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'Indian Time doesn't cut it' for innovative chief with on-the-edge humour
ROY MacGREGOR

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

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FORT McMURRAY — The man with the PowerPoint presentation is miffed.

He is 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 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 pasted 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.”

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Some of his simplicity I agree with. Some of his simplicity is ignorance. He is no more Aboriginal than is Steven Harper. I am quite surprised he is a chief at all. Open advocacy of the idea that we should start being White men is no more politically logical than it is possible of us doing so.

   

Truthfully I think he's saying time to grow up and get out there into the world where the white man works because that is where the money is at. No one is saying for you not to be an Indian but that you have to deal with what your dealt. Case in point is that he wants people to get off their butts and go to work stop living of the system and become part of it. Thus you become productive, can take pride in what you have accomplished, and at the same time still be an Indian.


Um sorry if the term Indian is offensive I'm not writing it to be. Not sure just what the correct term is Native American, Aboriginal or what ever. No offense is meant with the term Indian so please don't take it as that.

   

What I am getting from him is that it is time to take matters, that being economic, into our own hands. Create the wealth and pride from attaining self-sufficiency. He is not saying to turn our backs on our culture but to enhance it buy being hard-working people that we have been. Yes, we cant ever forget the past and problems associated with colonization, but we have to move forward. I dont think that by creating employment and opportunities is being like a White man, it is being part of a strong and proud nation.

   

   

Thank you for that Column you shared PJB...I found it very interesting and very true. I agree that it is time to stop blaming everyone else, including the government, for one's lack of motivation, poor upbringing, whatever the excuse may be and get out there and make the best of what we have to work with, as individuals.

I like Chief Louie and Roy MacGregor's attitudes about life and "the way it should be".

And Stratos.....the "politically correct" term to use changes all the time, so I don't think you need to apologize. On my status card...it states that "J-Girl is an Indian under the Indian Act.....", but that term is not used anymore....don't ask me what the correct one is.

   

I see Chief Louie has met Donny.

   

He reminds me of some motivational counsellors I have met. A bit smug and perhaps boastful but has the right mix to get his tough talk approach across to people. I am sure after listening to him some might take his words for more and may better themselves from them. He does have a realist point in that it is probably better to work with the system you have rather than try and spend your days waiting for it to change.

   

I like him too,

   

You sound like one of the 20% that he speaks of. The ones that he tells to 'get over it'. As he says you will loose your culture and language faster in poverty.

Keep believing that you are owed something and eventually you will get what you deserve.

   

   

Excellent article.

For Virgil however, being aboriginal is a bloodright, not something that is decided by "choice of activity" so the comparison to Stephen Harper is both ignorant on your behalf, and irrelevant to the point at hand.

   

I really like this guy. He has a great outlook on life and has done a great job reaching for what he believes in.

Ironically, he uses the foundation of what is left of the rights and obligations the Canadians have toward the aboriginal people to bring this prosperity to his community and the surrounding area. He has not forsaken them but found a way to use them in the manner they were intended, to create opportunities for aboriginal people to participate in the economy without having to give up their identities.

So we are not surrendering our rights to add value to our people and the surrounding communities, we are embracing them and protecting them by using them in the manner they were prescribed and envisioned by the elders.

That is to embrace the changing world without losing our identity as a people.

   

This Chief has got the right ideas.

   

Great summation there Donny. You hit the Nail on the head. Virgil. READ THE ABOVE, then think, then read it again. Hopefully you wont need a third reading of it to understand what is being said.

   

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