by Daniel N. Paul, CM, ONS, Mi’kmaw Elder and Historian

Twenty four years ago a British Columbia Reform Party of Canada Member of Parliament, Herb Grubel, rose in the House and made a speech that displayed how deeply imbedded in the sub-conscience of most non Indigenous Canadians the British colonial propaganda fabrications that marked First Nations Peoples as savages and dehumanized them was still at the forefront. It pissed me off to no end at the time, the following is a newspaper column I wrote in rebuttal!

June 17 1994 Halifax Herald

Education vital to wiping out racism in Canada

When MP Herb Grubel recently delivered his outrageous lazy Natives speech, in the protective atmosphere of the House of Commons, he was spouting the stereotypical image of our people now afoot in the minds of a multitude of Canadians.

In my mind, the words of Mr. Grubel reflect the fact that he, like so many of his compatriots, will make every effort to shift the blame to Canada’s Native American citizens for the mess that has resulted from the less-than-honourable conduct of his European ancestors towards these Nations. This statement is backed up by a recent study released by the C.D. Howe Institute, which shows that a majority of Canadians believe minorities are to blame for the disadvantages they suffer, and that discrimination isn’t.

In formulating their debasing opinions, Mr. Grubel and his I’ll will studiously ignore the fact that the White man – by enacting racist laws and setting outlandi ...