now in bronze, he stood facing the Assiniboine River, back to the legislature, a political man yet apart from politics.
Even today, he was too politically costly for white leaders to ignore, but too powerful a symbol of native rights for them to allow him a place inside the legislature, so they put his statue here. Riel in life and death, the rebel and the ironic symbol of white power and white guilt, hanged on a rope by a distant Sir John A. Macdonald. Three times elected to the House of Commons but never able to take his seat, thanks to the white man’s democracy. Alex stood for a while, contemplating the man. Riel the victim, symbol of the victims, the outsider, standing darkly shrouded, separate – forever outside.
Alex studied the statue. It was a revised Riel, he knew, unveiled in 1996 and meant to be respectful, unlike the tormented nude 1971 version now safely tucked away at the Collège Universitaire de St. Boniface. But the conventional style of the new one – moustache, neat city clothes, long, wind-blown coat – made him look more like a Washington senator of Lincoln’s time than a prairie catholic evangelist. He held a scroll, perhaps his demands, and under his arm, a book. Of what? – laws, a Bible, his own work? But it was exactly the boring style of the boring statues of prime ministers on Parliament Hill. Where was the man? Maybe the sculptor meant to be polite, but by denying his essence, he had only made him respectable. There wasn’t even a plaque, Alex noticed. It was as if Riel didn’t need to be explained. As if Riel couldn’t be explained. What would a plaque say? “The true spirit of the people and their Métis brethren, he died for liberty”; or “Mad traitor, threat to the settlers’ gold”; or “Patriot who died to save the power of the Rome church.” Why not all three, stamped in brass in three languages?
Alex turned uneasily away. Riel, the romance of a lost cause left behind. But were the Métis and aboriginals better off for what he did? A zealot, arguably half-mad, incapable of compromise, he led his followers and his people into disaster, twice! Is that what you’re doing? Alex asked himself as he boarded the Main Street bus heading back to the Aboriginal Centre. How was Molly Grace different from Riel?
The yellow-and-orange bus coughed to a sudden stop at Main Street and Higgins Avenue on the outskirts of the rundown Point Douglas community. Alex stared out the grimy bus window. He could see nothing clearly.
Wednesday, September 1, 1410 hours
Ottawa: Integrated Threat Assessment Centre
Eliot Quadra tapped his pencil on the shiny table with increasing impatience. In front of him, down both sides of the table in the most secure conference room inside the ITAC, sat the best intelligence officers he could assemble from the Canadian intelligence community. They had been assigned to the analysis section because they were both experienced and intuitive. Each of them had the rare ability of being able to extract the essence of a security problem from masses of data. They all possessed that rare and vital analytical quality, insight – the capacity to find the hidden truth in complex situations. Yet here they sat, after an hour of discussion, with no clear idea of how the Native People’s Movement was organized and, more to the point, what their leaders were planning now that they had openly attacked Canadian Forces bases and armouries and collected a worrying range of deadly weapons.
Eliot had to get something out of them. As the chief of the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, the ITAC, it was his job – a job that was both routine and highly classified – to collate for the prime minister and the cabinet intelligence reports from most, if not all, the government’s snooping, listening, and watching agencies. His staff gathered information from Canadian organizations like the Border Service, the Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the military, and the RCMP and other police departments across the country. They used the information to produce regular assessments of threats facing Canada from sources inside and outside the country. Today the only questions were about internal security, and the prime minister was asking the questions. “I want,” he had told Quadra directly, “some solid, credible intelligence on the threat facing the government from the so-called aboriginal radicals. And I want something other than what the military is telling me.”
“Let’s go over it again,” Eliot said to the assembled intelligence officers. “We have a sketchy idea of who’s who in the Movement and where they’re mainly located. We know they have cells operating on many reserves and in some cities, especially on the Prairies. We assume, and let’s go right on assuming, that these raids were not spontaneous, but part of a deliberate plan to destabilize the government and encourage native uprising in various parts of the country. We assume also that the main area of interest is Quebec. And we know that getting inside the Movement and developing intelligence contacts is difficult, to say the least, so we don’t have and aren’t about to get reliable new information from that direction. Agreed so far?” Heads nodded around the table.
“Okay, let’s review what we don’t know. And if anyone has any Rumsfeld-style thoughts on ‘what we don’t know that we don’t know,’ please chime in. Otherwise, Maggie, give us the assessment in the West for a start.”
The lean, intense blonde woman to his left swept the table with her eyes as she began a staccato recital. “My people think there’s something big, maybe a type of intifada, building in the major cities across the West. A couple of my officers believe it’s even bigger, possibly a large-scale, well-organized uprising aimed at governments at all levels. What’s particularly supportive of both these ideas is the presence of senior members of the Movement in the West, especially in Winnipeg, including a couple of experienced ex-military officers, including at least one deserter. We’ve identified, for instance, ex-Special Forces Colonel Sam Stevenson, and we think a deserter – he may very possibly have commanded the Petawawa raid – a former captain named Alexander Gabriel, who served under Stevenson, we think he’s there too.
“We don’t know anything about their plans, but – worst case – they actually might organize natives in the northern communities and invade the south. Stevenson’s service record shows a consistent pattern of thinking big, moving against established ideas, and getting his opponents to look one way before coming at them from another direction. That argues for us looking in that other direction, outside the major cities. And also, let me emphasize, this intelligence suggests we’re wrong to assume the main area of interest is Quebec. There certainly seems to be trouble brewing there too. And folks, if something significant is happening in Quebec and out west, we can’t avoid the conclusion that what’s happening is very big and well organized.”
Eliot looked first to Mike Liu, a long-service operator and the oldest member of the team. “Mike, comments?”
“Well, I agree with most of Maggie’s assessment. But she suggests a great deal of sophisticated planning and coordinated operations, and I don’t see it, at least not yet. If the regulars in the Movement are in charge, which I admit we’re not sure is true, then this isn’t a military coup, it’s a political movement. If we think they are planning what Maggie suggests, or that someone else has taken charge and is planning something that big and that military, then we ought to try to imagine answers to the why, what, and how questions. I’m thinking why the West; with what possible objectives; how would they carry out the operation? We haven’t been able to answer these questions, and since these people aren’t stupid, I assume it’s because they’re not planning that type of activity.”
Wednesday, September 1, 1435 hours
Winnipeg: Colonel Stevenson’s Headquarters
The usual afternoon ops staff team sat around the large map table, notebooks at hand. Colonel Sam stepped up to the map. “Okay, let’s go over the outline operation to make sure we’re clear on objectives and how we’re going to reach them.
“The Western strategy is uncomplicated: control Winnipeg and we control the region. The Red River Brigade is assembling battle groups
