A Sad day to be Canadian – The Declaration of Indigenous People

As a country we sent some of our top policy makers, people who eat and sleep politics on the world stage, to create a declaration of Indigenous People's rights. For years we've headed the push for the creation of such a document. For years we've pushed the idea that indigenous peoples around the world need to be treated with the same degree of respect and protection as us non-indigenous people. We've challenged other countries to get on board and move towards just and right relations with indigenous peoples. And what happens with the culmination of that effort is about to become a reality? Why we vote no of course. 1 of 5 countries to do so. Why? Because the price we'd have to pay in land claims negotiations is too high; because indigenous people in Canada might actually get what they deserve; because white people might have to leave some of their multi-million dollar properties on the West coast; and because indigenous people might actually get land that's really worth something, rather than our leftovers – the land we can't imagine a use for…at least not yet. Its disgraceful. Perhaps we should change our national anthem to "true patriot love as long as your skins not red." I've seen the state of some reserves with my own eyes. Don't fool yourself by opting into the white collar myth that "Indians" are sitting on their duffs on reserves being paid to do nothing by the federal government mouching off our hard paid tax dollars. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could be farther from the truth. When I was serving a congregation on Vancouver Island I had the opportunity to visit a village on one of the local reserves that didn't have any running water! Imagine, it's the year 2003 and in Lyn or Athens or Addison or Mallorytown there was no running water – no treated municipal water supply – no wells could be drilled because of contaminated land – yet that is the only place you are told you can live! Do not dismiss the United Nations findings that many indigenous people who live on reserves in Canada do so in conditions worse than those found in 2/3rds world countries. Worse! In Canada! When our Indian Affairs minister Chuck Strahl voted no it was a sad day to be a Canadian and it didn't have to be so.