Dear Editor:

This letter is written in response to Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) Chief Clarence Louie’s recent remarks during a speech at the Osoyoos Rotary Club.

I ask Chief Louie, ‘How would you like to suck this up’?

I am 84 years of age and I have heard this story for far too long.

I have a name for it, but they would not print it in a family newspaper.

I will call it rhetoric and I have heard this crap for at least 75 years.

Our generation has been nothing but gracious, generous, kind and understanding to your people.

I am not very familiar with your people in B.C. as I am from Saskatchewan and let me tell you if you were the Chief on some of those reservations, you would not be on a pedestal and treated as a hero.

I admit you have done an excellent job out here, but after all you had something to work with.

To criticize Judge Haynes for using your land to pasture cattle on is utterly cruel.

Those cattle were why your people have schools, hospitals and roads to drive on. Those are the same tax dollar that your people are excused from paying in Canada.

We are not to blame for the errors of our forefathers that were committed in the residential schools.

We have bad apples in all different walks of life, including government and the Boy Scouts.

It was reported on television that on a reservation north of Winnipeg, Grade 10 girls were complaining they had to ride the bus 10 miles to go to school.

The fact is seven-year-old white kids have been riding buses for 30 miles and catching those buses before 7:30 a.m. since I was a child in Saskatchewan.

The Chief of the White Bear reservation put the blame on the school trustees because two First Nation girls got pregnant and could not finish their school grade.

Your people think we are to blame for that?

On the same reserve, there was a fire truck sitting abandoned because the white man never trained your people how to operate it.

I say, get off your duff and go to a fire hall and watch how it is done.

I grew up five miles from a reservation and we constantly gave First Nation people rides, clothes, horses, cars and jobs.

The local Board of Trade would send out convoys to give them rides to parades and whatever was going on that we thought they would enjoy.

The Department of Highways had a well-known First Nations’ leader on the payroll for two years. Every night he would walk home with a big box of groceries and someone always gave him a ride. But he quit the job and every night his house was filled with freeloaders.

In the town where I lived, they always offered steady work at the lumber yard. Many First Nation men were hired and would work for four days and forget to come in on day five.

You want to blame the white man for that?

You, Chief Louie, are a much smarter man than I, but if you want to debate these important issues, you are welcome to come to my house any time.

Your people have halted logging operations, mining, highways, railroads, pipelines and many more legitimate businesses, all of which contribute to the economy.

These are the same businesses that generate the money needed to pay for services that you say too many of your people are not getting.

How can we provide these services if we can not generate money from taxes?

I think it is time you sucked it up and appreciate just what we have done for you folks in the past.

As far as Haynes Point Provincial Park goes, how do you know my great great great grandfather didn’t ride across and stop and let his horse do his business?

Does that give me claim on that land?

I have lived here in Osoyoos for the past 15 years and have had great respect for you Chief Louie, but that respect it is fading very fast.

You people just never get enough.

Don Brady

Osoyoos, B.C.