Stop the charade

Trudeau's emoting won't solve numerous Indigenous issues

Now that the election is over, let's recognize our relationship with the Indigenous Peoples of Canada is not going to be fixed by Prime Minister

Justin Trudeau kneeling before an unmarked grave at a residential school burial site, clutching a teddy bear and emoting.

Reconciliation won't happen through more tears and apologies. Truth and justice come first.

It can only begin by providing Indigenous people on reserves with clean water, safe housing, a decent education for their children and by settling land claims.

Meeting these basic needs isn't something we should do out of the goodness of our hearts nor should governments be applauded for doing them.

We should do them because they are the right thing to do.

Given that, it was disturbing, but not surprising, that after all the political emoting before Monday's election about unmarked burial sites across the country, many Indigenous people were disenfranchised because they were told to go to polling stations hundreds of kilometres away from where they live, polling stations where they live never opened or they were sent to the wrong polling stations.

Some of this was unavoidable — what happens when a prime minister orders a snap, $610-million vanity election, while ignoring the recommendations of chief electoral officer Stephane Perrault on how to hold it during a pandemic.

That led to massive screw-ups across the country with huge lineups of people waiting to vote, disenfranchising many Canadians from casting a ballot, problems exacerbated by the remoteness of many First Nations.

Despite all that political emoting before the election call, Indigenous issues again fell by the wayside during the campaign.

Throughout the campaign, recent Indigenous services minister Marc Miller cheerfully tweeted about how many tainted water advisories the Trudeau government has lifted — after failing to eliminate all boilwater advisories by March

31, as Trudeau promised in the 2015 election.

Although to be fair, it has done more than previous Conservative and Liberal governments on this issue.

But Miller was also ignoring that many shortterm advisories have

turned into long-term ones, that many supposedly permanent fixes are temporary, that the funding formula for water-treatment plants is outdated, that work is often awarded to incompetent contractors and that properly trained water plant operators aren't paid enough to manage them long term.

He didn't mention that three auditors general — independent, non-partisan officers of Parliament — have said the main problem in solving this issue and that of unsafe housing on reserves and dismal living standards on many, including a second-rate education for many Indigenous children, is not corruption by some chiefs and bands, but systemic problems within the Indigenous Services bureaucracy.

A bureaucracy that misleads Parliament through the selective reporting of data to make problems appear less serious than they are and accomplishments greater than actually are.

To be fair, this predates Miller.

Three auditors general since 2005 have described it as “unacceptable”

(Sheila Fraser), an “incomprehensible failure” (Michael Ferguson) and “honestly disheartening” (Karen Hogan).

It's not about a lack of money. In their April budget, the Trudeau government boasted it had increased annual funding on Indigenous issues by 115% from $11.4 billion in 2015 to a projected $24.5 billion this year.

The problem is that until Indigenous Services provides taxpayers with good value for money spent, much of it will go down a black hole, failing to improve the lives of those it is supposed to help.

Reconciliation won't happen through more ... apologies. Truth and justice come first