The Legislature cafeteria was nearly empty
The day's crowd had departed. The politicians evacuated to committees, or uptown meetings. The committees retreated into subcommittees, meetings devolved into inebriation. The subcommittees were expected to produce recommendations regarding recommendations under consideration by the original committees, who will return to seeking further recommendations. A refinement of some kind. Like a bowl of white sugar.
He sat in a far corner along the same basement wall as a flickering vending machine that had survived several premiers and a couple of constitutional crises, an independent journalist nursing a steaming cup of tea.
At some point in the previous decade somebody had decided he was an Independent Journalist. The dismissal spread with remarkable (liberal) efficiency for it was a phrase nobody could adequately define, except to say he works in newsprint, printed but undistributed.
The independent journalist wasn't so much old as institutionally old, the way he sees it. He's the sort of 'independent journalist' who has seen cabinet ministers led away in handcuffs. The kind of independent journalist who remembers when everybody smoked indoors, even cigars, 'through government cabinets rising and falling,' when premiers arrived declaring they would change everything and departed having changed the stationery.
The cafeteria matters with is fluorescent lighting and yellow painted walls because it is one of the great forgotten theatres of government. The speeches happen upstairs. The plebians gather downstairs.
The cafeteria beneath the legislature possesses the weary dignity of old government furniture. Nothing is broken. Nothing is modern. The linoleum tables shine with decades of maintenance. The lighting was adequate by federal standards. The coffee is not of any standard. He won't touch it.
He spent most of his professional life drinking from Styrofoam cups and wishing he could smoke indoors. The smoking ban had arrived decades ago. His opinion of the policy remained unchanged.
A fly on the wall descended to touch and go on the rim of his cup. The reporter glanced at it. "Premier wants rid of the Indian Act." The fly went to the wall and remained still. The reporter nodded. "That's about where I landed myself. only with my back to the wall."
He took a sip of his green tea. It tasted exactly like everything served in a government cafeteria since the (first) Trudeau administration. Tepid.
The fly left the wall and landed beside an open packet of sugar. "Funny thing." The reporter loosened his tie, and spilled a few grains of sugar out of the packet, "People think these moments happen suddenly."
The fly started munching, as if to argue, No they don't.
The reporter looked toward the ceiling. Somewhere above them elected officials should be discussing futures, partnerships, relationships, visions, pathways and other words that became more expensive the longer they remained unspoken, like rising government debt.
"You know you're going to get diabetes." The fly stopped eating sugar and started cleaning its forelegs. The reporter chuckled softly. "Yes. That's the correct reaction."
Silence had settled across the empty room. The reporter always liked government cafeterias in the waning hours of operation, with the rampant ambition drained out of the room.
A couple of cleaners worked around a couple of staffers, and the occasional survivor remained. The fly took off, circled twice, and the independent journalist watched it returned to the precise location from which it had departed..
The fly remained still. "That's Canada." Another sip. "We leave the place to vacation. We return to hold inquiries. We establish commissions. We draft frameworks. We strike committees. We conduct consultations. We release findings.
"None of which allows for the end of the Indian Act." The fly hesitated over the table sugar, and, "And then we arrive back where we began," the independent journalist smiled, "A remarkable gift, really," as it drifted toward a bread crumb instead.
He continued his rumination, "What's truly interesting isn't the Premier." The fly paused in mid-air, some form of arcane insect magic, as if to concur that the Premiers' words are not raising the deep questions.
The independent journalist's instincts remain intact. Forty-five years of these conditions taught him to lower his voice when approaching a topic like skewing the law lording over 2.5 million nominal Canadians who live under a Status contained within the Indian Act. "They are not allowed to have money. That's the law. That's the Indian Act."
The fly leapt on the single crumb and licked furiously. "Everybody has some idea of what they want to abolish. Nobody seems able to discuss what replaces it."
The independent journalist scratched at the side of the Styrofoam cup. "Our entire public discourse revolves around outcomes." The fly wandered toward the edge of the table. "Prosperity. If you let the people out of the Indian Act, suddenly you have to fit them into the economy. They must perceive this to be a very expensive proposition."
The fly started flitting, The independent journalist hesitated, and continued. "Opportunity." Another pause. "Investment." The fly went to the wall and stopped. The independent journalist leaned an elbow on the table. "Beneath every successful economy sits something so dull nobody notices it."
He delivered his position with the full weight of gravity, "Commercial law."
The fly immediately started walking away. "Exactly," the reporter laughed, "That's the usual audience response." The room echoed softly.
"Everybody likes talking about wealth. Nobody likes talking about the legal framework that allows wealth to exist, and when it comes to First Nations, there isn't one. No framework. Commercial law is a dead letter issue."
The fly finds a ketchup stain. "Contracts. Can't write them. "Property. Nobody has any. Commercial courts for financial reckoning. Even less than nothing."
The independent journalist shrugged. "Sixty percent of Canadian law is commercial law, and there is no commercial law written for, or allowed on, an Indian Reservation in Canada. That is defacto declaring the Status Indian has no money."
The fly made a lazy circle around the stain. The reporter watched the orbit. "There it is again. The whole conversation." He pointed up. "Up there they're discussing tearing down the Indian Act. Meanwhile the machinery underneath economic development remains about as exciting to the public as sewer maintenance."
The fly finally stopped. The independent journalist had to smirk, "Figured that would get your attention. If either one disappears, everybody notices."
The cafeteria lights flickered. The independent journalist looked into his cup. The tea had reached the temperature where it was neither hot nor cold. The Styrofoam had developed the stronger flavour profile. Government-served beverages occupy their own jurisdiction.
The fly landed. "Smart little bugger. No, really." The reporter rose slowly from the table. "You've now heard what most Premiers never learn. Abolishing a system is the easy part. What comes after is when the work begins."
The fly's eyes sparkled, "Exactly," said the reporter. "Everybody's eyes go nutty over it because it's boring. Because building civilization is boring." The fly paused. "The ability to borrow money, lend it. The ability to settle disputes. The ability to register interests. The ability to hold and transfer wealth without a minister, department, committee, tribunal, consultant, study group, advisory council, strategic framework, or royal commission standing between you and your business. That's what commercial law does. First Nations not allowed." He rapped the table with his knuckles
The fly remained still as the independent journalist shuffled toward the door. Halfway down the corridor he paused. Turned. Looked back. The fly was still there. Exactly where it had stood on the wall.
"As persistent as a central banker," he muttered, stepping out a back door foyer into the bitter Manitoba autumn of late October, wondering if that was a faint echo of a pow wow drum in the distance, or was it somebody driving on a flat tire? He still wished he could smoke indoors.
Written by Mack McColl and Copilot for The Daily
