Attawapiskat: It's Like Our Own Little North Korea Nestled Within Canada's Borders

I'm certain that when Chief Theresa Spence ordered any media arriving in Attawapiskat to ask questions about the explosive audit recently leaked to the media -- which Spence herself wishes people would dismiss as a distraction -- to leave or risk arrest, many of the aboriginal activists involved in Idle No More didn't so much as bat an eye. I imagine many of them are quite used to things like this. As Ezra Levant recently noted about the shoddy accounting in Attawapiskat's financials -- and I will now expand to the tyrannical bent of many First Nations leaders -- this is a way of life.

But it had me thinking about something that I had personally read and dismissed as malarkey -- which meant that many left-wing activists instantly fell in love with it. What I refer to is a recent blogpost written by one Tolbold Rollo -- I personally refer to him as Troll-bold -- and promptly re-posted in various sources. It was entitled "I Am Canadian (Because of Treaties With Indigenous Nations)."

It was laden with equal parts error, fantasy and logical fallacy. But what I'd actually like to draw attention specifically -- as this is very relevant to the current topic of discussion -- is a link within the blogpost. To a pamphlet Rollo wrote with Mohawk scholar Taiaiake Alfred.

It's unlikely that this pamphlet would stand up to scrutiny not only by anyone not affiliated with Idle No More, but with many of those affiliated with it, provided that they even bothered to stop and think about it.

Particularly the idea that the Parliament of Canada should pass legislation that would allow First Nations to govern themselves according to their own traditions. The problem for many Idle No More activists is that they have expressed a belief that the government of Canada cannot legislate any such rights for First Nations without being paternalist. But the problem for absolutely anyone else is that it could quite easily lead to what is happening in Attawapiskat to proliferate on reserves across Canada. Presumably at the tax-payers expense.

 Think about everything you've seen about Attawapiskat. The grinding poverty of most individuals. Compare that to the comparatively lavish salary of Chief Spence and her common-law husband Clayton Kennedy. Between the two of them their yearly household income tops $200,000. They are truly among the 1% of Canada's aboriginal community. Now, the expulsion of any outside media. Not all that different from North Korea.

Spence's actions have revealed for all to see what a great many Canadians must have suspected all along: that Chief Theresa Spence effectively runs Attawapiskat as her own personal fiefdom. From their actions of the past 48 hours, the band council looks an awful lot like a dictatorship, flexing its muscle to prevent residents from talking to outsiders and showing them how the band's money was really spent.

Now suppose that a great number of First Nations chiefs across Canada -- looking to Spence as their "inspiration" -- decide to follow suit. Suddenly, we have a handful of little North Korea-esque territories scattered throughout Canada, but hundreds of them. All it would really take is for any number of Chiefs to decide to themselves that this is consistent with aboriginal custom and tradition. Sadly, it may not take as much distortion of those customs and traditions for the power-hungry to draw this particular conclusion.

And that's what Attawapiskat has truly become. Call it Attawapiscam, call it Attawapisham, call it Attawapistan. Call it whatever you want. But don't mistake if for anything but what it is: the creeping encroachment of not just tyranny, but tyranny that imagines itself sovereign, into Canada.