Colleen Simard in the Brandon Sun this morning drops a few quotes from our beloved Prime Minister that put him in the same league as George W. Bush.
To wit, according to Ms. Simard, our PM, whilst in Pittsburgh for the G-20 summit said that Canada is the envy of the world and one of the many reasons is that "We also have no history of colonialism," Harper said. "So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them."
That is so cool and so true except for the fact that he made it totally up. Like, doh, what about the Indians/Aboriginals/Eskimos/Inuit types that were here first buddy?
As Ms. Simard, who has aboriginal issues as her beat, writes "Even the name Indian - a generic term given to a vast variety of indigenous people - is proof of colonialism. The Department of Indian Affairs, treaty status cards and reserves are also proof of it. If you want to go even further, as any good economist should, you'd know that poverty is one of the greatest gifts of colonialism we've ever been given."
Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl spun the story this way, saying that we didn't have colonies in Africa and stuff. Too busy doing damage here I suppose.
Ms. Simard ends with "...if anything it makes Canada's refusal to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples more understandable. How can Harper sign something upholding integral indigenous rights when our leader thinks we have no history of colonialism?"
Yet Canadians are going to give these people, the Conservatives, a majority?
Oy vey, oy very vey.
WFDS
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