In 2007, Chief Clarence Louie, the no-nonsense leader of British Columbia’s Osoyoos Indian Band, was appointed to a five-person federal panel reviewing the operations of the Correctional Service of Canada. There was much that troubled him, as he toured federal penitentiaries. He was distressed, but hardly surprised, by the overrepresentation of First Nations and other Aboriginal offenders in prison. Most anyone from a First Nations community has a friend or relative who has done jail time, he said in an interview. But what frustrated him, in that context, was the mushy morass of well-meaning “Aboriginal” programs to heal and empower, or to find one’s inner warrior.
“That’s what pissed me off, when I saw the programming they were doing: sweat house, sweat house, sweat house, all that healing and cultural stuff,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with spirituality to a degree, but they were doing too much of it and not enough employment and training, like welders or carpenters or electricians. I want to see First Nations programs based around jobs.”
The study was noted and filed in the grand tradition of task force reports. But Louie has taken his case for reform a giant step further.
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via “I want to see First Nations programs based around jobs.” | OIBDC.
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