Bolivia & North End MC for Prime Minister

Uh oh. Haven’t written in awhile. Need to be better at consistency.

In my defense, I’ve gone back to school to take a couple of classes so my free time is largely taken up with that. But, one of those classes is Cultural Anthropology (I absolutely love it, completely fascinating). And a couple of weeks ago we had a guest speaker from Bolivia who talked about the indigenous people of that country. Bolivia has a huge indigenous population, with 55% indigenous and 30% mixed European and indigenous heritage. As well, in 2005 they elected Eva Morales, a popular indigenous leader, as president. That got me thinking…what if, one day, Canada had a First Nations Prime Minister?

*pause for the sound of crickets chirping*

Flag of the Plurinational State of Bolivia

Many First Nations people do not identify themselves as Canadian and some seem to have a not so high regard for the leadership of this country. So whether an indigenous person would even want to govern a place they do not see as “theirs” is open for debate. Yet, it’s interesting to think about…

I even have an idea of the kind of indigenous leader I’d want to see in power. Oh, as an aside, I have great contempt for all political leaders (of all races). I don’t care how noble your intentions are, once you have that kind of power I believe it’s inevitable that you’ll be sucked into the disdainful vortex of that power and begin to forget about the people you are supposed to be serving.

However, I’ve been following a young, indigenous leader in Winnipeg. His name is Michael Champagne.

He is on the ground at the grassroots trying to bring change to the North End of Winnipeg. And he's succeeding! He has won awards, speaks at conferences and, from what I can tell, truly cares about “his people”. What if a guy like Michael was Prime Minster of Canada? Could someone like that bring the kind of changes to this country that we so desperately need? Could he help to mend First Nations and settler relations? Could he help give high school students on reserves economic opportunities? Could he focus more on healing the land rather than just taking and taking and taking from it? Maybe he's the only kind of leader who could.

So what do you think? What if a First Nations person was Prime Minister of Canada? If Michael ran he'd get my vote. :)