By the time you read this, community delegates will be nervously writing their speeches for the 25th Annual General Assembly in Whapmagoostui. The UFO capital of Eeyou Astchee, according to our readers’ poll, by the way. This year’s theme is… drum roll… Cree Government. Or lack of, to be more realistic.
There is a coup in the offing and it will be interesting to see how el jefe magnifico will deal with this insurrection. Cree excrement is sure to hit the fan when some brave soul brings up that dear John letter to Dr. Matthew signed by the Gang of Five. I love to watch chiefs squirm and sweat in their seats. Which is what they will probably be doing if they bother to grace us with their separatist faces this year.
On the bright side there will be of course the feasts, dances, the parties, the forgotten resolutions, new resolutions, the doodles from bored delegates, the usual long, platitude-filled speeches by delegates, chiefs and who have you.
Hopefully someone, at least one, dear God, will have announced their candidacy for Grand Chief. Remember the last election when they gave us three days to decide on who would lead the nation?
The fate of the entire Free Cree Nation hangs in the balance this time and they has very graciously given us 12 more days to decide. Sweet. Thank you kindly. That gives more than enough time for these indecisive Grand Chief wannabes to inform us if they’re going to risk political suicide by running, campaigning throughout Cree territory, doing one of the jobs they’re paid to do, sit on a commitee and raise a family. All this while running against a chief who in the last election received 1,708 votes with the nearest contender at 494, almost all of which were from his home community of Chisasibi.
We should take our cue from Canada’s Prime Minister, Jean Chretien. He was already in full campaign mode when he dropped by our office complex a few days ago (see photo) for a press conference. I literally risked my neck when I got too close to him to grab a quick shot. One of his aides, a blonde and very sexy-looking woman I might add, pushed me up the stairs and I nearly tripped and broke my equipment. Uh… that would be my camera equipment.
Anyway, back to Great Whale. We hear one of the items on the agenda is whether anyone can hold both the offices of jefe of a community and jefe magnifico del diputado at the same time. Good start, old bean, I say. Now then, maybe from there we can change a few more rules so our over-worked, multi-hatted officials can finally stop flying around going to this meeting and that meeting, racking up their multiple per diems all on the expense of the filthy poor Cree Nation. Think of all the time and energy, if not talent, they can finally put into one job. And maybe then our skyrocketing unemployment numbers will take a dive.
The Nation team might or might not be in attendance. In case we do make it up for this year’s meeting you can reach us at the social club and the pub where we intend to set up our sattelite offices and where we will be filtering, processing and analyzing the information we manage to find the time to gather. We prefer our drinks cold, shaken and stirred. In that order, but a warm beer will do in a pinch at closing time. Thanking you in advance.
