Once again, it seems like there's a new sheriff in town. Late last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet once more. Actually, it wasn't quite a full shuffle, more like replacing only one or two cards in the deck.
The result is that aboriginal people can say goodbye to Chuck Strahl, the outgoing minister of Indian and northern affairs, who goes on to bigger and better things, specifically as Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. So now, indigenous people of Canada, say hello to John Morris Duncan, the incoming Great White Bwana.
There are many aspects of running a country that a lot of aboriginal people don't quite understand. Two things right off the top of my head:
How does Question Period work when everybody's yelling and nobody's listening? You watch the members of Parliament for an hour and you swear they've been drinking. Some are reading their comments in a barely conscious, boring, monotone voice, while others are screaming at the top of their lungs. I've been to too many parties that ended like that.
Second, how do they expect ministers to do a good job when they get tossed in and out of portfolios before the paint has dried in their offices?
There is a particular tendency to rotate the native affairs minister annoyingly frequently, before they really get the chance to learn or do anything.
Since I was born in 1962, there have been 27 ministers of Indian affairs, under 11 different prime ministers. That's more than one every two years or every .407407 prime ministers. There have been only 17 ministers of finance and 15 ministers of citizenship and immigration in that same period.
Poor Chuck Strahl was there just under three years, barely long enough to memorize the names of the 630-odd first nations communities. The honeymoon was barely over for Chuck.
It's as if prime ministers are afraid that familiarity will breed commitment. Or the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations might teach them the secret handshake.
A rolling stone gathers no moss or Indians.
I agree that new blood isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it must cost a fortune to change the locks at Indian Affairs so frequently. Maybe it's a conspiracy of locksmiths or something.
Granted, administering to the aboriginal people of Canada is not the most charismatic portfolio.
Mr. Duncan will quite probably spend a lot of time travelling around the country, being yelled at and blamed for the myriad of problems plaguing first nations communities.
He will be eating a lot of corn soup, salmon, moose and bannock, and be given a plethora of traditional native names, many of which will not actually mean what he'll be told they mean.
On a purely economic level, I suppose rotating the ministers creates a lot of jobs in the Department of Indian Affairs for all those well-educated white men who have all the answers.
God knows they need all the help they can get with getting a job these days. If you look at Mr. Harper's current cabinet, it is filled with primarily successful white men, with the odd scattering of women and the occasional person of colour. They look like the cast of Mad Men, down to their suits and haircuts.
Still, I think the new guy has potential. First of all, Duncan is a good Scottish name so, historically, running the lives of Canada's native people should be old hat. Most of the Hudson's Bay factors were Scottish - they had plenty of experience telling native people what to do and how to do it.
The first thing John Morris Duncan will have to do is memorize his official title: Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. Now that's a mouthful.
As one of Minister Duncan's proud and loyal charges, I would like to offer up a primer, a questionnaire if I may, to see if he is truly up to the challenge. To test his worthiness, I have put together a 15-question test to see how learned he truly is about his new portfolio.
If he can guess correctly 10 or more, than he will truly be worthy of butting heads with Shawn Atleo of the Assembly of First Nations. Five or fewer, hit the back benches again, dude.
EASY
1. What does the name of the Inuit territory Nunavut mean?
2. Which Mohawk community is often mistakenly referred to as Oka: Kahnawake or Kanesatake?
3. What first nation was the City of Ottawa and the river named after?
4. What pivotal bill, passed by Parliament in 1986, restored native status to non-status women and their children?
5. Name the male native character that starred in the CBC-TV series The Beachcombers.
MEDIUM
6. In what language did the 1990s indigenous musical group Kashtin sing?
7. What famous Haida artist's work can be found on the back of the Canadian $20 bill?
8. Within 200,000, what is the aboriginal population (including Métis and Inuit) of Canada, as recorded in the 2004 Census?
9. In which province did the Métis battle of Duck Lake take place?
10. What U.S. Indian tribe speaks a language remarkably similar to that of the Dene?
DIFFICULT
11. What was the name of the last surviving Beothuk Indian who died in Newfoundland in 1829?
12. What was the name of the first native senator?
13. How many terms did Louis Riel serve as a member of Parliament?
14. Who was the First World War's most successful sniper?
15. What is the name of the only first-nation community on the island of Newfoundland?
ANSWERS
1. "Our land"
2. Kanesatake
3. Odawa
4. Bill C-31
5. Jesse Jim
6. Innu
7. Bill Reid
8. 1,172,790
9. Saskatchewan
10. The Navajo, who call themselves the Dine
11. Shanawdithit
12. James Gladstone, appointed in 1958
13. Three
14. Francis Pegahmagabow
15. Samiajij Miawpukek (Conne River, Nfld.)
Playwright Drew Hayden Taylor, from Ontario's Curve Lake First Nation, is the author of a new novel, Motorcycles and Sweetgrass.