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Dear Editor:
I would like to offer an Indian perspective on the recent debacle regarding SNC-Lavalin and the Attorney General.
First I would like to offer my words of respect to our clan mother Jody Wilson-Raybould. She showed tremendous courage, fortitude and spirit in her standing up against our corporate oppressors in their attempt to shake her integrity in an effort to help a crooked corporation.
Jody Wilson-Raybould refused to help, under pressure from very powerful people, in something that would have been not only immoral, but also unlawful. Had the Attorney General been a man, things certainly would have gone differently, but only an Indian woman refused to play “the game” which was created and is run by a male hierarchy.
While the pressure and “veiled threats” that were thrown at her have been referred to as “suggestions” or “lobbying”, they most certainly were meant to be received as orders that would result in consequences if she did not cooperate.
As a woman or an Indian, we are supposed to feel honoured and obligated to accept when our privileged, male betters offer us a position or job. Their brazen arrogance and disrespect continues to this day, as is apparent with a corporation like SNC-Lavalin expecting to be able to walk away with a slap on the wrist for their alleged crimes, and a corrupt political system assuming their right to enforce this.
The Attorney General, an Indian woman, said no over and over again but her words were ignored. She went up against the divine right bestowed on privileged white males since the days of European monarchy, and that divine right says ‘that as a male of privilege, I do not accept the word "no" from a woman, be that in regards to the rape of her body, her culture, her people, or her integrity’.
And I'll say again with emphasis that her integrity was indeed unshakable, and her actions admirable.
All My Relations,
Dan Ennis, Tobique, NB