Alot could be learned from this man!!!!

[nan*55]

Chief Clarence Louie Osoyoos BC: speaking in Northern Alberta

Does Chief Clarence Louie have an attitude and a wisdom that may be required to bust loose from mass poverty and third world living conditions on Indian reserves? Is his a blueprint for economic healing as Chief Andy Chelsea is for emotional, psychological and spiritual healing? 80% of the people who hear them do not agree with them but 100% cannot deny that what they have done WORKS!!! AND, they did it and continue to do it with integrity, commitment and brutal honesty.


Chief Clarence Louie Osoyoos BC speaking in Northern Alberta :



Speaking to a large aboriginal conference and some of the attendees, including a few who hold high office, have straggled in.

'I can't stand people who are late, he says into the microphone. Indian Time doesn't cut it. '
Some giggle, but no one is quite sure how far he is going to go. Just sit back and listen:

'My first rule for success is Show up on time.'
'My No. 2 rule for success is follow Rule No. 1.'
'If your life sucks, it's because you suck.'
'Quit your sniffling.'
'Join the real world. Go to school, or get a job.'
'Get off of welfare. Get off your butt.'

He pauses, seeming to gauge whether he dare, then does.
'People often say to me, How you doin'? Geez I'm working with Indians what do you think?'
Now they are openly laughing ... applauding. Clarence Louie is everything that was advertised and more.

'Our ancestors worked for a living, he says. So should you.'

He is, fortunately, aboriginal himself. If someone else stood up and said these things - the white columnist standing there with his mouth open, for example - you'd be seen as a racist. Instead, Chief Clarence Louie is seen, increasingly, as one of the most interesting and innovative native leaders in the country even though he avoids national politics.

He has come here to Fort McMurray because the aboriginal community needs, desperately, to start talking about economic development and what all this multibillion-dollar oil madness might mean,for good and for bad.

Clarence Louie is chief and CEO of the Osoyoos Band in British Columbia's South Okanagan. He is 44 years old, though he looks like he would have been an infant when he began his remarkable 20-year-run as chief. He took a band that had been declared bankrupt and taken over by Indian Affairs and he has turned in into an inspiration.

In 2000, the band set a goal of becoming self-sufficient in five years. They're there.

The Osoyoos, 432 strong, own, among other things, a vineyard, a winery, a golf course and a tourist resort, and they are partners in the Baldy Mountain ski development. They have more businesses per capita than any other first nation in Canada.

There are not only enough jobs for everyone, there are so many jobs being created that there are now members of 13 other tribal communities working for the Osoyoos. The little band contributes $40-million a year to the area economy.

Chief Louie is tough. He is as proud of the fact that his band fires its own people as well as hires them. He has his mottos posted throughout the Rez. He believes there is no such thing as consensus, that there will always be those who disagree. And, he says, he is milquetoast compared to his own mother when it comes to how today's lazy aboriginal youth, almost exclusively male, should be dealt with.

Rent a plane, she told him, and fly them all to Iraq. Dump'em off and all the ones who make it back are keepers. Right on, Mom.
The message he has brought here to the Chipewyan, Dene and Cree who live around the oil sands is equally direct: 'Get involved, create jobs and meaningful jobs, not just window dressing for the oil companies.'

'The biggest employer,' he says, 'shouldn't be the band office.'

He also says the time has come to get over it. 'No more whining about 100-year-old failed experiments.' 'No foolishly looking to the Queen to protect rights.'

Louie says aboriginals here and along the Mackenzie Valley should not look at any sharing in development as rocking-chair money but as investment opportunity to create sustainable businesses. He wants them to move beyond entry-level jobs to real jobs they earn all the way to the boardrooms. He wants to see business manners develop: showing up on time, working extra hours. The business lunch, he says, should be drive through, and then right back at it.

'You're going to lose your language and culture faster in poverty than you will in economic development', he says to those who say he is ignoring tradition.

Tough talk, at times shocking talk given the audience, but on this day in this community, they took it and, judging by the response, they loved it.

Eighty per cent like what I have to say, Louie says, twenty per cent don't. I always say to the 20 per cent, 'Get over it.' 'Chances are you're never going to see me again and I'm never going to see you again.' 'Get some counselling.'

The first step, he says, is all about leadership. He prides himself on being a stay-home chief who looks after the potholes in his own backyard and wastes no time running around fighting 100-year-old battles.

'The biggest challenge will be how you treat your own people.'

'Blaming government? That time is over.'

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

Those who think that Natives have to live in the stone age are completely wrong and no one ever suggested that.

First Nations people can live on their Reservations and their land and their water and they can be in complete control of it. They can decide if they want to use a resource or not and they can control how a resource is taken in order for the land and water to not be damaged. They can have businesses and support themselves…..there is nothing wrong with that at all. Harpers new bill wants to without discussion open land and water up for use by corporations to be used as they see fit. This breaks the treaty agreements. But it's far from the first time that governments have done the same thing.

However it was the white man who said “this is where you will live”….and because of that and the locations it can be more difficult to survive. Now the government and many people want the Native people to leave their land. This is convenient for the government and corporations and of course the bigots in Canadian society.

As I have said before, the Native people live in two worlds, theirs and the white man’s world………and with the white man’s world came lies and treachery and prejudice and racism and hate and rejection and hatred and liquor and drugs. It’s a difficult world to live in being pulled from one side and the other. It would be a better world if they had the government support they needed and the support of other people in Canada…but the racists and the hatred does just the opposite. They want to drive a wedge between the Native and white people through their lies and misinformation and support greedy governments like Harper’s.

Here is a blunt, honest video about one reserve. It’s about an hour long. Those who wish to learn more will take the time to watch it. Others…..well they already have their minds made up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ell3X6Afn3U   

[prior-of-verity*shake-hands-with-your-devil]

Tell me puck….are there other places in Ontario or Canada that your parents would not walk at night? If so then why focus on the Native people?

Years ago I was at a cottage on Ipperwash beach near Kettle Point Rez. A fellow I know went out for a walk on the beach and was beaten up by a couple of Native young men. What happened or how it started I don't know so I'm not blaming anyone. That’s when it started….. ”don’t walk on the beach at night”!!!!  I and many others have spent countless nights on that beach and do you know what has happened?………NOTHING! But…..the rumours still abound.

When the Stoney Point Natives took back their land that was stolen from them (the military base, then a cadet base) the rumours spread like wildfire...."watch your homes and beware of Indians"!!!!!! Do you know what happened ........NOTHING!

Strange isn’t it that when something happens to a white man, the first thing they do is classify it by ‘race’. But if you walk down Yonge St in TO at night and get smacked by a white man……no one says "beware of Yonge St because of the white men there." If a Native man said "beware of the white man on Yonge St, then everyone would be screaming Racism! But it's ok if the white man does it.

Here’s a news flash…..drunkenness and drugs and violence and fights happen in ALL societies and ALL races. When a Native man gets into a fight with a white man and people yell NATIVE! That’s hate mongering. Meanwhile a block away are good Native families …..but they get tarred with the same Hate.

What is happening now in Canada, the constant hate mongering and misinformation and innuendoes and outright lies is no different than what happened to the Jews in Germany and the Black people in the US.....and the same mentality is doing it.

Why don't you go talk to them and tell them how you feel.

I wouldn’t mind at all. Where’s he located?………..oh yeah…..British Columbia. You paying the plane fare?