Articles

Memorandum to Chiefs RE Summit with the PM

By Obidiah
Well, another “historic” meeting is upon us. Our leaders are meeting with the uh, white leaders with whom our ancestors signed treaties some years ago. Here, gleaned from across this great land, are the top ten things we on the rez want youse to get straightened out at the summit. These are the important things to know.
1. These days, $5.00 does not go along way at Safeway. It hardly buys a coke and a small bag of chips at 7 Eleven. For those who don't know, $5 is the amount that is handed out each year at Treaty Day. It shoulda been indexed to inflation but back then, the guy who was to advise on inflation missed the meetin'. Actually, we still don't have inflation on the rez. If you start at $10 an hour, you stay at $10 an hour, forever. If your groceries go up, you go to the bush and get more deer. INAC needs so set up a team on this inflation stuff so the minister can get up to speed on it. Okay?
2. My Indian Status card. It's getting old and frayed. I no longer look like the guy in the photo so I need a new card. But I can't just get one. You gotta go through all that red tape. You can't smile.
3. Why can't a Indian call the Manitoba regional office?? Why do we gotta call Ottawa first. Do you know how many minutes that adds to my cel phone bill? Actually, I don't own one because, well, food takes priority out here on the flat prairie rez. But for all those who work in the band office, this must be eating up our dollars.
4. Isn't the right to have a cel phone a treaty promise? You guys at the AFN office should be lookin' at these things.
5. Is Mr. Harper a neechie or a walking eagle?
6. Mr. Duncan said “You know, tings aren't all that bad out there.” WHERE? In Disneyland? Or the planet Venus? Uh we here on the rez want to know. What did he mean by that?
7. Does Mr. Harper have a clammy handshake? Or a strong handshake? These are important clues to the inner character. Is he able to look you in the eye and tell you the treaties promises will be honoured?
8. The queen. Don't forget to mention the queen okay? There are many of us Indians out here who think the queen should be the Prime Minister of Canada. This is going to be hard for them to accept but, in the end, it will be good for all of us. Failing that, the Green Party Elizabeth, she'd be good for Canada.
9. Is the Liberal party of Canada going to join up with the First Peoples Party of Canada? Go ahead, ask them.
10. Ask them, is it true that we are going to be lumped in with Judaism under that religious freedom office because there's recent evidence that we are, after all, (after all those battles we fought over this), the 7th tribe of Israel? Go ahead. Ask them that and see what they say. Go ahead.