04) SOLIDARITY WITH RAYMOND ROBINSON

People's Voice Editorial

     Although Aboriginal grand elder Raymond Robinson has ended his fast, the issues he raises remain unresolved. Robinson is from Cross Lake in northern Manitoba, where his people were "transferred" by the Conservative government of Prime Minister John A. MacDonald more than a century ago, far from their homeland. Such "transfers" were part of the overall colonisation of indigenous territories in the Americas, for the benefit of transnational corporations involved in resource extraction and profiteering.

     Here in Canada, Aboriginal peoples continue to live in conditions of colonial inequality and poverty, in homes filled with mold and lacking clean water, the targets of police, courts and prisons, their national equality rights still denied by the racist Canadian state. Raymond Robinson began his fast to protest arbitrary Conservative funding cuts for Aboriginal programs, calling for a "nation-to-nation" meeting between AFN Chief Shawn Atleo and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to address these urgent problems.

     Instead, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister Bernard Valcourt offered only to visit Cross Lake if Robinson ended his hunger strike. Valcourt laughed at the proposal for a Harper-Atleo meeting, telling Robinson "that will never happen."

     As bitter enemies of Aboriginal rights since the time of Confederation, the Conservatives can always be expected to stick to a hardline stance. Only a powerful alliance of the working class of all nations in Canada can begin to reverse this racist position and lay the groundwork for a genuinely new, equal and voluntary relationship. For his fearless stand against national oppression, we send our full solidarity to elder Raymond Robinson.

(The above article is from the April 16-30, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)