Has anyone seen Chief Theresa Spence lately? Has she lost any weight? Not very much I'm betting. She is the Chief of the Attawaspikat Indian Band in Ontario who is supposedly on a hunger strike until Prime Minister Harper meets with her. I say supposedly because she is actually on a liquid diet (fish broth, medicinal tea, and lemon water). Fish broth is very nutritious and so is lemon. This is not a hunger strike, it's a diet. When you see her on the news, they say she is weak, but she doesn't look any thinner. Anyone on a real hunger strike for three to four weeks would be a hell of a lot thinner than she is.
I'm not being sympathetic at all because it is all a sham--an attention getter to distract everyone from the fact that she has been mismanaging the funds provided to her band for years. An audit had been done by Deloitte, an independent auditor, and she has seen the results of that audit. She knew the truth was coming out and she wanted to have sympathy of the people on her side. The mainstream media, of course, is helping her do that.
After all her squandering of funds which left her people living in deplorable conditions, she still has the media writing things about her like the following paragraph from David Moscrop's column in Friday's The Globe and Mail:
"When a commitment to liberalism is mixed with a failure to empathize, we really get into trouble. We become unable to connect with a leader pushed to the brink by the systematically induced tragedy of her people, even as she puts her life on the line to remedy persistent historical injustices."
He's talking about Canadians' failure to empathize. I have no trouble empathizing with her people, they have very little choice in their circumstances. However, to keep insisting to the general public that Chief Spence is such a victim and forced to "put her life on the line" is absolutely appalling and misleading. Judging by her record, she is far to self indulgent to put her life on the line for anyone.
She is looking out for her own interests and doesn't seem to give a damn about her people, and the way some of the other chiefs and the mainstream media is helping her along by pushing her "hunger strike" story means that they also don't care about the poor people living in Attawapiskat or any other reserve.
There are definite concerns about conditions on some reserves across this country, but before any of that can change, there needs to be changes to Indian Affairs. They are letting this lack of accountability continue. Anyone receiving funds from the government should be accountable for those funds.
There also needs to be changes to the Indian Act. People living on reserve should be able to own their houses and their land. Anyone living under this Act, no matter what the colour of his skin, would likely end up the same way. If there no ownership, there is no pride.
It's a tall order to make these changes and it will take a strong person to do it. With the Chiefs fighting against it and the people on reserve afraid to speak up, and with the media who seize on any opportunity to make the Harper Government look bad, I don't have much hope that anything will change.
This blackmail by hunger strike is certainly bringing attention to Chief Spence, however, it is starting to look like the kind of attention she didn't want. The old saying still applies "Be careful what you wish for".
