Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Gas sniffing and the election

Perhaps the most striking image from the recent federal election campaign was not an image of politics at all. It was the front-page photo in the Nov. 18 Edmonton Journal showing five Innu youth in Sheshiatshiu sniffing gasoline out of plastic bags.

Over the following days, the story continued as 19 youth were taken into custody to receive treatment which few thought would permanently end their addiction. A confidential report on native mental health services across Canada was released, pointing to "overwhelming needs" in First Nations communities and virtually no services. One small region in northern Ontario has had 25 suicides since January - a tragic testimony to the climate of despair in many native communities.

As the story about Sheshiatshiu became a major source of headlines, the silence of political leaders was deafening. What, after all, could they say or do? Well, they could promise better mental resources for aboriginal people and new detoxification centres. The day before the election the prime minister finally did the latter. But clearly such a response only begins to touch the hopelessness that exists.

Every few years, native mental health crises burst into headlines - Peerless Lake, Davis Inlet, Morley, Sheshiatshiu - and then fade away. There is a massive systemic problem here which political "leaders" seem uninterested in addressing. But, also to a certain extent, the politicians are powerless. For at its heart this is a spiritual crisis - a crisis rooted in massive destruction of the aboriginal way of life, a complete lack of economic opportunity and political powerlessness - but a spiritual crisis nonetheless.

It was also interesting to observe how the abortion issue, in a significant but almost unspoken way, dominated the election campaign. Three party leaders proclaimed openly and proudly that they support "a woman's right to choose." The Alliance's Stockwell Day, a man who has sometimes been forthright in supporting the right to life, looked ashamed of that belief during the campaign. He repeatedly said his religious beliefs were not a matter for public scrutiny because he would not impose them on Canada if he became prime minister.

The right to life of the unborn is not a religious belief, but a matter of fundamental justice. The Canadian public, however, generally does not accept that contention. The Liberals touched a chord in the public mind with their campaign against the Alliance's so-called "secret agenda," by and large because of the Alliance's inability to come clean with what it would do with health care, Old Age Security and abortion.

Abortion remains a great scar on the Canadian soul - a sign of the despair that exists in the general population just as gasoline sniffing and suicide are signs of the self-destruction of remote native communities. It appears that neither of these scars will be erased by ordinary political means in the foreseeable future.

That is why it is so timely that the Church in Canada this year will celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe for the first time. Our Lady's appearance to the poor Aztec, Juan Diego, in 1531 was a brilliant star of hope amidst the agony of the Spanish conquest. This apparition of Mary cloaked in Aztec garb showed her solidarity with the poor suffering Indians. It led to the greatest Mass conversion to Christianity in history and an end to the long-established practice of infant sacrifice.

The nastiness of this year's federal election campaign and the refusal of political leaders to address the most pressing issues facing our nation show more clearly than ever the limits of politics. Real lasting solution to those problems, though they must have a political dimension, can only be rooted in the love of God and neighbour. Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for us!

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