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Gordon Shields, Pressident
NCFLA

Published: Sunday, June 15, 2008
Ottawa Citizen - Page A03
Byline: Randall Denley

I used to think that Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre was a pretty smart kid who, despite a tendency to be a hyper-partisan self-promoter, would eventually grow into his responsibilities. His recent actions have caused me to rethink that assessment. Poilievre's statements about native residential schools this week were appalling in their content and horrendous in their timing. His party, and voters in Nepean-Carleton, should be asking if he's fit to hold public office. As a constituent, I would say no.

On the same day that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was delivering an historic apology for decades of mistreatment native Canadians suffered in residential schools, Poilievre was flapping his gums on talk radio, referring to people who "partook" in the native residential schools. Partook? These kids were forcibly removed from their families. After misstating the costs associated with the settlement by a mere $2.1 billion, Poilievre wondered if the public was really getting value for money.

"My view is that we need to engender the values of hard work and independence and self-reliance," the MP said. Not to say that our native people don't have those values. Not in so many words, anyway. It's always interesting to see a politician lecture people on the virtues of hard work and self-reliance when he is sucking on the public teat for more than $150,000 a year.

There are legitimate issues about the usefulness of the $10 billion a year our federal government spends on aboriginal people. It is a lot of money and the people who are supposed to benefit aren't getting results in proportion to the cost. But that has nothing to do with the residential schools issue.