Alcohol and Aboriginal relations

With respect to the patronizing incident that took place yesterday during our federal election campaign, whereby a Conservative Ministerial aide said to a man from Barriere Lake:  “If you behave, and you’re sober, and there’s no problems, and if you don’t do a sit-down and whatever, I don’t care. One of them showed up the other day and was drinking,”

The woman who uttered these remarks, Darlene Lannigan, I think will sit down later this week with some local First Nation folks to sort it out, but I thought it was notable that other members of the Minister’s staff apologized on her behalf, rather than her doing it.   And anyway, the apology was couched in a condition:  “We also understand these comments were made in a difficult context. That is regrettable. The good news is that the parties have committed to meet later this week, in a spirit of collaboration.”

So hooray that they are getting together.  It will help them understand how to behave in “difficult contexts,” like when you are talking to someone who’s skin colour is different from yours.

But this isn’t at all unusual.  There is a broad swath of Canadian society, much of it upper crust, that has never met anyone of First Nations ancestry let alone thought about their unconsciously held stereotypes about Aboriginal people.  Regardless of the level of alcoholism in Aboriginal communities (and it varies, don’t you know), their opinions are not formed by statistics, they are formed by prejudice.  And prejudice has no place in the public service, whether you are a political aide or a public servant.

And while alcoholism IS an issue, it is a rare occasion to see anyone show up at a meeting, rally or protest drunk.  In the 20 years I have been working in the Aboriginal community in this country, I have, only once, been to a meeting where alcohol was served, and that was an economic development conference where NKMIP winery from the Osoyoos Indian Band provided one bottle of wine per table of six people. I have been to plenty of gatherings with non-Aboriginal Canadians of all political stripes in which an open bar, or a cash bar even, is the highlight of the night. So what is the truth here?  What are we really supposed to think when someone of Darlene Lannigan’s stature makes rules about behaviour and drinking for an Algonquin man that I bet she has never made for non-Aboriginal people?

My guess is that it’s not really an apology that Darlene Lannigan needs, but a thorough re-education about alcohol and it could probably begin snd end with her own abstinence, and those of her cronies and friends. And then at Church on Sunday, she can remember the teaching about casting the first stone and all that.