Possessive

A final note from Danny's attempts to pour cold water on his own overheated "Lower Churchill" boosterism:

"We have to enter into an agreement and strike a land claim agreement with our local Innu," Williams said.

"Our local Innu"?

It's not a slip. It's a verbal virus.

Confer Jerome Kennedy's recent use of the phrase "our Aboriginal groups".

The provincial Liberal platform contained a section entitled, "Working With and Respecting our Aboriginals", which pledged to "consult with our aboriginal peoples", respect "the rights of our Metis and Mi'kmaq people", "work with our Metis and Mi'kmaq people to ensure their issues receive appropriate attention by the province when decisions are being made", and "work with our Innu people to finalize land claims agreements"

Danny's first Throne Speech repeats the phrase "our Aboriginal..." three times, his speaking notes at a 2004 First Minister's Meeting repeats it, so does Tom Marshall, so did Roger Grimes, so does Tom Rideout, so does Joan Burke.

How many Aboriginal peoples do Newfoundland politicians think they own?

(There's at least one that they don't own — the phrase "our Metis" is nowhere to be found in any provincial press release or document.)

Imagine if some federal politician or Toronto journalist paternalistically referred to "our Newfoundlanders". What would the reaction be from the local literati and PWG-waving set?

The local political lexicon is in good need of disinfection. Hopefully there's a linguistic bleach out there than can not only eradicate hackneyed phrases like "due diligence", but take out this nasty, nasty habit of modifying the word "Aboriginal", or the names of specific Aboriginal peoples, with the first-person plural possessive.