What Idle No More Should Be About: A Brief Note

It should be about Bill C-45.  A specific piece of legislation created by a specific  government that raises a specific set of issues about treaty rights and unilateral changes to those rights. It shouldn't be about "Injustice" vaguely defined. Which is why Chief Spence's hunger strike, while generally speaking a noble act, is in one sense a bit of distraction as it allows government supporters to turn the conversation back to those stale old arguments about the dysfunction in our First Nation's communities and whose fault it is.  Therefore all efforts to promote INM should focus on the concrete legislation on the table, the specific treaty violations it will give rise to, and how non-native as well as native businesses and communities will be affected by it.  If generalizations are to be drawn, they should be that the Harper government is willing to trample the rights of anyone who would impede their ability to sell bitumen to Communist China.  That is all.