PM has chance to heal wound
JAMES TRAVERS
Paul Martin has a way of setting objectives that are tantalizingly just out of reach. One of those is the Prime Minister's commendably durable determination to help lift aboriginals out of the poverty and despair that are nothing less than a national shame.
While most of the time no one seems to be listening, Martin continues to talk about a new deal and a new way of doing things that together would give the descendants of first Canadians more hope and a better chance of sharing what's best about a great country.
But, like so many of this government's priorities, the gap between words and actions, promises and policies, is enormous.
With depressing accuracy, the Canadian Bar Association measured that gap this week.
Meeting in Winnipeg, lawyers unanimously urged the federal government to compensate some 90,000 survivors of Indian residential schools for their loss of language and culture.
What they are saying is that Ottawa's current effort to right a wrong badly misses an important and painful point. And, in this case, their argument is compelling.
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