To the Editor:

NDP MP Niki Ashton is asking people to sign a petition extending the Aboriginal Healing Foundation past its March 31, 2010 closing date.  It is to be forwarded to the federal government. 

After an 11-year mandate, she claims this isn't long enough time for aboriginal people to get healed from their negative residential school experiences.  She also gets on her moral high horse by commenting about the petition in a recent press release, "The cutting of the AHF goes against the spirit of the historical apology made by Stephen Harper and his government in 2008.  It goes against the government's commitment to achieving reconciliation."

  Ashton, like most Canadians, doesn't understand the fallacy of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.  If she did, she wouldn't be asking for an extension and spouting nonsense in a press release about it.  The fact is it has been a $350-million dollar pity party for aboriginal people.  It originated because of their collective neurosis that they are inherently psychologically damaged from the effects of being subjugated by white people.  This self-loathing and self-pitying behaviour has resulted in a never-ending, unattainable quest to be "healed."  

It culminates in non-productive, financial boondoggle projects like the AHF.  Let's get real.  No one ever gets healed from psychological trauma, because the mind and the body never forgets.  

  The function of Ashton's petition is also to save 950 jobs of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.   According to her, the loss of its jobs in Northern Manitoba would damage this part of the province's economy.  But before she began this petition, did she do a thorough evaluation of the AHF programs to see how effective they have been?  I haven't seen any evidence she was professional and did so.  Instead, it appears she allowed herself to be suckered by the administrators of these programs who wanted to keep their high paying, cushy non-jobs for at least another few years.  She wasn't astute and tough enough to say to them something like, "After 11 years, enough!  If these people haven't been healed by now, they never will be.  Good luck in your next job."  Apparently, her priority is to prop up the Northern Manitoba economy with make-work jobs rather than being responsible with taxpayers' money.

  Aboriginal people are 70 per cent of the Churchill riding, so Ashton has to support these people to keep her job as an MP.  However, she does them no favours and likely a lot of harm by encouraging them to be continually dependent on dubious Aboriginal Healing Foundation programs.  I don't doubt her sincerity in working with these people to improve their lives.  But she has to use her intelligence better and reset her moral compass when dealing with aboriginal issues.  Her effectiveness representing them as a MP depends on it.

Paul G. Olsen

Edmonton