Capturing Hearts and Minds

"It was a very good meeting.  I just told her that ... she'd become really an inspiration for all Canadians and that we were obviously concerned about her health and that she's got to take care of herself."
Paul Martin, former Liberal Finance Minister, former Liberal Prime Minister of Canada

And so there it is -- proof positive that an individual is capable of functioning at a high level of professionalism in some instances; finance in the case of this former finance minister who distinguished himself in that post, and disappointed expectations in the one that followed, as Prime Minister of Canada -- while clearly missing the mark on interpreting events and strategies

Any who have qualms that Theresa Spence, Chief of the Northern Ontario reserve of Attawapiskat may be placing herself in danger of losing her life through nutritional deprivation, can now exhale in relief.  Rest assured, Paul Martin and all those other politicians, human-rights activists, First Nations representatives, and news hounds, Ms. Spence would never, ever do anything that might place her life in danger. 

She is quite aware of the spectacle her grandstanding is providing.  From her quavering voice to her courageously determined insistence that she will not suspend starvation until Prime Minister Stephen Harper comes to heel, she is manipulatively engaged in the aboriginal version of impacting the country with genteel terrorism.

Other cohorts representing Idle No More have been out and about complementing Ms. Spence's 'hunger strike', by closing off inernational bridges, halting traffic and discommoding thousands of Canadian travellers.  Some march with drums, wearing colourful native costume, others mask their faces as they engage in civil disobedience.

Mr. Martin was not the only past prime minister to lavish attention on this aboriginal thespian eliciting sympathy from the public and in the process cleverly averting notice from the results of an financial audit performed to determine how well Chief Spence dispersed millions of dollars meant to support her reserve, a copy of which she received back in the summer months and doubtless fretted over.

The Right Honourable Joe Clark, briefly prime minister, was also swift to demonstrate that mountains do shift to visit Mohammed.  Canada, he opined, and First Nations were headed toward a "dangerous direction".  The federal Opposition parties, some major unions, religious groups and academics have also been pleased to make the pilgrimage to Victoria Island and the traditional tent in which their muse sits, starving.

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence is helped back to her teepee after greeting and welcoming supporters as they visit her on Victoria Island in Ottawa on Monday, January 7, 2013. Spence is in her fourth week of a hunger strike calling on Harper to meet and discuss First Nations issues. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick