Reverse Discrimination Sanctioned By Government...

National Post editorial board: Canada turns a blind eye to First Nations segregation

Posted: February 04, 2010, 2:00 PM by NP Editor 

This month marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most significant milestones in America's Civil Rights struggle: the sit-in at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. On Feb. 1, 1960, four black college students entered the premises, took their seats at the whites-only counter, and asked to be served - without success. But they returned. For months, in fact, the quartet and their friends came back to that same lunch counter at Woolworth's, peacefully protesting the restaurant's racist policies, eventually inspiring similar sit-ins across the country. By summertime, they'd prevailed: The lunch counter was desegregated. Thankfully, such tales - inspiring as they are -- belong to history: In modern-day North America, anti-racism has become ensconced as a dominant creed. Canada has a whole apparatus of human rights commissions ensuring that even the slightest public expression of racial animus is censured and punished. In our enlightened time, Woolworth's blatantly racist policy - or any set of rules segregating individuals because of their race -- would be utterly unthinkable. Or maybe not. This week, the Kahnawake native reserve on Montreal's South Shore sent out eviction notices to 25 residents - most of them whites involved in relationships with local Mohawks - telling them that their skin was the wrong colour. According to a spokesman for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake, the whites are fair game because "they are people with no native ancestry at all."

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Adrian MacNair: Metis need not apply

Posted: February 04, 2010, 1:00 PM by NP Editor Filed under: Full Comment,Adrian MacNair

Mark MiLan is a Métis Cree Artist. You can see his artwork at his website. The start of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver is almost a week away, but don’t expect Métis Cree artist Mark MiLan to get too excited about it. It isn’t because he’s against the Olympic Games, like many other Aboriginal Canadians. In fact, Mark says in a lively and hurried tone in a phone interview, he was one of the first people to get fully behind the Olympic Games. No, the main reason he won’t be looking forward to the Olympics as much as he hoped for six years ago, is that there will be no meaningful display of the Métis culture when the world comes to visit. Mark MiLan’s story may be based on political decisions made outside of his control, but the man isn’t into politics. His points all come back to the same theme: a missed opportunity.

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