Embracing political change
Two Indigenous women ascend, one moves on
There can scarcely have been a week in Canadian history when Indigenous women featured more prominently.
Headlines have been dominated by the news that Mary Simon is to be the next Governor General, Roseanne Archibald has been elected national chief of the Assembly of First Nations and Jody Wilson-raybould, the former justice minister, is not seeking re-election in her federal seat of Vancouver-granville.
The elevation of Simon and Archibald is, at first blush, positive news.
The new AFN national chief is likely to have a rougher welcome in her new job. Archibald received the support of fewer than one third of the country’s 634 chiefs. She promises to reform governance in an organization that, earlier this year, she said was guilty of financial improprieties.
After those allegations surfaced, she was accused of harassment and bullying by 10 AFN staff, charges she characterizes as “reprisals” for her own allegations.
The job has a reputation for being a poisoned chalice.
Band chiefs have torpedoed the careers of previous incumbents, notably Shawn Atleo, a supporter of Stephen Harper’s education bill who was felled by friendly fire as a result.
Archibald has talked about “inclusive governance reforms” at the AFN. Real transformation would see the power of the chiefs reduced, in favour of direct elections by First Nations Canadians. That is unlikely. The chiefs have seen off previous efforts at transparency initiated by the Chrétien and Harper governments.
All Canadians should wish Archibald well in her efforts to transform what she called “an opaque” organization.
If Simon and Archibald are proving that there are no limits to the upward mobility of Indigenous women, Wilson-raybould’s news is less welcome. She not only shattered the glass ceiling when she became the first Indigenous justice minister, she took a sledgehammer to the edifice’s supporting walls when she accused Justin Trudeau of political interference in the judicial process over the Snc-lavalin affair. The 2019 controversy resulted in the ethics commissioner concluding the prime minister was guilty of breaking the Conflict of Interest Act, after trying to “circumvent, undermine and ultimately discredit” Wilson-raybould.
She said this week she is not seeking re-election as the Independent MP for Vancouver-granville because she sees Parliament as “toxic and ineffective … the disgraceful triumph of harmful partisanship over substantive action.”
In an interview on Friday, she said she thinks it has been a great week for Indigenous women and applauds both appointments.
On her own decision not to run again, she said the House of Commons is in need of institutional reform to reduce the “self-interest and partisanship” that prevents politicians implementing the best solutions.
She said the party system polarizes issues and suppresses diverse voices, and offered the example of Indigenous rights recognition, which featured in the Liberal 2015 campaign platform.
Trudeau pledged his commitment to Indigenous rights recognition in the House of Commons in February, 2018 but has failed to follow through with legislation.
“(As Justice minister) I wanted to do what the prime minister promised to do … the transformation that is necessary to create a different relationship. But he simply hasn’t done it,” she said. “I believed that we were going to do politics differently. There are some really good MPS but the vast majority just repeat the views of their leader.”
Anyone who has spent time in Ottawa knows more power than is healthy for a vibrant democracy is consolidated in the offices of the party leaders.
Wilson-raybould has proven to be a counterbalance to that over-centralization as an Independent MP, after she was ejected from the Liberal Party.
She said she has “no definitive plan” for the future but whatever she does next will be outside a House of Commons that is flawed and unloved but is still the best link between political power and the people it is meant to serve.
In truth, it was never a comfortable fit for a force of nature like Wilson-raybould.
She was the proponent of the Indigenous rights recognition that Trudeau advocated in the House in 2018 — the idea that rights would be recognized, rather than Indigenous people being obliged to claim them. But even as justice minister, she could not draw up the relevant legislation on her own.
Carolyn Bennett was the lead as Crown-indigenous Affairs minister and changes also needed the support of other cabinet members like then Finance minister, Bill Morneau.
“Jody never mastered it is a team game. She really frustrated her colleagues, who wanted to help. (Catherine) Mckenna, (Dominic) Leblanc and (Jim) Carr were all fed up by the end of 2018 and the bickering with Bennett was awful,” said one person who watched events unfold. (This rancour is the background to the text message that Bennett sent to Wilson-raybould earlier this month, asking whether her opposition to a fall election was over her desire to secure her pension.)
Yet, as Wilson-raybould pointed out in her statement after being shuffled to Veterans Affairs, she achieved everything in her mandate letter from the prime minister “and much beyond it.” In addition to the assisted dying bill and the legalization of pot, she issued a directive to government lawyers on how to deal with Indigenous litigation and 10 principles to guide Crown-indigenous relations.
In the end, it was not Indigenous issues but the SNC debacle that resulted in a demotion she found impossible to accept.
“I have a huge mix of emotions,” she said on Friday. “I’m incredibly sad at the lost opportunity but I also have a feeling of liberation.”
The story so far reads like Greek tragedy — the Indigenous woman who walked away from a seat at the cabinet table to tell truth to power.
It would be tragic, if this were the dénouement. But, as Wilson-raybould indicated in her letter to constituents, she does not intend to exit the Canadian political stage for long. “I realize there is work for me to do outside federal politics. To mobilize different voices, support and advance them, and build co-operation among groups and stakeholders who recognize the need for transformative change to our political culture.”
That change should be embraced. As Edmund Burke pointed out: “A state without the means of some change is without the means of conservation.”
I WANTED TO DO WHAT THE PRIME MINISTER PROMISED.