When you have Aboriginal blood in your veins you feel and know that the rule of law in Canada isn’t so blind or predisposed to honour the principle that every person is equal under the law. When a disproportionate percentage of Aboriginals are behind bars it says something about the law. When more Aboriginal children are presently in foster homes than the entire amount put in residential schools in the past you know the law isn’t on your side. Look at the number of First Nations trying to get treaties or have them honoured in the courts over the course of many years – and again you know.
But every now and then life throws a curve ball. Somehow you manage to hit the ball out of the park. That’s what it felt like when a Federal Court of Canada decision handed down August 1 on a legal dispute between Attawapiskat First Nation and the Government of Canada. Even though the feds had already removed the notorious third-party management official imposed on the community months ago, this community said the fight wasn’t over. Canada’s Federal Court ruled that the appointment was “unreasonable” and “did not respond in a reasonable way to the root of the problems at Attawapiskat nor the remedies available…”
Though many blamed the party in power the court didn’t agree, however, saying, “The problem in this case does not lie at the feet of the political masters but in the hands of the bureaucracy.”
Even so, later in the judgment the Court exonerated the same government officials, saying they were concerned but that the “problem seems to have been a lack of understanding.”
The decision acknowledged that residents “were living in overcrowded and unsafe conditions in uninsulated and unserviced dwellings or in tents where sanitation was a bucket and where mold was rampant.” They went on to add, “The situation was an embarrassment to a country as rich, strong and generous as Canada.”
The “Background” section of the Court’s decision detailed the requests, proposals and information the Attawapiskat First Nation sent to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) in a timeline format. During this process the Court said that at no time did AANDC officials indicate there was any problem with Band management. Of course Attawapiskat was already under co-management. One wonders if anyone investigated the co-manager?
Prime Minister Harper had defended the government saying it had spent “some $90 million since coming to office just on Attawapiskat.” While the number crunching may not tally for some folks he expanded on that theme saying, “That’s over $50,000 for every man, woman and child in the community. Obviously we’re not very happy that the results do not seem to have been achieved for that. We’re concerned about that, we have officials looking into it and taking action.”
Should he have mentioned the annual average cost of keeping an inmate incarcerated was $113,974 per year? This tells us that it costs more to keep a First Nations person incarcerated than to allow them freedom.
Even with the Federal Court upholding the rule of law, I turn to the legendary Sauk war chief Black Hawk for guidance to interpret this decision. “How smooth must be the language of the whites,” he said, “when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.”
