Former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien has accused Alberta of just “complaining” and says a referendum on Equalization has no chance of changing anything..Speaking on CTV Sunday, Chretien called Premier Jason’s Kenney’s Equalization referendum on October 18 “a waste of time completely..“Because you need a change in the Constitution, and to do that you need seven provinces to agree. Good luck,” he said..The 87-year-old Chretien said prime ministers have to deal with provinces “complaining,” as part of the nature of the federation..“If you’re a mayor and you have a problem, what do you do? You blame the provincial government. If you’re a provincial government and you have a problem, what do you do? You blame the federal government. We cannot blame the Queen and so once in a while we blame the Americans,” he said..The final results of the referendum will be released tomorrow but the Western Standard projects it will pass by a 60%+ margin..Meanwhile, Chrétien said Sunday when he was minister of Indian Affairs, he never heard anything about abuse happening in residential schools. .“This problem was never mentioned when I was minister. Never,” said Chrétien, of his time in the department from 1968 to 1974..During the French interview with the.Radio-Canada talk show, Tout le Monde en Parle, Chrétien compared his own experience going to a college boarding school to that of Indigenous children who were forced to attend residential schools..“I ate baked beans and oatmeal. And to be sure, it was hard living in a boarding school, extremely hard,” he said..“In Shawinigan, we didn’t have a college. We had to go to Trois-Rivières or to Joliette. We had no choice. It was hard but my parents insisted I go to university and I had to do it.”.Chrétien said while he didn’t like sleeping in a dorm with 200 others, he “never had a problem.”.And in Chrétien’s autobiographical book, he recounts an anecdote where he advised Queen Elizabeth II not to apologize to the Maori people of New Zealand for the harm done to them by the British colonial administration..“Your Majesty, if you start [apologizing] I will have to bring you to Canada and, since we have several hundred Indigenous communities, you will be on your knees for at least two years,” Chretien wrote.
Former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien has accused Alberta of just “complaining” and says a referendum on Equalization has no chance of changing anything..Speaking on CTV Sunday, Chretien called Premier Jason’s Kenney’s Equalization referendum on October 18 “a waste of time completely..“Because you need a change in the Constitution, and to do that you need seven provinces to agree. Good luck,” he said..The 87-year-old Chretien said prime ministers have to deal with provinces “complaining,” as part of the nature of the federation..“If you’re a mayor and you have a problem, what do you do? You blame the provincial government. If you’re a provincial government and you have a problem, what do you do? You blame the federal government. We cannot blame the Queen and so once in a while we blame the Americans,” he said..The final results of the referendum will be released tomorrow but the Western Standard projects it will pass by a 60%+ margin..Meanwhile, Chrétien said Sunday when he was minister of Indian Affairs, he never heard anything about abuse happening in residential schools. .“This problem was never mentioned when I was minister. Never,” said Chrétien, of his time in the department from 1968 to 1974..During the French interview with the.Radio-Canada talk show, Tout le Monde en Parle, Chrétien compared his own experience going to a college boarding school to that of Indigenous children who were forced to attend residential schools..“I ate baked beans and oatmeal. And to be sure, it was hard living in a boarding school, extremely hard,” he said..“In Shawinigan, we didn’t have a college. We had to go to Trois-Rivières or to Joliette. We had no choice. It was hard but my parents insisted I go to university and I had to do it.”.Chrétien said while he didn’t like sleeping in a dorm with 200 others, he “never had a problem.”.And in Chrétien’s autobiographical book, he recounts an anecdote where he advised Queen Elizabeth II not to apologize to the Maori people of New Zealand for the harm done to them by the British colonial administration..“Your Majesty, if you start [apologizing] I will have to bring you to Canada and, since we have several hundred Indigenous communities, you will be on your knees for at least two years,” Chretien wrote.
