My new Native hero, Chief Clarence Louie.

[El Barto]

It's cultural, and not exclusive to the Native people. I was once told by a Filipino that people in Canada were too "uptight" about time, making themselves slaves to clocks and schedules instead of just living.

Yeah true , work is work, so be on time but, you need time for your self and for those around you.

 

[El Barto]

I love it when work takes all your focus when you lose all notion of time. Hate waiting for punch out time.

 

[snfu73]

So would I! Unless of course he choose to run as a Conservative

Um...but, I can't see a guy like this running for anyone BUT the conservatives...his statements reek of consertive partiness!

 

[snfu73]

It's cultural, and not exclusive to the Native people. I was once told by a Filipino that people in Canada were too "uptight" about time, making themselves slaves to clocks and schedules instead of just living.

I agree in many ways with your friend.

 

[EagleSmack]

American Indians just build casinos.

Now they are back to tribes fighting other tribes (as it was before the Europeans came) over casino rights and sizes.

 

[EagleSmack]

It's cultural, and not exclusive to the Native people. I was once told by a Filipino that people in Canada were too "uptight" about time, making themselves slaves to clocks and schedules instead of just living.

That is so true. When I visited Spain i was amazed at their siesta. Around 12PM they all closed shop, went home for lunch and a nap. They came back at 2:30 or so if i can remember. I thought that was great.

 

[Tonington]

Having down time to unwind is great and probably makes for better productivity during work hours. That said, when it comes to working hours, making apointments and what not, being punctual about keeping appointments is common courtesy. I have to agree with Hermann, it's rather rude to make an appontment then not keep it. It throws off other peoples time schedules and starts a horrendous cascade of inefficiency. Sometimes it can't be helped, thats granted. A simple heads up ahead of time allows people to adjust accordingly, rather than arrive for a meeting, and sit around waiting when you could be working on something else.

 

[snfu73]

Having down time to unwind is great and probably makes for better productivity during work hours. That said, when it comes to working hours, making apointments and what not, being punctual about keeping appointments is common courtesy. I have to agree with Hermann, it's rather rude to make an appontment then not keep it. It throws off other peoples time schedules and starts a horrendous cascade of inefficiency. Sometimes it can't be helped, thats granted. A simple heads up ahead of time allows people to adjust accordingly, rather than arrive for a meeting, and sit around waiting when you could be working on something else.

Maybe the issue is more with appointments. Not that I know an alternative way....but appointments and time pressures are big part of stress in peoples lives. Is there a way that we can lower these stresses? I dunno. I get so stressed over time lines and appointments. I do everything I can to avoid anything that is time sensitive just because I find it to stressful.

 

[selfactivated]

American Indians just build casinos.

Now they are back to tribes fighting other tribes (as it was before the Europeans came) over casino rights and sizes.

I believe thats overstated. Here in Virginia the tribes arent even acknowledged by the state and in fact its in congress right now that they need to be. Without State recognition theres no Fedral recognition. Theres no "in" fighting that Im aware of.

 

[Liberalman]

Clarence Louie aboriginal chief got it right and he is spreading the word.

For years our natives have been getting free education as guaranteed in their treaties and when the get their degrees instead of going back to their reserves and improve the quality of their existence they just went to the cities and get those high paying jobs and forget that they are natives.

In recent years there has been casinos popping up on the reserves and a lot of bands have been benefiting by peoples need to spend their hard earned money on the games of chance.

If you look at aboriginal business there is a lot of success stories of our natives making it in a positive light.

Aboriginal achievement

Aboriginal businesses

Our native society is growing and evolving and modernizing.

One day the stereotype of a native who is lazy and on drugs will be a myth.

That’s a day Clarence Louie will be happy to see

 

[Liberalman]

....

 

[Sooke]

I was once told by a Filipino that people in Canada were too "uptight" about time, making themselves slaves to clocks and schedules instead of just living.

....and we all know how well the Philippine economy works.

 

[Shawn Steinhaue]

I am a Cree urban Native living in Edmonton. I "Immigrated" from my third world reserve Saddle Lake to find a better life like foreign Immigrants. I have been successful in finding a job and good housing. Native claim there is still rasicm but i have yet to encounter any because i am drug free and attend work everyday. In a matter of fact Alberta is hit with reccesion and layoff. People got layed of and I survived the lay offs. That's Right!! I outpreformed a few WHITE people and the slacking whities got laid off. I support clarence louie because i am no longer dirt poor and made fun off and followed his idealogidies.

 

[Shawn Steinhaue]

I hear that Clarence louie and council wants to Industrialise that reserve now in a green way. I support it but he better hook all the factories and buildings to solor panels and electric windmils to protect the envirement and wildlife we cherish so much in our traditional culture. Solar and wind is expensive but natives never worshiped the big doller so we should pump money into GREEN advanced technology something "Westerners" (Caucasions and Asians) failed to do becuase of their greed and individiualistic beleifs and worship of the almighty doller. They rather burn fossil fuels and destroy our envirement just because it's cheaper and puts more money in there greedy pockets. Now that's what seperates modernising Native Americans from Westerners (Caucasion and Asians) YES hear that again, to us natives ASIANs are also "Westerners"

 

[VanIsle]

His show must have been taped because I know I watched him on TV. I was awe struck. I have great admiration for this man. It was so good to listen to an "indian" with ambition. My Gramma was Indian. She was not lazy, she was smart and she was educated. She was born over 100 years ago so no one can tell me there isn't opportunity. Just so you all get it right - it's not Oh -soy-yoos. It's Oh-Sue-ee-us. (Osouyus)I have spent months teaching my daughter-in-law how to say it right. New people always pronouce it with the soy in it.

 

[talloola]

Well, it was their country to start with, so now maybe they will lead the way and
show the rest of us how to live with the earth and not against it.

 

[layzingin]

'Indian Time doesn't cut it' for innovative chief with on-the-edge humour


ROY MacGREGOR
From Thursday's Globe and Mail.

FORT McMURRAY — The man with the PowerPoint presentation is miffed.

He is speaking to a large aboriginal conference and some of the attendees, including a few who hold high office, have straggled in.

“I can't stand people who are late,” he says into the microphone.

“Indian Time doesn't cut it.”

Some giggle, but no one is quite sure how far he is going to go. Just sit back and listen:

“My first rule for success is ‘Show up on time. My No. 2 rule for success is follow Rule No. 1.”

“If your life sucks, it's because you suck.”

“Quit your sniffling.”

“Join the real world — go to school or get a job.”

“Get off of welfare. Get off your butt.”

He pauses, seeming to gauge whether he dare, then does.

“People often say to me, ‘How you doin'?' Geez — I'm working with Indians — what do you think?”

Now they are openly laughing ... applauding. Clarence Louie is everything that was advertised — and more.

“Our ancestors worked for a living,” he says. “So should you.”

He is, fortunately, aboriginal himself. If someone else stood up and said these things — the white columnist standing there with his mouth open, for example — “You'd be seen as a racist.”

Instead, Chief Clarence Louie is seen, increasingly, as one of the most interesting and innovative native leaders in the country — even though he avoids national politics.

He has come here to Fort McMurray because the aboriginal community needs, desperately, to start talking about economic development and what all this multibillion-dollar oil madness might mean, for good and for bad.

Clarence Louie is chief — and CEO — of the Osoyoos Band in British Columbia's South Okanagan. He is 44 years old, though he looks like he would have been an infant when he began his remarkable 20-year-run as chief. He took a band that had been declared bankrupt and taken over by Indian Affairs and he has turned in into an inspiration.

In 2000, the band set a goal of becoming self-sufficient in five years. They're there.
The Osoyoos, 432 strong, own, among other things, a vineyard, a winery, a golf course and a tourist resort, and they are partners in the Baldy Mountain ski development. They have more businesses per capita than any first nation in Canada.

There are not only enough jobs for everyone, there are so many jobs being created that there are now members of 13 other tribal communities working for the Osoyoos. The little band contributes $40-million a year to the area economy.

Chief Louie is tough. He is as proud of the fact that his band fires its own people as well as hires them. He has his mottos pasted throughout the “Rez.” He believes there is “no such thing as consensus,” that there will always be those who disagree. And, he says, he is milquetoast compared to his own mother when it comes to how today's lazy aboriginal youth, almost exclusively male, should be dealt with.

“Rent a plane,” she told him, “and fly them all to Iraq. Dump 'em off and all the ones who make it back are keepers. Right on, Mom.”

The message he has brought here to the Chipewyan, Dene and Cree who live around the oil sands is equally direct: Get involved, create jobs — and meaningful jobs, not just “window dressing” for the oil companies.

“The biggest employer,” he says, “shouldn't be the band office.”

He also says the time has come to “get over it.” No more whining about 100-year-old failed experiments. No foolishly looking to the Queen to protect rights.

Louie says aboriginals here and along the Mackenzie Valley should not look at any sharing in development as “rocking-chair money” but as investment opportunity to create sustainable businesses. He wants them to move beyond entry-level jobs to real jobs they “earn” — all the way to the boardrooms. He wants to see “business manners” develop: showing up on time, working extra hours. The business lunch, he says, should be “drive through,” and then right back at it.

“You're going to lose your language and culture faster in poverty than you will in economic development,” he says to those who say he is ignoring tradition.

Tough talk, at times shocking talk given the audience, but on this day in this community, they took it — and, judging by the response, they loved it.

“Eighty per cent like what I have to say,” Louie says, “Twenty per cent don't. I always say to the 20 per cent, ‘Get over it. Chances are you're never going to see me again and I'm never going to see you again. Get some counselling.'”

The first step, he says, is all about leadership. He prides himself on being “a stay-home chief who looks after the potholes in his own backyard” and wastes no time “running around fighting 100-year-old battles.

“The biggest challenge will be how you treat your own people."

“Blaming government? That time is over.”
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...ront/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20060921.wmacgregor21

He had me at hello!!!

Is this guy for real? Is he a comedian? If so, then he should get his own material. We (Aboriginals)
have been hearing these mindless bantering for hundreds of years. Traditional Chiefs up hold the pride of their people.
I would suggest to Mr clarence louie; go to a sweat lodge, smudge, step outside your circle and see where you are at in the conference of your own people. Reclaim the spirit of your ancestors and continue our journey that has brought us this far.

 

[L Gilbert]

Is this guy for real? Is he a comedian? If so, then he should get his own material. We (Aboriginals)
have been hearing these mindless bantering for hundreds of years.

Yes, the guy was joking. You don't seem to have figured out that Louie was being deliberately facetious about the stereotyping.

Traditional Chiefs up hold the pride of their people.

Yep. And Louie does that, too. Otherwise he wouldn't have been driven to help his band out of the squalor and become the strong and thriving community that it is now.

I would suggest to Mr clarence louie; go to a sweat lodge, smudge, step outside your circle and see where you are at in the conference of your own people. Reclaim the spirit of your ancestors and continue our journey that has brought us this far.

His band seems to be quite grateful to him for his work. Perhaps you should get to know a bit about them. Here's a bit of info for you: OIBDC

 

[Cliffy]

Is this guy for real? Is he a comedian? If so, then he should get his own material. We (Aboriginals)
have been hearing these mindless bantering for hundreds of years. Traditional Chiefs up hold the pride of their people.
I would suggest to Mr clarence louie; go to a sweat lodge, smudge, step outside your circle and see where you are at in the conference of your own people. Reclaim the spirit of your ancestors and continue our journey that has brought us this far.

Although I tend to agree with your sentiment, hunting and gathering are no longer viable options. Unfortunately, commerce has replaced them in today's world. It is possible to make a living without losing your spiritual heritage. The trick is in finding a balance, a means to make a living that does not conflict with your personal spiritual beliefs.

 

[L Gilbert]

Actually the OIB farms, which is a kind of gathering and various members do go hunting and fishing. But yes, the OIB has managed to adapt to a changing world quite well and has retained traditions as well.