Clement doesn’t take kindly to questions from Idle No More grandmother

By Kate Harries AWARE News Network January 29 2013

Treasury Board president Tony Clement doesn’t care to discuss the Navigable Waters Protection Act.  In fact, when I buttonholed him yesterday he was patronizing, rude and threatening.

I was wandering outside the House of Commons after the Idle No More protest had wrapped up when my friend Letty McNeil noticed Clement with another man outside an entrance. We decided to talk to him. He did not seem to want to talk to us. 

I told him one of the issues we were protesting was the changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, and the fact that my favourite river, the historic and well-travelled Nottawasaga, now has no protection, not being one of the 63 listed in the new act.

He looked down his nose at me. The changes have nothing to do with environmental protection, he said patronizingly. It’s about navigable waters. He emphasized the word navigable.

“Don’t be patronizing,” I said, smiling at him. The Nottawasaga is navigable and navigated, as are thousands of other rivers not on the protected list, for instance the Attawapiskat in Northern Ontario, I told him, and I want whatever protection is available in the new Navigable Waters Act. I noted that eight lakes in his riding are protected, being among the 97 listed in the act.

He turned stony-faced. “What are you alleging?” he asked. 

“I find it interesting,” I replied. 

“You’d better be very careful,” he warned. What I’d just said “could be defamatory” and I could be in a lot of trouble.

I started to laugh as he started threatening me. I couldn’t believe he was serious. But there wasn’t any glint of humour in his eye. 

I had every right to question him on why eight lakes in his riding get protection – out of hundreds of thousands of lakes across Canada.  

But before I could work up my next question – what flashed through my mind was the lack of accountability for the $50 million in G8 funding spent on gazebos and other accoutrements in his riding in 2011 – he and his companion had brushed past us and jumped into a car and were being sped away. 

The brief encounter was instructive.

As a reporter some years ago, I had had occasion to interview Clement. I found him firm in his right-wing opinions but well-briefed, courteous and sort of humorous. Then, he needed something from me. 

This time, I was just a grandmother from the Idle No More movement, wrapped in scarves and covered in snow.

But Clement and his cabinet colleagues better start listening to the grandmothers.

Our time has come. 

Quick rundown of yesterday’s event:

Local aboriginal people organized a bus and a number of former Site 41ers and AWARE members were among those who took the one-day trip to Ottawa. It was inspiring. On the steps of Parliament, leaders spoke from the heart about important issues. That doesn’t happen often inside the House. Among the speakers was Maude Barlow. Lots of hugs for her from all of us who worked so closely with her around Site 41. We drummed and sang and danced. 

One exciting moment was when we drove through Sharbot Lake on our way. It’s a little middle-of-nowhere place, and there in a parking lot by the side of the road was a circle of about 30 people around a fire, flag flying, drums beating. We stopped and joined them for a while. They were from the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation who, along with the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, stopped uranium mining in the area in 2008. I’m sure similar encounters along the way played out across the land yesterday. Connections are being made. 

Links to media coverage on January 28 will be added later.