On giving thanks for his commitment to indigenous issues, the Tsuut'ina First Nation near Calgary bestowed the traditional headdress on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and gave him an aboriginal name Gumistiyi, which translates as the one who keeps trying.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week: "We need to get to a place where Indigenous peoples in Canada are in control of their own destiny, making their own decisions about their future."
That contradicts what Indians and Inuit have always told me. Young or old, they don't believe that legislation and phony recognition of aboriginality can enable themselves or their children for the much-vaunted Middle Class where they want to belong. They say leaders don't speak for followers, and they don't see equality of citizenship and opportunity as culture-specific, or that it conflicts with their identity. As individuals, they want help that works, and they aren't getting it. That's what Chief Poundmaker thought he was getting when he affirmed Treaty Six in 1876.
