"Native 'Warriors' Or Thugs With Guns?"

Native issues are at a turning point in Canada. A royal commission will soon report on the whole range of aboriginal matters, from land claims to urban native government. And Ottawa is again discussing self-government with native groups. In the best of worlds, these studies and talks will produce their badly-needed results.

If they don't, there is trouble ahead. Ever since the Oka crisis, five years ago now, there has been an expectation among natives that issues stretching back decades will finally be resolved. There is an onus on both the federal and native leaderships to bring changes. Another failure can be predicted to raise frustration levels that are already high.

The mainly-young native 'warriors' who have taken up guns - assault rifles yet - to force conflicts with the federal authorities are rightly seen by most Canadians, including natives, as some variety of terrorists at best. The Oka warriors had a certain legitimacy because many Canadians regarded their stand as just. They stood up to bulldozers about to level trees on a sacred site. But the warriors who have donned camouflage jackets and ridiculous masks this summer are not viewed so benignly, or indeed with much respect at all.

We can perhaps thank our stars for that. Native communities are divided on how to deal with Ottawa. They are also divided on their own leadership, which many natives openly distrust and challenge. But there is little patience among natives - yet - for the combat tactics of the floating groups of of 'warriors' who have tried to provoke conflicts at a handful of locations across Canada this summer.

The federal and native leaderships should regard this as an opportunity - perhaps a breathing space. They won't always have it. The failure to resolve issues, such as the grinding poverty and alienation on many reserves, breeds extremism. And as native leader and Liberal MP Elijah Harper has pointed out, a high birth rate means that native society (unlike Canadian society as a whole) is getting dramatically younger. In the future, the legendary native patience may be at a premium.

This summer the federal government and native leaders are doing some things right. There have been several standoffs involving the 'warriors' but Ottawa has declined to be provoked. In the meantime, natives from B.C. to New Brunswick have reacted angrily, and sometimes dismissively, towards warriors who have shown up from afar to raise the conflict level in local disputes. The warriors, for now anyway, have little credibility in any corner.

Nor should they have. A group of 'warriors' invited into a fishing dispute involving the Eel Ground reserve in New Brunswick succeeded mainly in wrecking a tourist enterprise created by natives. Eventually, Eel Ground members turned out in a protest of their own - against the 'warriors.'

There has been a similar division at Gustafson Lake in British Columbia, where armed warriors have laid claim to land on a private ranch and now declare they will leave only in body bags. They are primarily from other places - Central Canada and the United States. The local band doesn't even regard the land as of any real significance. Band leaders have told the warriors to leave. The RCMP, having seized weapons and had a member shot, are considering how to defuse a situation they regard, justifiably, as a terrorist incident.

The Gustafson Lake warriors, and any other prospective warriors in Canada, should know they have no support in society at large, and precious little support in native communities. Gun incidents should be treated as gun incidents, no matter who holds the gun. The question of how the RCMP deals with armed opponents is one of tactics only. Politics in present-day Canada is not conducted with bullets.

But it is not only the so-called warriors, in their ludicrous survivalist gear, who face questions of legitimacy. The issues of native land claims and the place of natives in Canadian society have been pushed to the side for too long. So long as this remains the case, native issues will always be prey to hostage-taking by idiots with guns. The federal and native leaders, at the table for many years now, should remember that there is some urgency to their talks.