Iggy And Natives

This is something Iggy DID although left wing apologists will turn it into something Harper might do....a common liberal ploy.

A telling take on Yellow Quill

gagnon@lapresse.ca

The story of Christopher Pauchay is well known. It's been recounted in the media across the country. Before we see what kind of sappy tale Michael Ignatieff made of it, let's recall the horrible events that unfolded during the night of Jan. 29, 2008.

Mr. Pauchay, a resident of the Yellow Quill reservation in northern Saskatchewan, left his house in the middle of the night as a blizzard was sweeping through, driving the temperature down to -50. He apparently wanted to go to his sister's house - the reason is unclear since he was extremely inebriated and lost track of what happened.

In any case, he took with him his two girls, aged 15 months and three years, dressed only in T-shirts and diapers. Outside, he lost his way and eventually dropped the girls in the snow.

He somehow managed to get to a nearby house, where he passed out. His daughters were found many hours later, frozen to death. Mr. Pauchay, who has been sentenced to three years in jail - a merciful sentence - had already been convicted of 52 other offences, including assault on his wife.

Now let's see how Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff describes these events, in the introduction of True Patriot Love, an otherwise interesting essay about his maternal ancestors and his own dreams about Canada.

"Imagining what we share is not easy. Imagining this land is never just to imagine it as it appears to you alone. It is to imagine it as an Inuit person might see it ... To imagine it as a citizen is to imagine it as a resident of Yellow Quill reservation in Saskatchewan would have had to imagine it, this Canada where two half-naked children died in a snow-covered field in the subarctic darkness because their father tried to take the sick little girls to his parents and never made it, and all you can hope is that death was as mercilessly quick as the cold can make it. What does a resident of Yellow Quill imagine, what do we, Canadians, imagine our country to be, the morning we learn that children have perished this way? It is surely more than just a tragic story of one family. It is a story about us."

In this melodramatic reinterpretation, Mr. Pauchay is turned into a devoted father who is a victim of "Canada" ("it is a story about us").

There is no mention of alcohol consumption, nor of Mr. Pauchay's own responsibility in the death of his daughters, who, under the pen of Mr. Ignatieff, seems to have been hit by some mysterious calamity, like a sudden avalanche.

This is an acute case of the syndrome brilliantly described by French writer Pascal Bruckner in Le Sanglot de l'Homme blanc - about the self-hating, teary-eyed White Man who carries on his shoulders all the sins of his ancestors and who ends up patronizing and dehumanizing the people of the Third World (in this case the aboriginals) by refusing them the status of responsible adults.

Mr. Ignatieff's reinterpretation of the Pauchay story wouldn't be worth a second thought if he weren't leader of the Liberal Party and possibly Canada's next prime minister.

The Liberals have already promised to act on the Kelowna Accord, negotiated under former prime minister Paul Martin, which would transfer some $5-billion to aboriginal communities for purposes such as health, housing and education. One wonders whether an Ignatieff government would make certain that the first nations chiefs are accountable to their communities and to the taxpayers about the way they use the money.

Under Jean Chrétien's government, Indian Affairs minister Robert Nault tabled a bill aimed at introducing some basic democratic rules into the governance of the reservations. The bill was forgotten as soon as Mr. Martin came to power.

He was so eager to please the leaders of the first nations that he gave them everything they wanted: a great deal of money with no strings attached. It would be regrettable if Mr. Ignatieff followed the same path.