[R-G] Harper's campaign manager...

[Macdonald Stainsby]

National Aboriginal Leaders Call on Stephen Harper to Explain Position
on Offensive Writings of Tom Flanagan, Conservative Party of Canada's
National Campaign Chair

OTTAWA, June 7 /CNW/ - The leaders of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada
today called on Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper to explain his
position on the writings and statements of Tom Flanagan, Senior Advisor
to the Conservative Leader and National Campaign Chair for the
Conservative Party.

Métis National Council President Clément Chartier, Assembly of First
Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine, and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
President Jose Kusugak are all calling on the Conservative leader to
provide a clear answer as to whether or not he agrees with the
antiquated, ill-informed, regressive and offensive writings of Mr.
Flanagan in articles and books such as First Nations?, Second Thoughts

[clip]

Attachment: Excerpts from Tom Flanagan's Book First Nations?, Second
Thoughts (June 2000)

EXCERPTS FROM TOM FLANAGAN'S BOOK FIRST
NATIONS?, SECOND THOUGHTS (JUNE 2000)
-------------------------------------

"European Civilization was several thousand years more advanced than the
aboriginal cultures of North America, both in technology and social
organization."

"Sovereignty is an attribute of statehood, and aboriginal peoples in
Canada had not arrived at the state level of political organization
prior to contact with Europeans."

"Owing to this tremendous gap in civilization, the European colonization
of North America was inevitable and, if we accept the philosophical
analysis of John Locke and Emer de Vattel, justifiable."

"Current public policy... is flooding reserves with money, enticing
people back, enticing people to stay and weakening their resolve to
participate in Canadian society."

"Aboriginal government is fraught with difficulties stemming from small
size, an overly ambitious agenda, and dependence on transfer payments."

"In practice, aboriginal government produces wasteful, destructive,
familistic factionalism."

"Perhaps the damage to Canada would be tolerable if it meant that
aboriginal peoples would escape from the social pathologies in which
they are mired to become prosperous, self-supporting citizens"

"Prosperity and self-sufficiency in the modern economy require a
willingness to integrate into the economy, which means, among other
things, a willingness to move to where jobs and investment opportunities
exist."

"Contemporary judicial attempts to redefine aboriginal rights are
producing little but uncertainty. Recent Supreme Court of Canada
decisions define aboriginal title in a way that will make its use
impossible in a modern economy."

"The treaties mean what they say. Their reinterpretation... has the
potential to be both expensive and mischievous for the economies of all
provinces in which treaties have been signed."


Jim Hurcomb
Electronic Media Monitoring
INAC
(819) 994-7268

-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
		--Brecht.