Bob Rae's "Third World"

Liberal leader Bob Rae seems determined to be conspicuously, deliberately, ignorantly obnoxious.

Coming from a party that lauded itself as the country's 'natural governing party', and having governed in the past in a fairly regularly predictable stream of a series of elected Liberal governments, it's thin gruel indeed to fault the current Conservative-led government for acquired-and-accumulated dysfunction in dealing with Canada's First Nations through the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has re-named that department; it is now officially Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada. There have been some firsts with this government in dealing with First Nations. It was this government under this Prime Minister who apologized for the residential schools episode when native children were separated from their parents and their traditions.

It was this Conservative-led government that brought a federally-elected Inuk into the federal cabinet: Leona Aglukkaq. And this government cannot be faulted for a lack of interest in attempting to honour Native Canadian treaty rights. Funding to First Nations has not been stinted, and attention to First Nations needs has been at the forefront of the nation's conscience.

Relations between this government and the Assembly of First Nations has been one of concerned civility, both attempting to resolve the many issues that have been for far too long unsettled. But equating the situation in Attawapiskat, mirrored in doubtless many other isolated First Nations reserves with abandonment and lack of commitment on the part of the Conservative government is disingenuous at best, downright slanderous in the worse-case scenario.

Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence, right, gives interim Liberal leader Bob Rae a tour of the reserve. Rae acknowledged that Attawapiskat's situation is repeated across many of Canada's First Nations communities. 'I think we make a big mistake if we think that Attawapiskat is all alone.' Photograph by: Frank Gunn, Reuters, Pool, Postmedia News

We can accept the latter, since it's perfectly obvious that both the Liberals in their much diminished state, and the NDP in their role as Leaders of the Official Opposition have declared open season on vilifying this government to favour their own enlightened stance as opposed to the 'colonialist' mind-set of the Conservatives.

And Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence is doubtless deeply satisfied that no one in the NDP or Liberal parties would dare query her or her band council about their dysfunctional, self-serving allocations of band funding from various government and independent sources. It is the government's right to do so, to reasonably expect that an accounting be given of the dispersal and disposal of tax-paid funding.

"He came to see the true picture of what's happening", Chief Spence declared, ushering Bob Rae on a tour of the reserve. "There is a diamond mine nearby", said he. "I think both the province and the federal government have to think a lot harder how we're going to share the resource revenue and make sure the people who are living here are getting some part of that", he said.

He evidently couldn't bother to do any background checks, found it sufficient to utter whatever came to mind. The mine is operating on reserve land, which it rents from the reserve at a rate acceptable to the band council. The mine is the only employment resource which does in fact employ a number of reserve residents. "We can't go on like this for the next decade or 20 years without seeing some real improvements", he intoned further.

Denouncing the decision by the Prime Minister to appoint a third-party manager to oversee the band's finances. Well, the band wasn't capable of doing it properly, and they cannot show a budget nor any credible accounting of their financial obligations and expenditures. Chief Spence's 'life partner', was the former band manager, and he cannot be credited for doing a fine job of it.

Despite which, the Aboriginal Affairs minister, John Duncan, has had to plead with Chief Spence to allow government housing officials access to the reserve to enable them to evaluate its needs.

"I urge you to reconsider your refusal to allow Government of Canada housing officials back into your community. It is vital they assess the serviced lots for the modular homes that have already been purchased. This will ensure that the lots are prepared for immediate hook-up when the modular homes arrive."

The band has resorted to an ageless tactic to catch their accusers of incompetence offguard; when attacked, counter-attack. In righteous indignation Chief Spence will not admit to incompetence but she will and does accuse the government of not being responsible in its attention to the needs of her people, when it is she and her selected council that have been at fault.

Now, it's also true that better oversight of the situation could have been in place. Which would have necessitated frequent visits to the reserve by government agents in an ongoing assessment of the needs. Which practise would certainly not have been complete without the Aboriginal Affairs department concurrently bringing to the fore the necessity of band records being kept up-to-date and submitted as accounting for her administration's financial responsibilities.

The James Bay reserve with its 2,100 residents who insist on remaining just where they are - where unemployment is guaranteed - lack of personal responsibility condoned, transporting of food and building supplies prohibitive, ongoing concerns of the availability of potable drinking water - and problems associated with sub-par schooling and health services will remain a constant.