Manitoba school trustee Paul Coffey Courtesy Paul Coffey
Bullies aren’t only in school playgrounds.
Manitoba school trustee Paul Coffey has been under fierce attack since his presentation Racism Anti Racism Nice Until It Isn’t during an April 24 Dauphin-based Mountain View School Division (MVSD) board meeting.
Coffey had the nerve — the nerve! — to proudly call himself and others Indian. Not indigenous. Not aboriginal. Not native. Not First Nation. Not the latest IPOC. He chooses Indian to honour his identity, heritage, and great great grandma He Zan Tan (Jane Shirley Horn), a proud Indian.
Trustee Paul Coffey’s great grandmother He Zan Tan aka Jane Shiny Horn. A proud Indian.Courtesy Paul Coffey
Coffey said white privilege is racist. There was “good” in residential schools. “Performative and tokenistic” land and treaty acknowledgements fuel division.
He questioned some Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) findings. He opposed posting signs in school pushing inclusivity that are “inclusive to very few but exclusive to many.”
Critics latched onto snippets and ignored or distorted his messages, pouring gas on outrage.
“Funny, the legacy media say, ‘He said residential schools were nice.’ Well yeah, I said they were nice. I then also said they weren’t. I said treaties were nice and then they weren’t. I said even TRC is a good idea, until it isn’t,” Coffey told the Western Standard in an exclusive interview. He said he wasn’t speaking on behalf of MVSD.
Coffey was called hateful, racist, vitriolic, uniformed, and offensive. He was accused of damaging reconciliation efforts and representing a “threatening” far-right agenda. A hate-letter campaign was launched urging people to complain to government.
Indigenous leaders, politicians, the Manitoba Teachers Society (MTS) and others piled on demanding Coffey’s resignation.
Education Minister Nello Altomare, who ordered a governance review, said it was “offensive” that Coffey didn’t say indigenous.
What’s offensive — and horrifying — is anyone claiming the right to judge or disrespect Coffey’ choice. It got worse.
Altomare haughtily dismissed it irrelevant that Coffey is of Ojibwe and Assiniboine (and European ancestry). And his grandma Bonnie Helgesen and father Donald Coffey attended residential schools. Coffey attended some day schools.
So, Italian Altomare figures an Indian’s perspective on Indian matters is irrelevant? Wow. He sure put that Indian in his place.
Sadly, ignored was Coffey’s heartfelt message that despite billions of dollars spent over decades on a group representing four percent of Canada’s population “we can’t figure out why the Indians are left sqauloring on their reserves.”
“It’s disgusting.”
Coffey’s concern that growing disparities between indigenous and non-indigenous students must be addressed instead of spending time and money on failed “fuzzy feely” initiatives, fell by the wayside.
He delivered the presentation to address Manitoba’s planned antiracism policy. The 2023 federal budget allocated $80 million over five years for the policy’s implementation.
A survey that was sent out to help shape the policy is “biased,” said Coffey. “It doesn’t matter how you answer, we’re going to need an antiracism policy.”
“My presentation highlighted that an anti-racism policy is likely to fail due to the repeated failures of initiatives by our government over many generations.”
Like many government-funded indigenous strategies it’ll be a “waste of time” because it doesn’t deal with core problems.
“Federally funded strategies appear to be nice, protective, and helpful. But they seem to cause oppression and division … planning and rhetoric with no real resolutions.”
“Antiracism, I guess you could say it’s a good term. Who wouldn’t be against racism? It’s nice until it isn’t.”
Nice intentions get led astray.
“The LGBQ hijacked this inclusion initiative. This antiracism thing is just going to be hijacked by this white privilege thing and decolonization. It’ll have nothing to do with antiracism. They tack that stuff onto this group of people to push their narrative.”
Inclusion isn’t working.
“When I mentioned being more inclusive — let’s say having a picture of Jesus with little different coloured children — oh my goodness. The LGBQ, everybody else got all upset for me being more inclusive. That means their policy is failing. Everybody should be included.”
Coffee said white privilege and colonization mustn’t be part of the antiracism policy.
Why did he condemn white privilege?
“You can’t base privilege on somebody’s skin color. White privilege is a racist comment. Just as you cannot say red savage, a dumb Ukrainian, violent black or a smart Asian — you cannot say white privilege,” said Coffey.
The underlying message? “Get rid of the white people and you’ll get rid of the problem.”
Regarding residential schools, there was mutual agreement that education was necessary for Indians “to move forward to navigate the new system and the new world.”
“Residential schools, they were good. They were essential for reading, writing, arithmetic. Also, enforcement of school attendance.”
“It was all nice until its well documented and openly expressed intention to use schools to assimilate, eradicate Indian languages, cultures, and spiritual beliefs. It started out as a good thing and turned out not very good.”
He questioned the absence of good stories in the 2015 TRC report.
“You have to wonder how authentic it is when there’s absolutely no good stories in Canada about the residential schools. How is that possible? There’s got to be one good story.”
Treaties are “great” because they brought in an exchange of land rights, cessation of conflict and education. It became “not nice” when agreements were “unfulfilled causing displacement, disposition and migrations.”
Coffey criticized land acknowledgements as divisive because this is “blaming whites for taking land and telling Indians they should be sorry their land was stolen.”
“Excessively repeating without meaningful action or dialogue is performative and tokenistic. This exacerbates feelings of resentment, division within communities, and leads to a sense of stagnation and hopelessness.”
“The land and treaty acknowledgement stating we honour and respect the treaties, is a questionable statement as they are continually in court battle. This indicates neither side is honouring or supporting the treaty as written. Basically, the treaty and land acknowledgement no longer are effective.”
Meanwhile, the priority is antiracism — no complaint has been lodged in his division — while the education system fails many indigenous students.
“You see how they smoke it over because on the Manitoba Government website it says that non-indigenous graduate at 91.2%. The indigenous graduate at 91.3%.”
“So, oh yeah, they’re equal. But if you don’t get your credits in Grade 9, the chance of graduating is damaged greatly. It’s in Grade 9 where this disparity is occurring.”
Statistics don’t count those who don’t get to Grade 12.
Coffey pointed to a troubling trend identified in a Manitoba Educational Disparities report.
Over the past seven years, indigenous students not making it to Grade 9 fell from 70% to 68%. Rates for non-indigenous students improved from 92% to 94%. The 24% gap shows initiatives aren’t working despite the TRC nine years ago calling for the educational gap to close within 12 years.
Federal indigenous spending rose 181% since 2015. It’ll be $30.5 billion in 2023-24, then $32 billion in 2024-25.
“Many people perceived my presentation as being upset about the funding, which is not true at all. The funding for indigenous initiatives is like a financial injection into our economy.”
“My concern is the continued oppression of a four-percent minority group where this injection of funds is not addressing their issues. What’s upsetting is it’s not fixing what they should be fixing.”
MTS President Nathan Martindale called for Coffey’s removal. He accused him of “whitewashing atrocities” in residential schools. That’s an over-the-top accusation against someone for simply questioning things.
“His presence on the board is extremely harmful because it compromises the safety, equity, and quality of education for all students,” he wrote in a June 11 letter.
In April, Martindale wrote that he was “appalled” at Coffey’s “vitriolic, uninformed and harmful disinformation.”
Could this be political?
“The hateful rhetoric expressed by Coffey is not an isolated incident; it is symptomatic of a broader, troubling rise in far-right agendas that threaten the fabric of our society.”
“We are witnessing an alarming increase in attempts to control the educational narrative, suppress truth, and undermine efforts towards equity and inclusion. This trajectory is dangerous. We must confront it with unwavering resolve.”
He didn’t mention anything about unwavering resolve to improve graduation rates.
Coffey said its necessary to “look at the past but not dwell on it.”
“While it remains uncertain if I suffer from intergenerational trauma due to my family’s IRS experiences, I believe my recent treatment by the Manitoba government and others reflects a type of denialism that contradicts the principles of truth and reconciliation.”
Why Indian? Name changing over 70 years has been a “form of erasure.”
“It dismisses the rich cultural diversity and unique identities within Indian communities.”
First published in the Western Standard.
Linda Slobodian is the Senior Manitoba Columnist for the Western Standard based out of Winnipeg. She has been an investigative columnist for the Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Edmonton Sun, and Alberta Report.
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