ELECTION COMMENTARY FROM THE FIRST NATIONS PERSPECTIVE
My good friend Tony Belcourt has found his way to Twitter. It’s nice to see my friends Dwayne, Allan and Perry on there too. But it’s a lonely world for the average Anishinaabe in the vast Twitter universe.
Just recently I started using Twitter more and more. I thought it might be a great way to bring in visitors and traffic onto the Anishinaabe Blog. It’s a bit of a struggle with only 26 followers. Most Nish are on Facebook right now and haven’t found their way to Twitter, much less @BobGoulais. And I don’t think @HowardStern, @Charlie Sheen and @Rosie (O’Donnell) are really going to encourage their millions of followers to read about little-ole-me.
But like many people, Twitter and Blogs are a great way to speak your mind on issues and attempt to affect change.
In a bout of insomnia last night, I thought I’d send the message “Election commentary from a First Nations perspective. Follow: @BobGoulais #cdnpoli #lpc #elxn41“. This includes search tags for Canadian Politics, Liberal Party of Canada and 41st General Election. Low and behold I got five new subscribers. But beyond the shameless plug, I thought this is an excellent way to express myself during the election and possible reach a whole new audience.
Beginning today, I’ll be Tweeting my commentary on the federal election. What’s my angle… I’ll be doing this from the First Nations perspective.
I’ll try to provide some balanced commentary, but that would require a balanced agenda. The First Nations agenda drives my views to the Liberal Party of Canada side.
Socially, I feel quite a bit of left of centre. Unfortunately, in most ridings, a vote for the NDP and the Greens are as good as a vote for the Conservatives. Given our multi-party system, strategically, this is a statistical fact. I’ve even toyed with jumping ship to the NDP, but where I’m from, that ship usually sinks before leaving port.
I’m going to go out on a limb here. I still cherish by purple “Coalition. Yes!” sign from 2008. I attended the rally and drank the purple Kool-Aid. It may have been because of that cold December day, but I wasn’t that warm to including the Bloc into the fray. I think courting the separatists is bad news for First Nations in Quebec. But for a left-leaning, First Nations man, the marriage of the Liberals and the NDP is a bit of a fantasy.
I may not be tried and true socialist, but I think I would value progressive, contemporary socialism. So when Dion and Layton began talking a Coalition, it really made sense to me. Coalition governments are common around the world. It can be an effective way of governing and getting things done. So much better than the anti-democratic, partisan style of the Harper government.
If we take the concept even further, perhaps we need to examine the possibility of “linking the left”. For me, that would involve the complete merging of the Libs and NDP. But that isn’t likely won’t happen. But how about a formal coalition from election to forming the government? Each party agree to work together, come up with a set of common values and determine which candidates would show the best success. Only one candidate would run in each riding. This would certainly offer a clear alternative to the minority quagmire we’ve been going through. It would also provide a one-window alternative to the fundamentalist, tea-party, conservative dictatorship that a Harper majority would likely pose.
Bob, I found my way to your blog! Very impressive. I had no idea you had a blog going since 1997. Amazing. It looks fantastic and I’m looking forward to poking around in it. There’s certainly a lot I can learn from you in how to communicate with these tools. I went to Michael Ignatieff’s campaign kickoff yesterday. It was great. The room was packed and there was a lot of excitement in the air. As Michael was leaving, he passed by, saw me and said “Hey, the Metis!”. I whispered in his ear: Michael, We don’t need more jails that are already filled with Aboriginal women. We need to use that money to get them out of there and keep them out!” “Yeah, he said, let’s get them out of there!”. Imagine having that kind of a discussion with Mr. Harper… not. Today I bumped into a grandmother at the bagel shop who asked me, Tony, who should I vote for. Guess.
Interesting perspective. Can you please elaborate more on the First Nations Agenda in relation to the Liberal Party?
The LPC puts tremendous thought and development to their platform, representation, and fostering inclusion and diversity in their organization. It’s actually done by First Nations people, for First Nations people. We have an Aboriginal Caucus of MPs and a well established and effective Aboriginal Peoples Commission. I should put you in touch with Tanya Kappo, APC Co-chair. Jeff Copenace, the other APC Co-Chair worked directly for our leader Michael Ignatieff and before him, worked in Paul Martin’s PMO. There is a transparent, and democratic means of raising FN issues through policy and planning processes. Would be interesting to see the issues of protecting natural water sources from the Anishinaabe perspective backed and supported by the entire LPC. Not to mention the tremendous support we’d get from the LPC Women’s Commission, Seniors Commission and the Young Liberals.
The best example of this is the Kelowna Accord back in 2005. This was driven by Aboriginal people with the full support of the LPC and the great Paul Martin. Can you imagine how much further our people would be if this had gone ahead. Unprecedented investments in health, education and housing. A new relationships between government, sitting at the table with the First Ministers. $179 million in Aboriginal languages alone!! Can you imagine what real investments like that would mean to developing Anishinaabemowin?? Everything that Harper had stalled and continued to ignore.
Awesome!! I tend to always hear more about the negativity of the LPC, never getting a chance to listen to what they have done right. Thank you for sharing that with me. It is much appreciated by a young padewon of Poli.Sc! 🙂