Olympic flame criss-crosses Aboriginal communities, issues such as environmental, social conditions, and past experiences are exposed. The latest headline read, “The flame arrives, but Inuit still await an apology,” outlined in the Nov. 10, 2009 issue of the GLOBE AND MAIL.

In recent years, the federal government has been mired in a caseload of claims regarding students who have experienced the former residential school system and are living the legacy of physical and sexual abuses by the various churches. After some pressure from former students and politically bodies, Prime Minister Stephen Harper finally apologized on national television in June, 2008 to all Aboriginal people for its 130 years of institutional ill-fated attempt to assimilate and integrate the First Nation, Inuit, and Métis people. Apology accepted.

Seems another apology is warranted, This time, in the historic relocation of Northern Quebec Inuit to what is now the community of Resolute and, may I add, the community of Grise Fiord both located in desolate locations in what is now Nunavut. In 1953, “families (were) dumped and abandoned by Ottawa…” According to Inuit Survivors still living today, the federal government promised to return a year later to bring them back south to their former homes in Northern Quebec. They’re still there. One of them was George Eckalooh who as 11 years old at the time said, “My parents tried to get back to Quebec but the government never gave them an opportunity.” Apparently, this government initiative was to address the sovereignty issue during the beginnings of the Cold War.

While there has been financial compensation offered to the dislocated Inuit, they want “to get the one thing the people of Resolute Bay want most: an apology from Ottawa.” Still, the Inuit of Resolute have taken part in the celebration of the 2010 Olympic flame as George Eckalooh says, “If the torch makes them (youth) happy, or better still inspires them to do great things, then its presence here will have been worth it.”

In the end, the dislocated Inuit would like the federal government to do one great thing….apologize.

Olympic Torch...Olympic Torture?

I must commend the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) in being all-inclusive in the sharing of the Olympic torch in the relay as it has already criss-crossed a number of Aboriginal communities. The latest story was outlined in the Nov. 05, 2009 edition of the GLOBE AND MAIL with the headline of, “In a changing North, the torch recalls tradition.”

The image of the torch being carried by Old Crow Gwitchin member, Martha Benjamin, a former national x-country ski champion, being pulled on sled by a dog team had given me a sense of pride on who we are first as Aboriginal people and secondly as Canadian. The torch is and will continue to draw attention to climate change and how it is affecting Canada’s Indigenous people in the North. Climate change affects the land and sea and, in turn, affects the people who depend on that land and sea for subsistence and their identity. In the Old Crow Gwitchin case, the article focused on how much they have and still depend on the Porcupine caribou herd migration through their area. I know. I visited and seen it and do have a number of friends who live in Old Crow including the Chief, Joe Linklater. Joe had said, “Our identity has always been tied up with the caribou, our heritage, our cultural identity. Now there is a real question of whether there will be caribou to hunt and salmon to fish.” The caribou numbers are down and their migration routes have become less predictable.

Like all Aboriginal communities, the Gwitchin of Old Crow are a sharing people and are certainly willing to share the Olympic flame with other Canadians. An Old Crow member named, Kyikavichik had said, “The relay was founded on the notion of sharing, and had its own share of hurdles to confront as well.”

The biggest hurdle for the Old Crow Gwitchin though could be climate change and its effect on their identity with the loss of their caribou. The caribou are bigger than the Olympic torch…by now the Olympic torch is gone and will not return to Old Crow…for the Gwitchin they expect the caribou to return every year…if not, it could be torture.

The Northwest Passage is already Canadian

So read the headline in the October 27, 2009 edition of the NATIONAL POST.

By and large, I agree with the writer, Michael Byers, especially when there were motions within the federal government to change the name to “Canadian Northwest Passage” and “ the Canadian Internal Waters.”  As most know this was to try and settle the on-going sovereignty issue from external challenges. The article went on to read that any new name would (should) “reflect the history of Inuit use and occupation of the waters in question for thousands of years, and the reality of continuing Inuit use and occupation.” I’ll second that.

The Arctic is a huge part of Canada’s image, i.e. the inukshuk, the polar bear, northern lights, igloos, icebergs, the people and their art; yet, very few people including ordinary Canadians have experienced its allure. Myself, being Inuvialuit (Inuit) from the Western Arctic have traveled throughout the Arctic including a voyage of the “Northwest Passage” in 1995. Those memories are still very vivid. My account of that trip includes Inuit still occupying the land, hunting, fishing, and gathering according to the rhythm of the seasons. They will continue to do so for as long as the rivers flow. Thanks to the Inuit across the Arctic, the Northwest Passage will always be Canadian.

Regarding any name change, it is a requirement in the Nunavut Land Claim agreement, “to consult the Inuit before changing the name of any geographic feature in the territory.” After all, the Inuit too are already Canadian given their allocation of social insurance numbers, health care numbers, and passport numbers...and whatever other numbers that denotes them already Canadian.

Ten Years After

Ten Years After; those of you who were into rock music in the 70s, like me, would remember the band, Ten Years After, who rocked their way into fame back then. But let me put that phrase into today’s context, more accurately in the Oct. 20, 2009 edition of the GLOBE AND MAIL. The headline read, “Ten years after its creation, Nunavut gets failing grade.”

It should read, “….federal government gets a failing grade.”

Some of you may remember the creation of and celebration of Nunavut, a land-claim agreement between the federal government and the Inuit of the central and eastern Arctic. Ten years after, a report card outlines, “…territory plagued by same problems – insufficient education, grinding poverty, overcrowding – faced at inception.”

Some of you may also remember the pictorial book entitled, “The Inuit, Life As It Was” authored by a Richard Harrington. As a photographer, it is one of my favorite books as “a picture speaks a thousand words.” It depicts a people who had their language and culture intact; were healthy beings hunting, fishing, gathering, singing, dancing but also faced hardships such as hunger and frostbite. If I had the choice I would have preferred to live “life as it was.” No bills, no mortgage, no insecurity, no insignificant, lots of respect, able to speak the language and practice my culture.

The federal government too should have left “life as it was.” Instead, they saw all Aboriginal people including the Inuit as “ a problem.” In an effort to solve the problem, they established the residential school system and funded the churches to operate them. In doing so, they created more problems. All across Canada, Aboriginal people live in poverty, have insufficient education, live in over-crowded housing, high unemployment, lack significance and security, and lack mental health treatment and rehabilitation facilities. The Premier of Nunavut, Eva Aariak, says, “For the most part, these problems aren’t getting better.”

The path to the future is uncertain for the people of Nunavut but the past should have been maintained for the present. The federal government should have respected our language and culture and left us alone. Instead they chose to interfere and they are the ones who should get the failing grade…120 years after.

Celibacy or Celebrity?

“Sweat was beading down my forehead, my collar was too tight, and my knees were hurting. The priest was speaking in a foreign language they called Latin. It was time for the longest hour of the week: Catholic Mass. I looked over at my buddy; he too, seemed to have had the same aura of confusion. Why were we here, why did we have to stand, kneel, stand up, kneel, stand up, kneel down, sit down, and be quiet?”

These are the words of a story and inspired by a memory of an eight-year-old boy: myself. It was 1964 and I had already endured three years of the dreaded regimented lifestyle of the Catholic-run Aboriginal residential school of Grollier Hall in Inuvik, NT. I was to endure another ten years especially the longest hour of the week; Catholic Mass. I escaped that system finally in 1975; still confused but extremely relieved. It is now 2009 and I still have not and will not step into another Catholic church again.

The Catholic church is fundamentally flawed in its doctrine of instilling guilt, repetitive teachings and prayers, lack of compassion, aloofness, and full of hypocrites who are mighty in words but not in deeds.

In recent years the Catholic Church has been under fire for its physical, sexual, and mental abuses it had afflicted on to the former Aboriginal students. One could surmise these abuses have been going on since the 1860s when the residential school system was established by the federal government. Now, in 2009, we see and read the story of Father Raymond Lahey. The church would do well to abolish its idea of celibacy. It has not and will not be in the best interests of the clergy and especially potential victims in the years to come.

Priests, Nuns, Bishops, and even the Pope are held too high as Celebrities and can not and will not live up to their titles of, Your Holiness, Your Excellency, and Your Eminence.......and will not live up to Celibacy.