Canada is a nation of wild, legendary rivers. The Mackenzie, the Fraser, the Churchill, and dozens more all empty into our national identity. They flow through our landscape, history, and imagination. They are vital to any history textbook, Group of Seven exhibit, or gift-shop postcard rack.

Canada is also a nation of river-tamers. We revere our waterways—but we also dam them. Trudeau canoed the epic Nahanni and two years later presided over the opening of the mammoth Churchill Falls hydroelectric dam in Labrador. We are, as the Canadian Hydropower Association says, a “hydro superpower.” Almost 60 percent of our electricity supply comes from dams—compared to just 16 percent globally—and only China squeezes more electricity out of its rivers than we do.

The heyday of big dam construction in Canada began around the late 1950s. What followed was an exhibition of progress in the raw. Surveyors and bulldozers headed to the frontier. Mighty men tamed mighty rivers. Engineering prowess replaced natural grandeur.

As rock was blasted and cement poured, legacies were forged, both geographical and political. In Manitoba, the two largest rivers and three of the five largest lakes were dramatically re-engineered. In Quebec, 571 dams and control structures have altered the flow of 74 rivers.

The construction phase lasted through the ’80s, then slowed, even though the country’s hydro potential had only been half tapped. Now, after two decades of limited construction—with the exception of Hydro-Québec, which kept on building—the dam-builders are rumbling to life again.

In the next 10 to 15 years, Canadian utilities will spend $55 to $70 billion on new hydroelectric projects. This would add 14,500 megawatts to Canada’s existing 71,000 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity. Most new projects are in Quebec (4,570 MW), B.C. (3,341 MW), Labrador (3,074 MW), and Manitoba (2,380 MW). The largest of these, Labrador’s 2,250 MW Gull Island project, will produce as much power as 750 train locomotives.

The extent and cost of construction will vary over time, but one thing is certain: the push for more hydro is on.

Most of these projects are driven in large part by the prospect of exporting power to the U.S. American interest in hydropower is linked, in part, to its low cost and its low greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In this context, the push for more hydro is also a push by the industry to position its product as an answer to climate change.

Jacob Irving heads the Canadian Hydropower Association, which represents the interests of the hydro industry. He says hydropower is “a very strong climate change solution,” because it can displace the use of coal and natural gas to generate electricity. The argument is simple and compelling: use more hydropower, use less fossil fuel. The industry especially touts exports of hydro to the U.S., where 600 coal-fired plants produce 45 percent of the nation’s electricity, with another 24 percent fuelled by natural gas. The CHA says hydro exports already reduce continental emissions by half a million tons a year. They want that number to grow.

Given the dire climate prognosis—emissions in Canada, the U.S., and everywhere else are well above levels in 1990, the year used as a benchmark in the Kyoto Accord—the urgency of reducing fossil-fuel consumption is great. Perhaps Canada’s wild rivers, if harnessed, can be our gift to a warming world. Maybe a concrete edifice nestled in a river valley is just as quintessentially Canadian as a lone paddler on a pristine river.

This presents a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario for Canadian utilities. They can build more dams—obviously still a cornerstone of the corporate culture—cash in on lucrative exports, and enjoy eco-hero status. But is damming more of our rivers an optimal strategy for addressing climate change?

Despite the virtues of hydro power, dams can only reduce emissions indirectly. Their climate value hinges in part on the extent to which they substitute for fossilfuel-fired generation, as opposed to displacing nuclear, wind, or other sources. Though displacement is hard to prove, Irving reasons that “were we not to be sending that electricity down to the United States, the next most logical source of generation to meet their load requirements would generally be natural gas and/or coal.” The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) actually predicts that over the next 25 years, 11 percent of new generation in the U.S. will be coal-fired and 60 percent natural gas (which is roughly half as bad as coal in terms of emissions).

In Canada, most new hydro projects are located in provinces with minimal fossil-fuel-fired generation, so limited displacement will happen here. Exceptions are Ontario, Labrador (where 102 MW will be displaced), Nova Scotia (which will import from Labrador), and possibly Saskatchewan, which could use hydro from Manitoba.

While the fossil-fuel displacement argument has obvious merit, it also has weaknesses. Utilities can argue that hydro exports help save the planet, but critics can say these exports just keep the most wasteful society on earth air-conditioned and recharged. They can say that hydro exports just feed an addiction with more and more cheap power, every kilowatt of which reduces the imperative to curb consumption. The basic argument is that reducing demand must be the obvious and dominant priority in energy policy, rather than endlessly ramping up supply.

Government agencies predict electricity demand in Canada will grow almost 10 percent between now and 2020, and in the U.S. by approximately 30 percent between now and 2035. Ralph Torrie says we can and must go in the opposite direction. “We could double the efficiency with which we use fuel and electricity in Canada,” he says. If you want to see how it’s done, he adds, “just take a vacation to Europe.” Torrie, whose energy expertise is internationally recognized, serves as managing director of the Vancouver-based Trottier Energy Futures Project. In contrast to Irving, who accepts that demand for electricity will grow, Torrie advocates a “new way of thinking about the energy future.”

“There is no demand for electricity,” he says. “Nobody wants a kilowatt hour in their living room.” We want the services that electricity can provide, and we must “focus on how we can best meet the underlying needs for amenity with less rather than more fuel and electricity.” That, he says, is the only hope for “anything we might call a sustainable energy future.”

“We waste half the hydro we produce,” says John Bennett, who heads the Sierra Club of Canada. The solution to climate change is “to use less energy,” he says. “That’s where the major investment should be.”

Torrie says large hydro is environmentally preferable to many forms of energy supply, but still, reducing demand can achieve the same thing at a lower cost, and without the decade-long turnaround time for planning and construction. He views conservation as a resource. “There’s almost always a kilowatt of electricity that can be saved for a smaller cost than building the ability to generate a new kilowatt.” Plus, the resource gets bigger with every new innovation in efficiency. As Torrie puts it, “The size of the resource goes up every time somebody has a bright idea.”

Cutting electricity demand by half would include a range of technologies, including LED lighting, sensor-driven smart controls that reduce daytime lighting in buildings, and continued improvements to virtually every device that uses electricity.

But even if we as a continent cut our energy use by half, we still need some energy—and should not a maximum amount of that come from low-emission hydro? Can’t conservation and new hydro be dual priorities?

According to energy consultant Phillipe Dunsky, total spending on efficiency and conservation programs in Canada is only about $1 billion per year. Despite that, Jacob Irving says, “energy conservation has to be forefront of all decisions.” Then he adds a caveat: “There’s a lot of analysis that says energy consumption will grow, and so we need to be ready for that.” Whether demand shrinks or expands, the simple prohydro argument—more hydro equals less fossil fuel— still stands.

But for Tony Maas, who works for the Canadian branch of the World Wildlife Fund, it’s not that simple. He says new hydro projects must be part of an overarching plan for “net reduction in GHG emissions.” He cites Ontario’s Green Energy Act as an example of a plan that commits to overall GHG reduction.

But, as John Bennett points out, “we don’t have a North American plan to reduce emissions,” so new hydro projects “can’t be part of that plan.” The EIA predicts that without policy change, coal use as well as GHG emissions from electricity generation, will continue to increase over the next 25 years. Bennett says building more dams to meet increasing demand is like doubling the fuel efficiency of cars so that people can drive twice as much.

In a release this April, Hydro-Québec, Canada’s largest generator and exporter of hydropower, said, “The major environmental challenge facing North America is to replace coal to generate power and oil used in transportation.” While climate change may be the “major” environmental challenge of the day, it is not the only one. Just because hydro dams do not have highly visible carbon-spewing smoke stacks does not necessarily make them environmentally friendly. Behind the question of whether dams are a climate solution lies a more fundamental question: is hydro actually clean, as utilities and governments regularly assert?

Jacob Irving says, “When people refer to [hydro] as clean, it’s in the context of air emissions.” But rarely is this specified. The categorical use of the term by utilities, without caveat or qualification, is misleading. Tony Maas says he gets “nervous” when hydro is called clean because “it almost implies there are no impacts.” But dams harm the environment. A dam is not an environmental improvement or solution for a watershed.

One of the main impacts is the disruption of the natural “flow regime” in a waterway. Maas says the natural fluctuations in water levels are the “master variable in organizing a river ecosystem,” giving key “cues” to other species. Thus, a WWF report says, “Dams destroy the ecology of river systems by changing the volume, quality, and timing of water flows downstream.” The evidence of this is visible in dammed Canadian rivers, as it is in the hundreds of millions of dollars paid to mitigate and compensate for damages caused by dams. Manitoba Hydro alone has spent over $700 million to address damages from its “clean” hydro projects.

The WWF takes a more nuanced approach. It says some hydro projects can be built without unacceptable harm, but its 2011 global energy plan still “severely restrict[s] future growth of hydro power to reflect the need for an evolution that respects existing ecosystems and human rights.”

Similarly, a 2011 report about Canada’s boreal forests by the Pew Environment Group considers both pros and cons of hydro. In a section about hydro called “How Green Is It?”, the report says:

Although [hydro dams] are comparatively low carbon emitters in comparison to many conventional energy sources, hydropower projects have resulted in significant impacts to wildlife habitat, ecological processes and aboriginal communities.

In a later section, the report states:

While it is clear that allowing our societies to be powered by carbon fuels is not sustainable, this does not mean that alternative or renewable energy sources can simply be viewed as having no cost whatsoever.

The report, entitled “A Forest of Blue,” does not offer a simple verdict. Rather, it says, “We must understand as many of the implications and complexities of the issues as possible.” The candour and openness to complexity demonstrated in the report are exactly what is needed in the assessment of any climate-change strategy.

In keeping with the Pew report’s frank and thorough nature, it also discusses the role Aboriginal peoples play in hydro development. This is an essential part of any discussion of hydropower in Canada since virtually all hydro projects occupy lands to which First Nations have rights. In the past, Aboriginal people vehemently (and mostly unsuccessfully) opposed major dams. That has changed: in some cases Aboriginal opposition has succeeded. The $5 billion, 1,250 MW Slave River project in Alberta has been “deferred” after project proponents were unable to reach a deal with Smith’s Landing First Nation last year.

The proposed Site C Dam, a 1,100 MW, $7.9 billion project planned for the Peace River in B.C., faces resolute opposition from four First Nations in the area. But the outcome of that David-and-Goliath battle will not be know for some time.

Elsewhere, opposition has given way to participation—David and Goliath have become allies. Most recently, members of the Innu Nation in Labrador voted in June to allow the massive Lower Churchill River projects—Muskrat Falls (824 MW) and Gull Island (2,250 MW)—to proceed. In exchange, the 2,800 Innu receive $5 million per year to assist with their process costs during and prior to construction, up to $400 million in contracts during construction, and share of project profits thereafter (5 percent of “After Debt Net Cashflow”).

The broad Tshash Petapen (New Dawn) Agreement, in which these provisions are contained, also includes an agreement in principle on land claims and $2 million a year as compensation for damages related to the existing Upper Churchill Falls dam.

Meanwhile, the Inuit (distinct from the Innu), who are concerned about downstream impacts in their territory, say they have been largely left out of the process.

In Quebec, the James Bay Cree receive over $100 million a year in hydro, forestry, and mining royalties as a result of the 2002 Peace of the Braves agreement. In it they consented to the Eastmain-1-A/Sarcelle/Rupert Project (918 MW) while securing the permanent abandonment of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert project, which would have flooded 6,000 square kilometres.

First Nations near proposed dam sites in Manitoba have been offered lump-sum compensation packages, along with the opportunity to invest in projects. For instance, the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, with its 4,500 members, will be entitled to a third of the profits of the nearly completed Wuskwatim Dam if they can come up with a third of the $1.3 billion cost of the dam. They also benefit from $60 million of employment training.

In June, four other First Nations joined Manitoba Hydro in announcing the start of construction on the 695 MW, $5.6 billion Keeyask dam. Like Nisichawayasihk, they will be offered the chance to invest in the dam, as well as employment opportunities.

What’s clear in all these cases is that Canadian utilities cannot ignore Aboriginal demands. “We can stop development,” says Ovide Mercredi, former National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and the recently retired Chief of the Misipawistik Cree Nation in northern Manitoba. His community sits right next to the 479 MW Grand Rapids Dam, which floods 115,700 hectares. In reference to the water flowing through that dam, Mercredi’s message to the province is simple: “That’s not your water, it belongs to our people and we want a share of that money.” The dam’s 50-year provincial licence expires in 2015 and Mercredi wants licence renewal to be contingent on public acknowledgement of the harm, increased mitigation of damages, and a revenue-sharing agreement. In part, the message is that if utilities do not deal with Aboriginal concerns now, they will have to later.

Whether First Nations are defiant or eager for new dams to power their economic future, the broader environmental questions remain. While Aboriginal influence has led to a reduction in the size of dams and increased environmental mitigation, and First Nations consent improves the general ethical perception of a project, there is still no tidy way to pour thousands of tons of cement into a river.

No matter who is involved, the merit of the case for hydro as a climate solution can be tested by the assumptions it rests on. These assumptions are that hydro is clean; that demand for electricity will grow; and that the primary alternative to more hydro is fossil-fuel generation. Are these solutions part of the solution or the problem?

Ultimately, the solution to climate change, as well as to watershed health, may never be found unless we move past these assumptions and replace them with better, more accurate premises.

First, dams are not green or clean in themselves. To disrupt the flow of a river and blaze a transmission corridor through kilometres of forest is, in itself, bad for the biosphere. To solve one environmental problem (global warming) with another (pouring hundreds of thousands of tonnes of cement in a free-flowing river) is counterintuitive. That said, desperate circumstances may require desperate measures.

Second, energy demand can and must be substantially reduced. The logical outcome of letting demand increase indefinitely and meeting that demand with ever more hydro and other renewables is to have every river dammed, the landscape saturated with wind and solar farms, and consumption still increasing. The ultimate, unavoidable solution is to use less energy. This must be the dominant priority.

Finally, dams do not reduce GHG emissions per se. They increase energy supply. Apart from a demonstrated continental commitment to dramatically reduce emissions (and energy demand), the case for hydro as a climate solution is, for the industry, a rather convenient truth. Hydropower can’t be part of the climate-change solution if there is no solution.

Climate change is one of humanity’s greatest challenges, and to address it we may need to conjure greater creativity than just reviving electricity generation megaprojects conceived of decades ago. Dan McDermott of the Sierra Club’s Ontario Chapters says, “The age of big dams is over.” According to him, hydro proponents “have their heads turned backwards attempting to mortgage the future to maintain the past.”

The large hydro projects currently in the works were envisioned before global warming concerned anyone, in an era summed up by former Manitoba premier Duff Roblin when he rose in the legislature in 1966 and prophesied a grandiose future for hydropower, saying, “We can have our cake, we can eat it and we can make a bigger cake, and sell part of that.”

Though hydro prospects are framed differently now, dam proponents still appear to share Roblin’s belief in limitless, consequence-free development. Now the question of whether taming more of our iconic rivers will help the climate becomes a question of whether Roblin was right.

The comments were shocking. After addressing a conference on native health issues in Saskatoon in December 2002, David Ahenakew, the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, told a reporter that Jews are a “disease” that Hitler was just trying to “clean up.”

“The Jews damn near owned all of Germany prior to the war. That’s how Hitler came in. And he was going to make damn sure that the Jews didn’t take over Germany or Europe. That’s why he fried six million of those guys, you know. Jews would have owned the goddamned world,” Ahenakew told a Saskatoon Star Phoenix reporter, adding that Jews today control the banks and media. “Look at here in Canada, Asper. Izzy Asper. He controls the media. Well, what the hell does that tell you?”

The remarks caused bewilderment and outrage across the country, prompted an RCMP hate-crimes investigation and destroyed Ahenakew’s 36-year career in First Nations politics.

He was forced to resign as chairman of the senate of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and was suspended from the board of the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, which he helped found in the 1970s. Calls came in to strip him of his Order of Canada medal. In June, he was charged with promoting hatred.

Once one of Canada’s most outspoken and prominent native politicians, Ahenakew dropped out of the public eye and retreated to the small Cree community in northern Saskatchewan where he was born.

But in the province where Ahenakew was a political kingpin for over three decades, some say the controversy is not a complete surprise. Some who know him say Ahenakew never made a secret of his bigoted views, not just toward Jews. The difference this time was that he made the comments to a reporter. The real question is: how did he get away with it for so long?

The village of 1,200 from which Ahenakew hails has a pretty name that conveys the beauty of the place. Ahtahkakoop means “Starblanket” in Cree and is nestled along the shores of Sandy Lake, surrounded by meadows, hills and lush parkland. This is the heart of what was once buffalo country, where the prairies rise up to meet the northern boreal forests.

When settlers decimated the great buffalo herds that sustained the Plains Crees, David Ahenakew’s semi-nomadic ancestors were forced to survive by farming often-inhospitable land. In 1877 they signed Treaty 6, giving up their vast hunting territory in exchange for a 67-square-mile reserve and $5 a year “per head.” Signing on behalf of the Crees was Ahenakew’s great-grand-uncle, the legendary Chief Ahtahkakoop, whose name the community adopted as its own.

The promised future of pastoral bliss never came. Crops failed; starvation and tuberculosis ravaged the community; Indian Affairs agents physically abused hungry Crees who asked for food.

Through the hardship, one of the constants was the Ahenakew clan and its dominance over the community. An Ahenakew has been chief for 85 of the past 90 years, and successive family members used the community as a launching pad to rise to prominence in the world beyond.

David Ahenakew’s older brother Gordon, a WWII veteran, was an eminent Anglican minister and aboriginal veterans’ leader. His sister-in-law Freda was appointed to the Order of Canada for her work as one of the world’s leading aboriginal scholars and linguists. David’s son Greg is first vice-chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

But the family’s best-known scion was David. Born on a Sandy Lake farm in 1933 at the height of the Depression, Ahenakew had 11 brothers and two sisters. At 17 he joined the Canadian Army, fought in Korea and later served in Germany and Egypt. He stayed 16 years, including seven as a non-commissioned officer barking at recruits. When he left the army as a sergeant in 1967 it was the height of flower power and Vietnam protests, but Ahenakew had a new mission: helping his people.

“I could see that what was happening to our people was the same kind of exploitation and degradation I had seen in Korea and Egypt,” he told the Saskatchewan Indian newspaper in 1974.

Ahenakew got a job at the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and within a year, at age 35, was elected as the group’s youngest chief. He used his political savvy, ferocious drive and army-taught organizational skills to turn the tiny, unknown group into one of Canada’s most vibrant and powerful First Nations federations, cementing a power base that would serve and protect him in later years.

He was re-elected four times and served a record 10 years, helping to found the National Indian Brotherhood (forerunner of the Assembly of First Nations) and the ground-breaking Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, which awarded him an honourary doctorate. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1979 and elected as the first leader of the newly created Assembly of First Nations in 1982.

Ahenakew was known for his great charisma. “I’ve seen him walk into a room; he just walks in like a pro. He could go into a community and have everyone eating out of the palm of his hand,” says one long-time family friend who worked with Ahenakew for many years and spoke on condition of anonymity because charges in the RCMP hate crimes case were still pending.

Ahenakew rose to national prominence, but he never lost his army brush cut or his drill sergeant’s gruff, foul-mouthed way of talking. The friend believes that it was the army, not reservation life, that shaped Ahenakew’s opinions. Although he never heard Ahenakew defend the Holocaust before, the friend says he was known for making narrow-minded remarks. “He was more right-wing than some of the redneck right-wing crazies out there. He would crack off about East Indians or black people or ‘foreign-born bastards,’ as he called them. He was a bigot in his thinking,” he says.

But no one dared to call him on it. “People would sit back and titter,” the friend says. “He was a well-known vulgarian, no doubt about it. Anyone who spent a lot of time with him would know it’s true.”

In fact, Ahenakew’s views have created trouble for him before. In 1984, he angered aboriginal women’s groups when he vehemently opposed federal government plans to abolish rules that stripped women of their Indian status if they married non-Indians.

Lloyd Barber, a former president of the University of Regina, who befriended Ahenakew during a stint as federal Indian Claims Commissioner, describes Ahenakew’s Hitler remarks as “very out of character.” Barber chalks up Ahenakew’s earlier bigoted comments as “politically incorrect” joshing around.

“Anything he might have said was in the context of flip comments that only recently became politically incorrect. People make light of all sorts of things: ‘I’m not going there; it’s a gay bar.’ C’mon, this is a guy who fought for his country in Korea,” he says.

But others say Ahenakew was known for intolerant views. “I always figured he was a bit right-wing, less tolerant. There was a subtle undertone of the rhetoric there. Us-and-them kind of talk,” says John Lagimodiere, editor and publisher of Saskatchewan’s Eagle Feather News.

In an interview with CBC Radio’s The Current, Star Phoenix native affairs columnist Doug Cuthand said that it was well-known that Ahenakew held intolerant views. “I’ve heard him say this stuff before. He knew I was appalled by it, and I thought he was just trying to get a shock response. Over the years I’ve found that he really does believe it,” said Cuthand. In an interview with Canadian Press in December, Cuthand observed that Ahenakew’s “attitudes towards not just the Jews, but other races and women were fairly backward.”

A Cree lawyer who has known Ahenakew for many years says those who knew him were “kind of surprised [and] to a certain extent shocked” by his jokes about “niggers,” but were willing to overlook them because he was such a strong defender of Native people. “He got away with it because of his overwhelming knowledge and belief in values about protecting the Indian people. That was what I really respected him for,” the lawyer says.

Following the media outcry, Ahenakew apologized for his remarks in an emotional press conference, but some wondered how contrite he really was. In an interview with This Magazine, his first since the affair, Ahenakew expressed defiance and anger, particularly toward native leaders who criticized his Hitler remarks. He said he is now “gathering information” to prepare for a press conference he plans to hold this fall to discuss the affair. “It’s not finished by any means,” he said.

Ahenakew then launched into another tirade. “When a group of people, a race of people can control the world media, then there’s got to be something done about that,” he said, before hanging up.

In an interview shortly afterwards, Ahenakew expressed frustration that he has to defend his record and said the controversy has caused “emotional, gut-wrenching turmoil” for his family. “For me to keep defending myself in my own land is not going to happen,” he said. “The role of a leader in the Indian country is to defend and protect the people, their rights, their lands and so on. And that’s Indian leadership in my definition, and I’ve been there,” he said, hanging up again.

When asked to respond to Ahenakew’s latest remarks about a race controlling the media, Barber said, “It doesn’t make me happy. But that’s not a thought of his alone. I’ve heard other people in more prominent positions say the same thing. That’s not an uncommon sentiment, true or not.” Asked if that excuses Ahenakew, he said, “It doesn’t excuse anybody, whether it’s true or not.” Asked if he thinks it’s true, Barber said, “Look, that is a frequently seen quotation. Whether it’s true or not. I don’t know whether it’s false. I don’t know whether it’s true. I don’t know. I am ignorant.”

Despite his famously fast tongue, David Ahenakew has long commanded tremendous loyalty. When, in 1985, he was ousted as the AFN’s national chief amid a furor about financial improprieties and kickbacks, his prairie power base kicked in with unswerving support.

Ahenakew was accused of using AFN funds to finance his failed re-election bid. After a four-year probe, the RCMP laid 159 charges against Ahenakew and eight others for allegedly funneling kickbacks from federal grants and contracts to former Indian Affairs Minister John Munro for his failed 1984 Liberal leadership bid. The charges were later dropped.

Throughout the affair, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations backed Ahenakew all the way, pulling out of the AFN and threatening to create a rival national body. The federation later appointed Ahenakew to chair its senate.

Later, when the controversy broke over Ahenakew’s Hitler remarks, the federation condemned the remarks as an “embarrassment,” but the federation’s vice-chair Lawrence Joseph also attacked the media’s coverage as an “outrage.” He said it had obscured other issues that Ahenakew had raised in his speech at the federation’s conference.

“Yes, he made a little comment about the Second World War,” Joseph told a reporter. “All of that was said in private to a reporter who pursued it. It should not have even been pursued. We were there to talk about the criminal activities of the government in making Indians sign consent forms for [health] care, a very serious issue, but instead, it’s garbage that hits the news and the front pages.”

In February, the federation’s senate created more controversy when it voted near-unanimously to reinstate Ahenakew after he made an impassioned plea for his job. Federation chief Perry Bellegarde, put on the spot, declared the senate has only an advisory role and said that reinstatement isn’t likely.

But outside of Ahenakew’s entourage, other native people also have divided feelings about the affair. For some, the horror of Ahenakew’s remarks is mixed with frustration that racism against native people is so often ignored. They wonder why Canadians aren’t similarly outraged when genocide in the Americas is denied or defended, and why so little is said about present-day bigotry toward First Nations people.

“I feel bad that it was brought out the way it was because it gives people another excuse to lower our category,” says Sam Sinclair, a 76-year-old Cree WWII volunteer and former president of the Métis Association of Canada who sits on the board of the Aboriginal Veterans Scholarship Trust.

Lagimodiere says he, too, was shocked by Ahenakew’s remarks, but he also says the public outcry showed a double standard: “If we went wild like that every time someone said something derogatory about aboriginal people, we’d never stop. I think it was overblown.”

One member of Ahenakew’s family disagrees. “I don’t think it was overblown,” says cousin Willard Ahenakew, a consultant to the Ahtahkakoop First Nation. “The war was not so long ago. There are still people alive [in our community] who are veterans. I think [the remarks] just totally shocked people. It’s not a reflection, not even close, of our family or our community or people.”

The Ahenakew family friend sees a positive side to the controversy: it is leading to important self-reflection. “David Ahenakew was kind of protected, and as a result he developed some arrogance. We as a people have to confront those issues.”