Pam Palmater is one of the most important voices in Canada in this young century so far. Here’s another reason why:
Below she calls out some racism in the form of settler-occupied hypocrisy.
The first nations, so go the racists, are incompetent and corrupt. Like the unions and the poor. That’s why we have Bill C-377 to make the unions pay for working for working people. That’s why Jean Swanson had to write Poor Bashing.
And since the racists and Conservative Party [including the overlap there] think the first nations need to be transparent to us, we have a new bill, C-27, to make them give themselves an exercise in transparency to justify their leadership.
Except federal politicians don’t have to live up to the same standard. Are there corruption and conflict of interest in political bodies in Canada? Yes. This bill, however, will do nothing to explore and alter the generations-old dynamic of politicians’ contempt for democracy.
That kind of hypocrisy is racism. Don’t dance around with weak narratives. Call it what it is.
Imagine if any political leaders in Canada had to report their personal wealth in addition to the salary of their public office. Prime Minister Harper is the 6th highest paid political leader in the world with a salary of approximately $300k/year. Harper not only makes 7 times what the average Canadian makes, but makes far more than other world leaders with much larger populations and economies.But let’s forget about his salary for a minute. What is Prime Ministers and federal politicians had to publicly disclose their PERSONAL wealth? Then we are no longer talking about over-paid Prime Ministers, we are talking about million dollar Prime Ministers. Stephen Harper’s personal wealth has been estimated at $5M. Former Prime Minister Paul Martin is in the hundreds of millions. Why the double standard? Why did so many federal MPs refuse to disclose their own expenses? I agree there is an issue of accountability in Canada, but it’s with the federal government, and not First Nations.
Indigenous Nationhood: Myth of the Crooked Indians: C-27 First Nations Financial Transparency Act.