Mike DeGagné responds
January 9, 2010
The following letter was printed in the National Post today(www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=2422478). I have been invited to respond, and will be doing so shortly. There was one error in my column (and original blog entry); I assumed that the executive director of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was non-aboriginal, since his ancestry/identity was not stated in his bio. Determining whether or not someone is “Aboriginal” is becoming increasingly difficult since in certain cases (hiring at Memorial University, for example) one only has to check a box “identifying” as such to be considered an indigenous person. This means that many people who now identify as ”Aboriginal” have little in common with the isolated members of the native population who, because of their marginalization, are the focus of social policy.
FW
***
Aboriginal healing group responds
Re: The Aboriginal Healing Boondoggle, Frances Widdowson, Jan. 4.
It is false that “the only ‘evaluation’ of Aboriginal Healing Foundation (AHF) programs has come from the organization itself.” The AHF and the programs it funds have been audited and evaluated by independent third parties in government and the private sector. These evaluations are available for public view on our website in their entirety. Only in this limited sense are they “from” the organization.
More important, Frances Widdowson’s dismissal of healing itself insults survivors of institutional physical and sexual abuses, mocking the front-line workers who dedicate themselves to battling root causes of poverty, violence, suicide and despair in aboriginal communities. It is these 950 front-line workers, hired by the aboriginal community, who Ms. Widdowson is certain are politically selected persons of privilege.
If she had made a two-minute phone call to the AHF, she would not have described the AHF’s executive director as “the most significant non-aboriginal player”). He is aboriginal.
Other points: healers, whether trained in aboriginal traditions or Western academic methods, have the appropriate credentials; AHF research in aboriginal health is more than a collection of press releases; the AHF operates entirely on interest earned from careful investment of the money entrusted to it and has committed more money to community projects than it has received; a focus on residential schools does not prevent, but rather promotes, understanding of why “many aboriginal people who did not attend residential schools are also suffering from the same symptoms.”
It is understandable that Ms. Widdowson denies the efficacy of aboriginal organizations; positive outcomes are inconsistent with the premise of her book. But the facts would reveal that the AHF is exactly what Ms. Widdowson espouses– a funder of high-quality services that are tailored to the special needs of the aboriginal population.
Mike DeGagne, executive director, Aboriginal Healing Foundation, Ottawa.
10 Responses to “Mike DeGagné responds”
Leave a Reply
January 10th, 2010 at 10:58 am
For someone who claims to seek nothing but honest dialogue on these issues, Frances, you’re awfully reluctant to acknowledge your errors. Disparaging Mr. Degagné’s Aboriginal status is, I suppose, less damaging to the ego that admitting you were wrong and apologizing.
I certainly look forward to your explanation of why you claimed in this blog that AHF initiatives had not been evaluated (a fib you wisely amended in your NatPo piece).
January 11th, 2010 at 1:32 am
I am interested in honest dialogue. I will post any oppositional arguments and criticisms and respond to them as best as I can (as long as they are not libelous).
I did acknowledge the error about DeGagne’s aboriginal status. I don’t really see how I am “disparaging” it, however. I am just trying to draw a distinction between marginalized members of the native population and those who are completely integrated, but choose to “identify” as aboriginal. This circumstance will need to be incorporated into a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between the native leadership and the Aboriginal Industry.
The claim about the evaluations was not a “fib”. It was a flippant remark (which tends to happen on blogs) about the fact that these are not really “evaluations” in the scientific sense. As I will explain in a response to DeGagne in the National Post, these “evaluations” are funded, produced and copyrighted by the AHF and done by advocates intent on rubber stamping the organization’s cultural indoctrination.
January 12th, 2010 at 12:36 am
Mr de Gagne writes: “It is understandable that Ms. Widdowson denies the efficacy of aboriginal organizations …” Perhaps, more accurately, ‘Widdowson QUERIES [or SEEKS EVIDENCE OF]the efficacy etc….’ Here in Australia, and perhaps in Canada too, any questioning of, or scepticism about, conventional wisdom is too often denigrated as ‘denial’, and treated as heretical. Shades of The Crucible ! Science and scientific investigation demand doubt, scepticism, evidence, validation of hypotheses, ‘proof’, ‘confirmation’, replicability of findings and thorough analysis. Unlike belief, truth and reality do not fear or despise doubt.
These days, whenever I see the words ‘denial’ or ’sceptic’ in relation to an issue, I know I am reading the words of a Believer, someone not amenable to discussion, who is searching for ideological agreement, not empirical investigation.
January 12th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Interestingly, Joe, Ms. Widdowson has not actually discussed the methodology, scope, scale or conclusions reached by the formal evaluations. She has simply dismissed them as products of “the Aboriginal Industry”.
Add to that Ms. Widdowson’s errors and misstatements – pardon me, “flippancies” – and one is forced to wonder – just who is searching for “ideological agreement, not empirical investigation”?
January 13th, 2010 at 12:35 am
There are two things that should be kept in mind with respect to the AHF’s activities; the first is that “healing” and “jobs” are being linked, which means that the demands for healing constitute, in part, a form of rent seeking behaviour. The second is that the “evaluation” of the AHF takes place within an atmosphere of advocacy. To question the AHF is to be “anti-aboriginal”, racist, etc., and so this impedes critical analysis. As many have noted, the money earmarked for aboriginal policy is not going to where it is needed, resulting in no improvement of the living conditions in isolated native communities. Questions need to be asked if the billions of dollars that are going into various initiatives could be better spent elsewhere.
I have analyzed the “evaluations” of the AFH, but both newspapers and blog posts are not places for in depth criticism. I agree that more work needs to be done in exposing this waste of funds. The “methodology” of the Foundation appears to be asking people if the healing process is working for them, and, as I stated in the National Post, “the designation of
‘healer’ is even defined as being ‘bestowed or created through the recognition and respect of others who believe in their healing ability.’ In other words, believing in the healing process will result, after many years, in being ‘healed’”.
Much of this is very similar to the “evaluations” of “alternative medicine”. What is disturbing is that those who cast a critical eye on quackery in general, accept it in the case of aboriginal “traditional healing” initiatives because condescension is seen as a way of “empowering” and “raising the self-esteem” of the native population. Such a misguided approach keeps native people isolated and open to manipulation from the “healers” who are siphoning money away from evidence-based services.
January 15th, 2010 at 5:52 am
I must say I have never seen parentheses deployed as a substitute for substantive argument with such creative vigour.
January 15th, 2010 at 7:21 am
Frances, this is why many people are confounded by your NP piece; while some of the work you’ve posted here is thorough and well sourced (biased and challenging though it may be), your opinion pieces are not. Above, you dismiss this as due to the nature of blogs. Rubbish. Be thorough and you’ll receive (some) thoughtful responses. In your original Full Comment piece you present an assumption as fact, in the absence of any evidence in the one source you appear to have checked. Then, in your “mea culpa” blog response, you deflect criticism and blame the nature of identity/identification in Canada and imply that Mr. Degagne might not really be aboriginal after all. That’s a cheap trick and hardly vindicates you. Later, you propose to look more closely at that subject. Free advice: Look more closely at that, develop an informed opinion, and share that; anything in the interim is half-assed. Same thing for the AHF or other research you reject. It’s awfully hard to believe you’re read it. My Google work seems to have uncovered far more detail than you included in your original piece, including the fact that you quote a decade-old criticism of the AHF from an aboriginal commentator. Yet you present it as if it is a contemporary criticism. That means you were either ill-informed or dishonest. Surely there are contemporary sources. If not, well then that’s a story. If so, then we are left to assume you were too lazy to find them.
January 15th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Yes, it is true that the article could have been better researched and sourced. If I was undertaking a scholarly paper I would have done so, and I regret the unintentional error concerning DeGagne’s identity. A recognition of this will lead to a greater understanding of the Aboriginal Industry (defined as a non-aboriginal group of consultants and lawyers), and its relationship to the comprador aboriginal leadership. This seems to have changed over the last 40 years, but in the end what we still have are privileged people making $140,000/year encouraging marginalized people to retain cultural characteristics – tribalism, superstitutious beliefs and undisciplined habits – that result in their continuing dependency and isolation.
However, this discussion is a distraction from examining the actual character of the AHF. As far as I can tell, the arguments that I have put forward, while crude, are still valid, and this should be the focus of further research. Oskaboose’s comments are dated, but they continue to be valid since the AHF is a leopard that has not changed its spots. Defining the problem as an absence of “healing” means that rigorous evaluation of the AHF is not possible. “Healing” is a nebulous term, which can mean almost anything. Its absence also has been linked to “cultural loss”, which is inevitable; this ensures that there will be a continuous need for “healing”. The focus of the AHF on cultural revitalization also has meant that “traditional healing” is a major part of its initiatives. The effectiveness of “traditional healing” is impossible because belief in the efficacy of “healers” is rooted in superstition.
The AHF always has been seen as a way to distribute government funds to non-aboriginal consultants and aboriginal elites. The main concern is with the “loss of jobs” that will occur when its funding comes to an end, not the unlikely possibility that people will be unable to smudge, listen to elders or participate in “talking circles”. And by focusing on symptoms rather than the disease – geographic isolation, social marginalization, and economic dependency – the AHF has ensured that its “services” will be continously demanded.
January 22nd, 2010 at 10:22 am
[...] so perhaps there is only one kind of Aboriginal person. It’s a tough subject, on which she has publicly ruminated: Determining whether or not someone is “Aboriginal” is becoming increasingly difficult since in [...]
January 23rd, 2010 at 11:39 pm
Dear Mr. Spear:
I am very appreciative of your open letter. Although I disagree with a number of things that you say, I thank you for your thoughtful engagement with the arguments put forward by myself (often in conjunction with Albert Howard). This is very different than the mostly ad hominem comment that has plagued other commentaries about our work. From my experience, there is very little open and honest debate about aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations, and I see your letter as an important attempt to facilitate this process. In this way, we can all learn from one another.
I was very happy to see your opposition to arguments characterizing my work as racist, but then you make the following statement: “instead [Widdowson] argues that Aboriginal people are inherently savage, but that with some help they can become good white people”. This results in the same flawed logic of the “racism” smear that you are trying to avoid: the conflation of race (ancestry) and culture (learned behaviour). It should be stressed that the developmental gap refers to those members of the aboriginal population who are still influenced by cultural features associated with hunting and gathering and horticultural modes of production. “Savagery” is a stage of development that existed in the context of hunting and gathering activities and technology such as the bow and arrow; all human beings were, at some point in history, at this stage of development and therefore it does not make sense to phrase our argument as the “inherently savage” can “become good white people”.
I have never said that traditional knowledge “ought not to be considered in matters of science”. It is the spiritual component of traditional “knowledge” that I am opposed to the incorporation of. The empirical component – where animals migrate, ice conditions, etc. – should be (and often is) considered; it should, however, be systematically verified in scientific studies.
I am not arguing for assimilation, but integration. Those characteristics that are helpful for aboriginal survival (and human survival more generally) should be retained – artistic sensibility, noncoercive forms of child rearing, etc. They should, in fact, be embraced by all people and part of the wider culture. The problem is when organizations like the Aboriginal Healing Foundation argue that public funds should be spent on the promotion of “traditional healing” (which is, at best, useless and, at worst, harmful).
It is not my argument that there are “two kinds of Aboriginal subject positions”. What I am arguing is that a number of aboriginal people retain cultural characteristics associated with hunting and gathering/horticultural modes of production that are preventing them from making a full contribution to modern society – undisciplined work habits, tribalism, and superstitions, for example. Many aboriginal people no longer retain these characteristics and are completely integrated. Therefore, there is a spectrum within the aboriginal population of those continuing to be influenced by traditional cultural features and those who fully participate in modern society.
My rumination about the question of “who is an aboriginal person” is due to the difficulties in trying to conceptualize the relationship between the native leadership and the Aboriginal Industry (defined as non-aboriginal lawyers and consultants), and the organizations that are maintaining aboriginal dependency. Much of the funding being dispersed to aboriginal organizations is justified on the basis that it will improve the terrible social conditions in isolated and undeveloped aboriginal communities. Today, however, an increasing number of people are identifying as “aboriginal” so as to access these funds. Even worse, these educated and completely integrated people often use their identity to head organizations promoting aboriginal traditions that are keeping marginalized members of the native population isolated and dependent. Therefore, it probably makes more sense to talk about “marginalized” versus “integrated”, rather than “aboriginal” versus “non-aboriginal”.
I am glad that you are opposed to the romanticism that currently exists with respect to aboriginal cultures. If so, you might want to investigate the basis of the “reverence” that you have for the “Great Law” and its supposed “appeal” to the authors of the American Constitution. This claim appears to be largely mythological – a deception being perpetrated to justify pre-contact aboriginal “sovereignty” and “democracy”.
My concern is more with ending dependency and facilitating social contribution than “self-sufficiency” and “self-reliance”. I am not opposed to the “real-world effort of Aboriginal people to direct their affairs”; it is the manipulation of these processes by the integrated to enrich themselves at the expense of the isolated and marginalized that needs to be opposed.
The “New Directions in Aboriginal Policy Forums” are an attempt to open up debate about aboriginal policy development. The Forum tries to bring in people of different perspectives to try to increase our understanding about aboriginal-non-aboriginal relations and policy development. We are hoping to have supporters of Mohawk sovereignty debate McHale and Vandermaas in a respectful manner. Other subjects will concern economic development and social policy. Perhaps you might know someone who would be interested in this?
One area of debate concerns aboriginal peoples’ “unique legal-historical relationship with the British Crown and subsequently to Canada”. There are some who see recognizing this as the solution to aboriginal dependency and deprivation. Others argue that this is raising false hopes of marginalized members of native communities so that educated and integrated can be enriched with legal negotiations, consultations, and foundation and board appointments.
Thanks, once again, for your thoughtful comments and attempts to open up debate on these important matters.
Sincerely,
Frances Widdowson