Building trust with aboriginals
If they weren’t paying attention before, Canadians now know that Alberta isn’t monochromatic.
We’re not just blue, but orange, green and red. We’re a rainbow-friendly spectrum, not just white. And in last week’s victory speech, Rachel Notley made a deliberate, spirited acknowledgment of another key demographic, one with a diversity all its own.
“To Alberta’s indigenous peoples, the trust that we have been given tonight is a call to be better neighbours and better partners,” said Notley. “And I am looking forward to consulting with you and learning from you.”
While Notley’s nod garnered buzz, her pledge shouldn’t have come as a shock. After all, the NDP party platform vows to build a “relationship of trust” with Alberta’s indigenous people, one that would “ensure respectful consultation.”
Aboriginal voters turned out in higher numbers, APTN reports, and mostly voted NDP. Fort Chipewyan was 72 per cent orange. Paul Band was more than three quarters. At Saddle Lake, the NDP won 86 per cent; on the Enoch Cree First Nation, they won 91. In Maskwacis, nearly 97 per cent cast ballots for the NDP’s Katherine Swampy, one of just a handful of aboriginal candidates provincewide.
Afterwards, Notley’s gesture was welcomed by many aboriginal leaders, including grand chiefs in Treaty 6, 7, and 8 territories.
“She wants to learn from us, she wants to work with us, she wants us to be part of their family,” said Carol Wildcat, head of industry and government relations at the Ermineskin Cree Nation. “Who else has spoken to us like this?”
But promises are easily made. Notley must shepherd a newbie caucus and cabinet. After an election won on trust, she must introduce accountability measures. She must fulfil budgetary promises amidst fiscal uncertainty and industry suspicion. And she must do it all without a single Métis or First Nations representative in the legislature.
A Notley government supports a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women. They have promised to enshrine the 2007 UN declaration on indigenous rights in provincial law. They pledged to work with the federal government to resolve land claims and ensure clean and safe drinking water; to smooth over jurisdictional cracks in the care of children.
Those are big, fuzzy promises that swerve right into federal jurisdiction. The inquiry is likely a nonstarter, deemed by many as expensive and unlikely to generate real change. It isn’t clear what Notley can or will do to convince a Conservative federal government to change course.
Her party is precise on just two points. Notley will repeal Bill 22, passed under Alison Redford, which created a levy to fund indigenous consultations with industry. Aboriginal groups say they were not consulted in the process. The NDP would also include more “indigenous culture and history” in curriculum and increase Cree and Dene language programs. But that won’t address the huge funding gap facing aboriginal schools.
Whatever they do, it would be a mistake to forget the past. During his short tenure as premier, Jim Prentice built relationships with aboriginal leaders. His government’s demise also means the loss of Métis MLA Pearl Calahasen, part of government for 26 years. Any true partnership must be multigenerational. A young caucus would do well to find continuities. They might listen to political veterans like Truth and Reconciliation Commissioner and former MP Willie Littlechild and longtime provincial cabinet minister Mike Cardinal.
These are not black and white issues, after all. A change in tone is welcome, but like Alberta itself, our future is anything but monochromatic.