TRAVIS WEAGANT
<Editor-in-Chief>
This morning, I entered Obiter Dicta’s secret archive of back issues (it’s in our porn folder). I re-read my own predictions for 2012, and was surprised to discover just how wrong I was about most things, and how marginally right I was about some things.
First, let’s deal with the obvious: the world did not end. Last time I trust a poll.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also still alive. I am not entirely surprised, since he usually tones down the rhetoric every time the Arab-Israeli conflict escalates, as it did near the end of 2012. I am forced to conclude that he was simply waiting out the armed hostilities to see which side appeared more murderous after the dust settled. While I have no opinion on the matter, rest assured that everyone’s favourite Iranian does, and that he will express himself accordingly.
Incidental to my 2012 prediction that Prince Charles would become progressively more childish and impatient while waiting for his turn to be King, I mentioned that the Queen was likely encouraging his then-newlywed progeny to supply some heirs of his own. Well, as it turns out, whether the Queen encouraged it or not, the Duchess of Cambridge’s recent tendency to throw up at sun up belied that the Unreasonable Man was partially right. I’ll take what I can get.
I also implicitly predicted some sort of second uproar in Egypt and Libya following their respective transitional governments’ reluctance to relinquish power. Wrong again. There was an election in Egypt. It remains uncertain how fair the election was, whether its result was desirable, or whether it was any different from the myriad “elections” that kept President Mubarak in power for so long, but it was an election nonetheless. Libya also held an election, and is in the process of selecting a new Cabinet. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m optimistic about the process in either country, but I will say that both places would be much worse off in the short term if I had been right.
Finally, I predicted that the Toronto Maple Leafs would finish 9th in the East last year, thereby simultaneously avoiding the playoffs and the best draft picks. They finished 13th. I still despise them. Mercifully, I have been spared the horror of watching them play or hearing such horrors recounted this season. However, I’m told that this unfortunate grind is about to begin anew following the recent end to the NHL lockout. With that bit of news, I hereby kick off my 2013 spoilers by predicting that by December 31, 2013, the average hockey fan will still not understand that the lockout was about money, and not Gary Bettman’s personal Canadaphobic tendencies.
This year, in an effort to make my predictions more reliable, I will confine myself to less outlandish prophecies. For example, my second prediction for 2013 is that the Duchess of Cambridge will, in fact, give birth this year. In fact, if her recent condition set on two months into her pregnancy (which is late for hyperemesis, according to emedicine.com), it is not entirely unlikely that Canada and its future King or Queen may share a birthday.
Third, I predict that I’ll be allowed to return for a third year at Osgoode Hall Law School. I’ll never understand it.
Fourth, and more seriously, the Idle No More movement will be largely unsuccessful, for wholly unfortunate reasons. I am not referring to the effectiveness of a hunger strike per se, though threatening to kill oneself when the rest of the population confines itself to casting votes and lobbying strikes me as unfair to the ostensible target of the striker’s demands, though, of course, it is her prerogative to do so anyway. No, Idle No More is concerned with far more than the hunger strike of a single Chief and the problems of a single reserve, acute as they are. The movement is an articulation of a general sense among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians alike that something is very wrong about First Nations’ place in our society.
Unfortunately, the first reason why the movement will be unsuccessful is precisely because the sense of wrongness is so general. Government responds to specific solutions. It likes speeches with Fourteen Points and Five-Year Plans. When I lived in Ottawa, my parents used to come to visit me, and we would often drive past the frequent protests on Parliament Hill. My father used to ask me what the particular group was seeking. I was never able to respond clearly; I could only manage to say that they must be “demanding action,” or asking that the government “do more.” For all I know, there were brilliant souls among the upset that had comprehensive five-year plans to rectify the injustices against which they protested, but, if they did, they were unfailingly bad at telling anyone about them. Idle No More is no different.
The second reason that the movement will be unsuccessful is that it is so closely tied to Chief Spence’s hunger action. On January 7, author and National Post comment editor Jonathan Kay drew attention to an old CBC report on a private audit of the Attawapiskat First Nation’s government. The audit, conducted by Deloitte and Touche, revealed serious management problems (for example, nearly 80% of financial transactions reviewed by Deloitte were undocumented). Mr. Kay’s analysis of the audit is decidedly more political than mine, but the evidence he presents is unquestionably important. Chief Spence’s financial administration of the Attawapiskat reserve has been dismal, to say the least, and, to the layperson, may even appear suspicious. This mismanagement undermines Idle No More’s unofficial spokeswoman’s credibility, and could bring down the entire enterprise.
The third reason that the movement will be unsuccessful is connected to this mismanagement problem. Mismanagement at Attawapiskat is indicative of a wider management problem on many Canadian reserves. I do not broadly suggest that First Nations governments are corrupt. Sometimes, like many other Canadians including myself, Chiefs are simply, and very innocently, in over their heads or not very good at their jobs. Indeed, mismanagement often does not denote intentionally wrongful activity, but rather a lack of expertise. Too few Aboriginal Canadians are trained accountants, lawyers, architects, and settlement planners. The expertise required to operate a reserve with over 1 500 inhabitants in James Bay’s unforgiving and harsh environment is staggering. To be a sustainable community, Attawapiskat requires knowledge.
For a moment, step into the Prime Minister’s shoes. Conservatives are not traditionally seen as friends to Canada’s First Nations. Perhaps they are not, but Obiter Dicta abhors such generalized prejudice, especially when founded solely on membership in a political party. Such prejudice might blind one to the fact that the 2012 Budget invests $100 million over three years to help First Nations schools develop relationships with provincial school systems so that students wishing to pursue postsecondary education are prepared to do so. The Budget also commits to the enactment of a First Nations Education Act by 2014. This strategy, while it may not show results immediately (since the students fully benefiting from these initiatives will not enter postsecondary education for as long as 15 years), addresses one of the root causes of the deplorable conditions on many reserves: the inaccessibility of education.
This is not the first Budget to include these initiatives; they have been a priority for the government since before the recession. The Education Partnerships Program’s preliminary results after just two years showed astonishing improvements in early childhood literacy among First Nations children in New Brunswick, all thanks to an expertise-sharing agreement with the provincial government. But these things take time. To put the Prime Minister on notice that he has but a few weeks to remedy the myriad problems facing Canada’s First Nations will be confusing to him, especially following the slow but steady work of his government over the last six years, which gives anyone reason for guarded optimism about the future of First Nations education. By refusing to acknowledge the federal government’s successes and the long-term nature of the solutions Idle No More seeks, the movement only alienates those whose help it requires. Along with Chief Spence’s apparent mismanagement of the Attawapiskat reserve, and the unfocused nature of the movement, this will doom Idle No More by the end of the year, if not the end of the month.
Also, the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to finish 9th in the East. The Unreasonable Man has spoken.