Settle it with a hockey summit

For the past nine years Stephen Harper has been writing a book about the history of hockey in Canada.
Some of us would rather he spent that much of his free time studying up on treaties and land claims, but maybe he’ll gain more appreciation for Native issues when his research reveals that many aspects of hockey – including the curved stick – were borrowed from stickball games played for centuries by North American Indians.
It’s getting tougher to figure out ways to get the PM to stay focussed on the First Nations file. His caucus just keeps ramming 400-page bills through Parliament that thumb their collective noses at Native rights, as well as make it easier to pollute Canada’s lakes and rivers. It may have escaped Steve’s attention that the rule of law means more than building bigger jails; it also involves keeping commitments made in Canada’s constitution, Supreme Court decisions, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
These oversights are starting to annoy a lot of people, and not just those of us who didn’t vote for him. He should understand that those mobs of folks round-dancing in malls across North America, and blocking railway tracks and highways are not there to form a House of Commons Fan Club.
Hopefully all that racket doesn’t disturb the PM while he’s up in his study at 24 Sussex Drive, pecking out paragraphs for his hockey tome.
If hockey is what turns the Harper crank, maybe First Nations leaders have been taking the wrong tack by using history lessons and legal arguments to try and convince him of the error of his ways.
The 2011 Crown-First Nations Gathering was a political flop. How about a Crown-First Nations Hockey Summit between Team Harper and the Redskins?
Wouldn’t you just love to see Senator Patrick Brazeau go into a corner with Reggie Leach?
If the Redskins win, the feds would agree to reinstate the 2005 Kelowna Accord, a $5-billion, 10-year action plan that achieved a historic rarity -- the unanimous approval of the prime minister of the day, all ten premiers, territorial leaders, and leaders of national aboriginal organizations. It was a missed opportunity to invest in comprehensive solutions to systemic Native challenges, instead of the usual piecemeal fiddling.
You think $5 billion is a lot of money to address issues affecting over a million people? Harper’s cabinet was ready to spend that on four fighter jets. That’s how much Canadian taxpayers spend every year on salaries, benefits, contractors and lawyers to support a 5,000-person Indian Affairs bureaucracy, most of whom are not Indians.
To put it in language the PM likely understands, that’s how much cash is gobbled up in two years by the 700 players and 30 owners of the National Hockey League.
And if Team Harper wins?
We allow the PM and 30 million Canadian citizens to continue to live here – at least until we sort out their rent.

Maurice Switzer is a citizen of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation. He serves as director of communications for the Union of Ontario Indians and editor of the Anishinabek News.