"Harper Named Top Newsmaker"

Elijah Harper, the Manitoba native leader who helped scuttle the Meech Lake accord, has been voted Canada's top newsmaker of 1990.

Born on a northern Manitoba trapline, Harper was the choice of 37 of the 98 newspaper editors and radio and television news directors who voted in the annual poll sponsored by The Canadian Press and Broadcast News Ltd.

Harper, the first status Indian ever elected to the Manitoba legislature, used procedural tactics to stop Manitoba from ratifying the accord last June.

The pony-tailed Ojibwa-Cree clutched an eagle feather as he repeatedly denied the unanimous consent needed to rush the constitutional debate through the house.

His soft-spoken "No, Mr. Speaker" resounded across the country, galvanizing both native and non-native opponents of the accord in the days leading to the June 23rd ratification deadline.

Harper opposed Meech Lake because it did not have provisions for aboriginal rights.

For the shy politician, there was no turning back.

"I couldn't live with Meech Lake," he told supporters in Vancouver last summer. "I stalled and killed it because I didn't think it offered anything to the aboriginal people."

Born March 3, 1950, in a tent in the bush of northeastern Manitoba, he was raised by his grandparents, educated in native residential schools and attended the University of Manitoba for two years.

He served as chief of the Red Sucker Lake Indian band and was a civil servant for two years before entering provincial politics. A cabinet minister under the former NDP government of Howard Pawley, he is currently the Opposition party's constitutional spokesman.

While his political life grabs headlines, he keeps his family life away from the spotlight, Separated from his wife of 17 years, he has four teenaged children - two sons and two daughters. To relax, he goes home to his reserve and spends time in the bush.

Harper's stand sparked what became known as the "Elijah factor" during a fall election in Manitoba, as the three major parties rushed to recruit native candidates.

Three were elected in the Sept. 11 vote, giving Harper some native company for the first time during his nine years in office.

Since the accord died, Harper has been a tireless speaker championing native causes across Canada and Europe. He was enlisted as a peacemaker during the violent Mohawk standoff with Quebec police and the Canadian army at Oka, Que.

He appeared before members of the European parliament to argue the case for fur trappers.

He has also been a vocal critic of the recently appointed Spicer commission on Canada's future, calling it a fruitless exercise for natives.

"We're not even recognized as founding peoples of this country," he told Indian leaders last summer. "Yet we are the true citizens of this land."