O's back!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post, "Is your Member of Parliament lying? More than likely if they're Conservative!"

Hello/Bonjour Clare,

Its been a while! I've relocated to the metropolis! Just watched on BT a news clip about the Metis Culture and Heritage Resource Centre who are asking for emergency funding for their Centre to continue functioning. Apparently the MMF (Manitoba Metis Federation) has not given them their funding for the past 5 months so they have had no choice but to ask for help from the province or the feds or whoever will help them.

Looks like the MMF is up to its old tactics again. Me smells a election coming and my guess is the MCHRC is not worth Big Dave's (President David Chartrand) help. Why is the MMF not giving them their funding? Well my guess is they don't want any new memberships processed through the Resource Centre because they have no control over it. Lets see how head office jigs out of this one. Oh yeah, Dave can't jig. Never could. Never will. I'd say it's time he shuffled along. Personally I'd like to see Dan Vandal as the new MMF Prez. He's sooo Handsome Dan Vandal. Please Dan Help the Metis Resource Centre.

All my love,
Madame O lii Smokes

Dear O:

What a pleasant surprise - a ghost from the past! O goes back several years to the early days of CyberSmokeBlog which has since reinvented itself. It now has much, much bigger fish to fry than David Chartrand and his Provincial Board of Directors.

Regarding, the MCHRC, unfortunately, CSB cannot comment because its been out of the loop for so long.

Dan Vandal? He's announced he'll be seeking the nomination for the riding of Saint Boniface currently held by Shelly Glover, however, there's been no follow up in the media whether he's been successful. Here's the deal O. Sad to say Ms Glover is CyberSmokeBlog's Member of Parliament so you can have her in a one-for-one straight up trade for Dan Vandal. She becomes the next MMF President and he the St. B. MP. The Federation is more her speed.

Apart from his good looks, CSB likes Dan Vandal because it's not aware of any scandal with which he's been involved/linked to after several years serving as a Winnipeg city councillor.

Notice you've relocated to the metropolis which presumably is Winnipeg. When you have a chance you should e-mail me so we can get together for coffee - CyberSmokeBlog has a lot of stories to share with you (best done offline) while you can update CSB on the rough and tumble world of Metis politics. If you do, use pieuk@shaw.ca. Should you send it via the blog to protect contributor identity it will automatically arrive as a non-reply which means it's impossible to send a response.

The 'teef" and "the bell!"

BTW, did you see the recent CBC Doc Zone documentary, The Bell of Batoche?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/bell-of-batoche-may-not-be-from-batoche-cbc-documentary-reveals-1.2604033

O will know the story but for some of the non-Metis readership who may not so long story short. The famous Bell of Batoche went missing several years ago from a war museum in Ontario (originally stolen by troops sent from Ottawa to quell the North-West Rebellion). Speculation was rampant David Chartrand's arch rival and former MMF President Billy Jo Delaronde was one of a small group who'd broken into a small Ontario war museum and absconded with it along with some war medals. Recently, he came out of the closet (so to speak) to announce what many had long suspected he did indeed have the bell.

David Chartrand's reaction? The group who stole it where a bunch of "teefs." The CBC documentary was very, very well-researched, documented and presented by historical researchers - most educational - who made a compelling argument that what had been assumed all along to have been the original Bell of Batoche was, in fact, a bell taken from Frog Lake a small Metis settlement in northern Saskatchewan near the Alberta border. The remains of the real Bell of Batoche (the original had been largely destroyed in a fire save for the clapper) were finally located in another rural Saskatchewan church where they remained for safekeeping.

Since going public, Mr. Delaronde (the master "teef") had toured Metis communities accompanying "the Bell." If true, and the evidence is certainly compelling, "the teef's" got the wrong bell.

Thank you again for contacting CyberSmokeblog!

Best Wishes,
Clare L. Pieuk