Thirteen years ago today, a heavyset man at the back of the Manitoba Legislature held an eagle feather in his hand and -- so softly it was barely audible to those holding their breath in the galleries -- said no to the Meech Lake accord.
Today, Elijah Harper is a shadow of his former self -- even if he is much stronger and healthier than when he almost died a few years back. But he still says no to reopening the Canadian Constitution, despite the recent rumblings of various premiers.
Back then, Elijah Harper was the NDP member for Rupertsland and the first native elected to the Legislative Assembly. His singular refusal to give consent that June day led, eventually, to the failure of the controversial deal.
He is, for this reason, one of the rare historical figures in Canada still living, not to mention trying to make a living.
He is 54 now, still slightly slowed by a mysterious illness that struck him not long after he switched to the Liberals and won a federal seat in 1993. Years after a spiritual retreat to his Red Sucker Lake home began the healing process, doctors still have no idea what took 70 pounds off his big frame and often left him in such pain he wished for death. His inability to function helped him lose the seat in 1997, but he now feels well enough to be talking about running again once Paul Martin takes over.
Harper now lives and works mostly in Ottawa. He consults; he lobbies, but he remains Elijah Harper, the man who stood up to Meech, and is still widely sought for speeches. Thirteen years on, he still cannot go anywhere without being recognized, without producing some memory of those tumultuous times when Harper and Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells seemed to be the only ones speaking for what would eventually, in the Charlottetown referendum, be proved the majority.
"No one has ever come up to me and said, 'You ruined my life,' " he laughs.
He does, however, admit to being worried the first time he said no that June. Had he not had the support of native leaders who came to Winnipeg and that eagle feather that was brought to Winnipeg, he doesn't know how he would have found the strength.
The feather came from his brother Saul, who found it on his trapline. It was carried to Winnipeg by his other brother Darryl, a non-churchgoer who said that when he arrived, he accidentally opened the hotel room Bible to Isaiah 40, verses 30-31: "Even the youths shall be faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles."
"There was no looking back," Harper says today. "It wasn't done out of being negative, or out of spite, or anything. We were just trying to be recognized for our rightful place in Canada."
There was, of course, anger in Quebec over his actions. But once the 1995 sovereignty referendum failed, Harper came to believe that "no one could never come back on us." He is convinced the small Quebec native vote was pivotal in supporting Confederation.
"Right from Day 1 with Meech, I said aboriginals would do great things for the unity of Canada," Harper says, then smiles. "As hosts, we have a responsibility to keep the peace and the harmony."
If that peace and harmony is going to be maintained, he suggests, keeping a lid on constitutional change is essential -- even though native Canadians remain desperately in need of change themselves.
"A constitutional process would be welcome," he says, "so long as we deal with the issues we want to deal with. But speaking from experience, we're not going to get that. Everything else will be thrown in. Once you open it up, you open up the Quebec question, too. And everything else: health, transfer payments, powers."
A better idea, he says, is to work from within. Aboriginals, for example, have standing treaties, "and in return for keeping these treaties we should have some share of resources."
Rather than relying on the public purse -- "which always makes us look as if we're holding out our hands" -- Harper would prefer a system whereby natives get royalty payments for resources that fall under the treaties: forestry, mines, energy, even fisheries.
The greatest resource of aboriginals, however, may be yet to come.
"Our children," he says. Changing demographics, a mushrooming population.
If Elijah Harper can change anything in the future as dramatically as he did in the past, it will be to get native Canadians to appreciate the power of a vote that is too rarely exercised.
"People tend to put us aside," he says, "but we'll keep reminding them. We have a long way to go.
"But our numbers will one day say that people have to listen to us."
Roy MacGregor