Jeffrey Simpson seemed to be a reasonable guy at one time, but he seems to think that no one should have a dream, a set of goals not entirely rooted in the world of the way things are done these days. Perhaps Mr. Simpson has been cloistered too long in the comfortable confines of Toronto Journalism and has become an insider looking out on a reality too foreign for him to encompass.
Most of us try to run our affairs within the parameters laid out for us, but we also hold some vision of a reality that might be better, perhaps for us alone, perhaps for a broader swathe of humanity. This might be at the root of Idle No More, where a people beset with the worst woes of contemporary society says that they’ve had enough of being kept down and pushed around. It’s something akin to what the Trilateral Commission decided in the late ’60s when they perceived that there was too much democracy developing in the Western World and they were going to take a firm long-term stand to see that society went as far back to the Middle Ages as they could send it. First Nations have no monopoly on a sense that they’re not getting a fair shake, they just happen to be the latest group to make some noise. Should First nations be conforming to the economic models in vogue right now? A look at the specific piece of legislation in their sights shows that their fight is a fight for anyone who wants to see Canada do its part to protect what remains of our living environment and perhaps, why not?, improve it. The current government in Ottawa is serving the fossil fuel industry’s quest for profits at the expense of the rights and consultations that, by decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, rightly belong to Canada’s First Nations.
Is FN quarrel not the quarrel of all those disrespected, disaffected, disenfranchised and dispossessed by the rapacity of the global corporate dominance?