With the title of Aboriginal Capital of Canada firmly entrenched, Winnipeg has long led the way among major metropolitan cities in experiencing the nation's complex and often uneasy relationship with it's aboriginal citizens.

Indeed, recent census figures show that the Aboriginal population of the city now accounts for at least 60,000 people-with projections of it topping 100,000 by 2020- making it inevitable that civic politicians would finally be forced to formulate a plan to deal with the potential implications-positive and negative-of that reality.

And Mayor Glen Murray's recently unveiled draft aboriginal strategy First Steps: Municipal Aboriginal Pathways, according to its foreword, attempts to do just that. (See Page 10 for direct excerpts from the document)

The plan lays out five separate pathways that the city intends to pursue in order to "embrace" and "encourage" greater aboriginal participation in overall civic life.

These 'pathways" are designated to address issues of employment, safety, economic development, quality of life and outreach and education.

Initiatives such as creating aboriginal internships, employment networks, an aboriginal youth ambassador program, aboriginal economic development partnerships, aboriginal housing development and instituting aboriginal cultural awareness training are the initial steps Murray has said will lead to satisfying legitimate and longstanding grievances among urban aboriginal people for greater civic equality, participation and representation.

The city's aboriginal strategy falls under the mayor's much vaunted Plan Winnipeg 2020 policy umbrella, a document that suggests the city has developed an integrated and focused plan of attack to address a host of municipal priorities from basic infrastructure renewal, increased transportation efficiency, administrative stream-lining, the revitalization of its downtown core and enhancing the potential for the expansion of it's corporate tax base and to "promote self-reliant aboriginal communities.

The objectives are summarized in Plan Winnipeg 2020 "Vision" statement: "To be a vibrant and healthy city which places its highest priority on quality of life for all its citizens."

Southern Chiefs Organization leader Margaret Swan has responded enthusiastically to the city's statement of intent contained in its aboriginal strategy plan and has offered to work directly with the city in ensuring its implementation.

"I want to applaud the mayor and the executive policy committee for their vision, courage and determination in offering this draft strategy for urban Aboriginal citizens that call Winnipeg home.

"I have briefly reviewed the draft strategy and am impressed with its strategic commitments to address several challenges facing Winnipeg's aboriginal community in a respectful meaningful way," she said.

And several members of urban aboriginal organizations, including Aboriginal Council president Wayne Helgason, have also lauded the draft strategy.

However response at the street level both among aboriginal and non-aboriginal people ha s been more cautious and in some cases extremely cynical. (Also see Page 10 for written response to the city's strategy from The Canadian Taxpayers Federation)

"There's no plain talk in any of Murray's grandiose plans or strategizing," complains Winnipeg core area businessman Andrew Moar, who was quick to point out his Metis roots. "Platforms, pathways, strategies, visions, it's all a bunch of B.S dressed up to look like something it's not. You can't ever get to the root of a problem without the people in the community being able to have a say in this and what's going to be done.

Moar says that many of the civic aboriginal leaders who had direct input in shaping the goals and objectives of the strategy have been the very people who have impeded the type of frank examination of the issues required to really address the underlying problems of aboriginal relations with the rest of the city's population.

"Right now it's politically correct for aboriginal people to be angry, to say they hate the whites or to blame the rest of the city for all their problems. Now I know from living in this city for nearly half-a-century that people don't take well to hearting this all the time. This plan of Murray's pretty much says that they swallowed everything they were told.

"The trouble is our people have to take some responsibility for their actions and how that's contributed to some really bad feelings against us. But this plan will never work if those that have these negative feelings can't even lay them out. I mean how are we ever going to get the real support from the rest of Winnipeg if behind all those faces is a lot of misunderstanding and resentment."

It's a grassroots analysis that has wide currency even among some younger educated members of the aboriginal community.

"Sure the stated ideals of the strategy, you can't argue with that. But they're based on perpetuating yet another stereotype that non-aboriginal Winnipeggers are the only ones to have to change their attitudes and mindset," said Patricia Keemansick, an Ojibway mother of two, who moved to Winnipeg to continue her education 10 years ago. "I work with lots of great people, Filipinos, Europeans, you name it. We have the same concerns and worries about our children, our jobs, our future and our safety and they have never ever shown one ounce of racism towards me and it's at that level that this discussion should have taken place among ordinary people who work together, go to school together, play together and eat together as neighbours.

"Instead we had politicians and the so-called elite meeting and consulting and using all the rhetoric that they use to keep this idea in aboriginal people that everybody is out to get us somehow and in non-aboriginal people that we need special treatment.

"Well we don't. All people need to do is be treated equally not given special treatment. I see too many of our people who think they're entitled to special treatment and that life isn't hard for anyone who isn't aboriginal. Well they're wrong. Until a real and frank discussion happens among the citizens of this city this strategy is only going to create more dissension and difficulty for everyone."