ADVERTISEMENT

Matthew Coon Come, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has long decried the 126-year-old Indian Act as "a racist document." So one might have predicted he'd be a big fan of the First Nations Governance Act, which overhauls the Indian Act and eliminates Ottawa's veto power over First Nation by-laws. But no: Speaking Friday, the AFN leader claimed the legislation's focus on native "accountability" is a Eurocentric scam. Ottawa's real aim, he says, is "to entrench Euro-Canadian models, principles and standards on [natives]. It is, in a word, assimilation."

At first blush, it seems like an unconvincing rant. Many chiefs, I suspect, don't oppose the Governance Act because the plan is "racist," but because the legislation will force them to adopt state-of-the-art accounting and electoral practices that will limit their ability to dole out cash and favours to cronies. The obvious suspicion is that Mr. Coon Come relies on the racism charge only because he can't attack the merits of the new legislation without seeming to be an apologist for the nepotism, hereditary chieftaincies and corruption the legislation is designed to phase out.

But I'm willing to take Mr. Coon Come's argument seriously. Whatever his motives, I think he makes a valid point about the effects of the new legislation.

Like virtually everyone in Ottawa, Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault, who introduced the Governance Act last Friday, says he wants to protect aboriginal culture. But that doesn't square with his accountability plan. From Red Deer to Ramallah, tribal societies are typically dominated by strongmen who dole out favours to kin and clan. The idea that leaders should be elected through secret ballot, and be held accountable through governance codes and audits, is an entirely Western concept.

Mr. Coon Come's use of the word "assimilation" is accurate, too. Canada's natives, itinerant foragers and hunters two centuries ago, are now sedentary welfare-collectors. Their relationship with the land has eroded greatly because they no longer depend on it for food. Thanks to television, they are also abandoning native languages in favour of English and French, and have largely shed their animistic faiths. (The AFN's Web site proclaims: "Our peoples are the original peoples of this land, having been put here by the Creator." But many chiefs are actually Christians. Mr. Coon Come himself belongs to an evangelical group and recently spent a year at a Florida Bible college.)

In short, one of the only authentic elements of native culture that remains is the one Mr. Nault is targeting: the traditional, patriarchal, kin-based system for distributing resources and choosing leaders. But white-style accountability rules don't permit such systems. Under Mr. Nault's legislation, moreover, the Indian Act will no longer be exempt from application of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which means tribal councils rooted in ancient traditions might suddenly be hauled before a human rights tribunal for -- say -- blocking a gay political candidate. Will the new legislation make life better for ordinary natives? Yes -- but it will also make it a lot more white.

This does not mean the First Nations Governance Act is a bad idea. Getting rid of poverty -- and the deadly social pathologies that go along with it on native reserves -- is a lot more important than stoking the dying embers of aboriginal culture. By Euro-Canadian lights, "kin-based" is merely anthropological shorthand for "nepotistic"; "patriarchal" means sexist; and "traditional" means undemocratic. If going Euro is the price natives have to pay for reforming their political structures and cleaning up corruption on reserves, so be it.

What I would like to see, though, is an admission from the federal government that Mr. Coon Come is partly right -- that the Governance Act really is about assimilation. But as with the rest of federal aboriginal policy, the new legislation has been advanced under the false conceit that we can promote aboriginal economic well-being and protect authentic native cultures simultaneously.

It is this conceit that prompts Ottawa to encourage Indians to remain on remote, economically desolate bantustans instead of migrating to city jobs. While the First Nations Governance Act will help make life more tolerable on those bantustans, it won't solve the underlying problem. Most Indians will remain second-class citizens until Ottawa has the courage to use the A-word openly.