BRENDAN CROSS CAMPAIGN SPEECH FOR THE ABORIGINAL AFFAIRS COALITION
Sunday, December 20th, 2009.
By Brendan Cross
Hi. I'm Brendan Cross. I'd like to thank you all for taking interest in the Aboriginal Affairs Coalition of Saskatchewan, our provincial affiliate of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.
On behalf of my campaign to be re-elected Vice-President, I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I am certain this New Year will be the beginning of something very good that I hope you will all support, if only in thought, word, or deed. The time has come for all of us to stand up, step forward, and participate in the game of political struggle to become Canada again.
I don't mind playing games from time to time. If you want to play games, I will simply learn the rules and beat you. And if you don't play by your own rules- I will really beat you.
This is the current situation with the Aboriginal Affairs Coalition. The AACS has an eleven page Constitution that clearly spells out the rules, policies, and procedures required to fulfill its mandate as the only provincial affiliate of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. The Congress, or CAP, currently represents off-reserve aboriginal people in Canada.
As Vice-President of the AACS in 2008 and 2009, I have become increasingly familiar with the articles of the Constitution and their necessity. By all accounts, the political strategies I have employed - and will continue to employ - arrive at one conclusion: I win.
The frustration of the current situation is simply this: When I play by the proper rules and the outcome follows, the current President of the AACS and his arbitrarily appointed friends continually circumvent the proper procedural, constitutional, and at time even legal protocols.
No properly elected Executive or Board has ever been made official since before 2008. Those elected provincially in 2008, and those elected in 2009 regionally, have yet to be officialized with the Corporations Branch of Justice Saskatchewan, even though the elections in Cumberland and Regina were reported in the news, and our provincial general meeting last year was attended by our National Chief himself.
This baffles me. How can the AACS go nearly nine months without updating the results of their own democratic election? What further baffles me is this - when the democratically elected Executive and Board sought to remedy the situation through an emergency board meeting this past summer with the support of our Elders, the interim National Chief deliberately interfered by forcing our Elder to resign, canceling the board meeting mere hours before we were set to meet in her house in Regina.
Intimidation, insults, even an assault in a bar where local police had to be called, will simply not slow me down. We, the democratically elected regional leaders of Cumberland, North Battleford, and Regina, were perfectly right to seek a non-confidence motion against President Beaudin, and we did so with the full support of our democratically selected Elder. If you add to that the moral support of our youth and other members of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples all across Canada, it is clear now that our right to "determine our own future" was superceded by a corrupt apparatus of power.
Twelve months ago, Conservative senator Patrick Brazeau was National Chief of the Congress and he wrote a feature article extolling the good things we as an organization were doing here in Saskatchewan. He praised the Aboriginal Affairs Coalition. Here we are a year later with only a President and Secretary legitimately on the Executive, and only one of five regional Board members officially recognized.
In the last minutes of National Chief Brazeau's time in his Ottawa office, he encouraged me to return to Saskatchewan and seek to replace the president. Sadly, I took the advice of Kevin Daniels instead, who told me to be the regional rep. for Regina, which I did. It was in that capacity that I tried to organize our failed emergency Board meeting. Never again.
The proper venue to solve such problems is an annual meeting and election, which has to this point been canceled almost three times. Funding was pulled due to the improper filing of information with the Justice Branch. This is all the responsibility of the president. At the very least, the call for a Board meeting by the regional representatives should have been heeded, as the president must follow the direction of the Board according to the Constitution.
Our president has failed to fulfill his duties for over a year. Ian Fosseneuve in Cumberland, myself in Regina, Elder Stanley Klyne, and Reggie Carriere in Prince Albert are the legitimate Board members of the AACS, according to Article 6.9 of our constitution. We remain in place until the successful adjournment of a public meeting where our replacements will be determined.
Why am I choosing to give this speech in front of our provincial Legislature, you might ask. I do so because in the midst of all this, ministries of our provincial Sask Party government continued to fund the AACS, even as all of this information was regularly being delivered to them in person. I am a conservative, but I am not a member of any provincial political party since starting my own nearly ten years ago. I pray for the Sask Party, but I am not a member. I wonder why.
Federal Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, and our federal interlocutor for Non-Status/Metis, the Honourable Chuck Strahl, was also kept regularly updated. To date, no application by the AACS for continued funding has been successful since President Beaudin's incompetency has become clear. Hence, no funding for any further public events exists from the federal level. Again, I wonder why.
I read recently that the United States and Britain are seeking to cancel the election in Afghanistan outright. The only solace I took in learning such a thing was that Canada was not included amongst the U.S. and the U.K. Canceling a democratic election goes against every grain of being Canadian, and I would be very saddened to see such a thing ever supported by Canada.
But look at what is happening here in Saskatchewan. The AACS election is effectively being canceled. It was already in October, then again in November. A date in February has not yet been finalized, but we here will strive to be there, perhaps even help make it happen. I was in charge of a successful student election in 2005 at Red Deer College, so such things are of interest to me. This time, however, you might be needed to join in reviving the AACS through your support of my campaign.
Non-reserve aboriginal people here in Saskatchewan deserve to be represented adequately and aggressively by a strong Aboriginal Affairs Coalition, much like we are by the FSIN and MNS. All of our past successes are sufficient to prepare us for any challenge before us. And like any game worth playing, things get more difficult near the end of the game. But this is Canada, and saving a non-profit provincial organization is not outside of our capabilities. Our destiny is bigger than just this.
I believe Canada is being called to save the world. We've done it before and we'll do it again. We have to. Because right now I fear nobody else is going to. All other nations are proving daily that upholding truth, justice, democracy, and law are no longer their desired course. This is not the future of Canada, and I can assure you it never will be.
I still believe in Canada. We are still who we wanted to be 142 years ago. We simply cannot change. No matter what.
I have always had faith in Canada. In fact, I believe Canada can do anything- best.
But what is Canada? This nation that is so good?
The real question should be who is Canada? Because Canada is you and me and everyone in it. This is who you are. Canada.
You and me and your family and mine and your friends and their friends and the stranger whose name you don't even know are all Canada.
And we have to be the best. Right now. And all I ask is that you will join me in doing something so simple but so special - which we as Canadians have done, time and time again.
Merry Christmas. I love you all. Meegwetch. Merci beaucoup. Thank you very much.
Brendan William Cross
