Bud Talkinghorn: CBC-Natives & Its Master's Voice, Liberal Dog-NDP Tail

The CBC presents a three-hanky job on the plight of the Natives

In a segment called "North of 60", (The National, April, 26) we were introduced to the growing wealth and job opportunities for the indigenous peoples of the NWT. The program showed the enormous prosperity that the discovery of diamonds created. There was an aboriginal woman who drove an 18-wheeler truck, who probably made a very tidy salary. But then they mentioned that most of her people who live close by don't want to take high-paying employment because "they don't want to disturb their (lacksadaisical) way of life." If they work two weeks, then they get two weeks off to return home. However, we are told that this is too taxing and distrupts their routine too much. Well, boo-hoo, join the real world for a change, my brethren. Also, we are supposed to feel sorry because "those who do actually work spend much of the wages on the delights of Yellowknife. Could this possibly mean they squander it on loose women and booze-ups?

A digression: Someone who worked for Cassiar Asbestos in Northern BC years ago wondered why even the low-level bagging guys had been recruited from Vancouver and Edmonton. Why didn't the company hire the local Indians from the surrounding area? The answer was that originally, they did hire them. However, after receiving their bimonthly paycheck, they tended to miss days. The company tried to explain to them that this couldn't continue. But it did. And slowly but surely every one of them, except one had to be fired. Joe, the sole Indian survivor told an incredible story. He said that when he went home to his Good Hope Lake reservation, the loafers and ex-workers expected him to spend his paycheck on a boozy potlatch. He was so disgusted he moved his family into a Cassiar family apartment and went back again only to see relatives sporadically.

I am sure that the sensitive souls at CBC didn't intend to add the denouement to this sad vignette, but they did. The only two hardy folk who were presented as tireless workers in the fur trade were two whites--a German-Canadian named Hoffman and another guy called Kennedy. Perhaps the spirit of the segment was expressed best by a young Aboriginal girl who said, "When the money runs out, there will always be the true resource, the people." Not a particularily charming thought, when you witness the loafers driving around Fort Smith in their expensive (government supplied) ATVs and snowmobiles. Pardon me, but it is time to break out another hanky.

© Bud Talkinghorn



The CBC hears its master's voice

Isn't it interesting how the CBC "man-in-the-street" political interviews always manage to find the same people--or people who seem the same. Presumably, by selective culling methods known only to the CBC, almost everyone seems to side with the "We don't need an election now" position. Of three they interviewed one morning, all three said "No way". I just finished listening to a CBC TV segment called "The citizens' panel". One of them was an obvious NDPer from BC, while the other was a female professor from Trent University. While the question was about the NDP/Liberal deal, it didn't take long for them to switch to Stephen Harper and what a dangerous man he is. The BC guy managed to connect him to the neo-cons of the Republican Party in the US. The professor actually blamed Harper for the threat of Quebec separation. Strangely, neither of them could connect the dots that show the separtism increase flows directly out of the Liberals' corruption. CBC must coach these people before they are allowed on. The third citizen, who was supposed to also appear, might have had a few harsh words about this slimy, costly deal, but he never made it to the program. That the taxpayers have to finance this blatant Conservative-baiting diatribe is sinful. Perhaps most galling is that the CBC don't even try to hide their prejudice any more. The BC man stated, "Harper has been given this sinister aura. I'm not quite sure why, but it's there." He had to look no further than the program he was on.

Thank god, CBC can't filter out their afternoon phone-in program. Poor Kathleen Petty always looks as though someone had slapped her face when the Liberals are roundly attacked. Occasionally, someone actually gets through and points out the chronic bias of CBC. Then Petty looks as though she has been shot -- before she recovers and hits the end of that interview button.

© Bud Talkinghorn--Perhaps it was a little CBC "in" joke, but they even put the word "citizen" in quotation marks.



The Liberal dog gets wagged by a different tail

As the sponsorship scandal and their other suck-ups to Quebec have shown, the Liberals have proved that there are no depths to which they won't sink to hold onto power. They have caved to the blackmail of their supposed allies the NDP. Instead of giving corporations a tax break, thus creating more jobs and better foreign investment, they will spend those billions on aboriginal housing, tuition, and $500 million for more foreign aid. Let's look at the first demand. Some of the $9-billion-plus is supposed to go to native housing. Why has our government not enforced the ideas of Robert Nault, who demanded some accounting for these sums? As we have seen, money sent is not necessarily money properly spent by those intended to receive it. As for the third demand, we have had a poor track record of actually seeing these sums properly employed. Even if it is not plainly stolen by the kleptocrats, it ends up in the infamous "wonder bread factory" in Tanzania. For the few months it operated, no Tanzanian could afford the product; besides it had little nutritional benefit. Then the plant was deep-sixed by rampant theft of parts. As one Tanzanian wit remarked, "It was a wonder that they called it bread." However, failed aid projects have never discouraged the leftish NDP. To make a weak pun, "It is their bread and butter." Hopefully, the Liberals will pay big time for this deal with the devil.

© Bud Talkinghorn

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