Conservatives never redress, they retaliate
OTTAWA— It is the default position of the Stephen Harper government.
If you encounter dissent, you demonize. If you are crossed, you take the low road and fight back. Seek enemies. They keep supporters energized and help you raise money.
Now it’s been caught and has retreated to another well-known default position — ignore. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that a Harper government official “retaliated” against Cindy Blackstock, an aboriginal child welfare advocate who had filed a human rights complaint against the government, alleging racial discrimination in its treatment of 163,000 on-reserve children.
The government spent $3 million over six years to try to prevent the case from being heard, but it has gone ahead.
It also spent a fair bit of time monitoring Blackstock’s speeches, her Facebook postings and — Blackstock alleged — inappropriately accessing her Indian Registrar Record, all as payback for launching her complaint in her position as president of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society.
The federal privacy commissioner has already found Aboriginal Affairs and the Department of Justice collected personal information about Blackstock, although it could not make a finding on her allegation regarding the access to her registrar records.
But it was her specific complaint that she was wrongly barred from a meeting to discuss child welfare policy by David McArthur, who was then an aide to former Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, that caught the tribunal’s attention.
Not only did McArthur bar Blackstock, who was there to advise chiefs, he told First Nations leaders assembled that there would be no meeting if Blackstock tried to attend.
Blackstock was forced to sit outside the room under the watchful gaze of a security guard.
The tribunal agreed with her complaint, ordering aboriginal affairs to pay Blackstock $20,000 — $10,000 for pain and suffering and $10,000 for the “wilful and reckless conduct” of McArthur.
McArthur has since been promoted, and is now the chief of staff to Natural Resources Minister Greg Rickford.
Blackstock will donate the $20,000 to charity, except she hasn’t seen any money yet because the government may yet appeal.
Mark Strahl, the former minister’s son who is now the parliamentary secretary to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt, told the Commons this week the government was reviewing the decision to determine “next steps.”
This may sound like a minor dispute, but the government’s bullying and Blackstock’s defiance is part of the pervasive attitude in this town.
She thinks the government attitude is systemic, that it is prepared to go on the offensive, whether in dealing with aboriginals or those who do not agree with their positions.
“That is more troubling to me,” she says. “Whether it is a Supreme Court justice (Beverley McLachlin) or (former auditor general) Sheila Fraser, or anyone who crosses them, the attitude is the same.” Fire away. Do not accommodate. Blackstock could have added Elections Canada, or those wearing niqabs, or “radical environmentalists” to her list.
McArthur may have blocked her from the meeting, but the government response that was rejected by the tribunal — that she was not on a previously approved meeting list — was crafted by a cadre of officials.
She wants an apology for her treatment from Harper or Valcourt.
Aboriginal affairs, where questions go to do die, refused to answer the following: What would be their next steps? Is the government contemplating an appeal?
Will there be any disciplinary action for McArthur?
Would there be an apology forthcoming?
A spokesperson for Valcourt would say only that Mark Strahl’s comments stand.
Blackstock said she launched her retaliation complaint to ensure First Nations or other Canadians do not face reprisals for exercising their democratic right to fight for better conditions and speak out on issues of the day, whether it is the plight of aboriginal children or the state of the environment.
“It’s about freedom of speech, it’s not about money,” she said. “I’m not the victim here, the 163,000 children who are being shortchanged by the government are the real victims.”
The larger question, Blackstock’s contention that Ottawa has been underfunding child welfare services on-reserve by anywhere from 22 to 34 per cent compared to provincial rates, needlessly driving aboriginal children into foster care, will soon be settled.
That all this unfolds as Harper largely ignores the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and declines to formally ask Pope Francis for an apology for the church’s role in the residential schools tragedy, neatly encapsulates this government’s aboriginal policy. Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca Twitter:@nutgraf1