Aboriginal infighting unhelpful
Justin Trudeau is right about one thing — the last thing that Canada’s First Nations people need is political infighting.
Alas, the Liberal leader’s concerns for First Nation people, too, seemed sadly framed in political infighting. Trudeau claimed it was the “willed effect of the Conservative approach” that has sown discontent among First Nations.
This is not to deny that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has contributed to First Nations’ discontent through its omnibus Bill C-45, which altered federal legislation including the Navigable Waters Act, The Indian Act Amendment and Replacement Act, the Family Homes of Reserve Matrimonial Interests of Right Act, the First Nations Education Act, the First Nations SelfGovernment Recognition Bill, the Safe Drinking water for First Nations Act and the controversial First Nations Financial Transparency Act.
It was this giant bill from the Conservatives that ignited the Idle No More Movement which, at least initially, seemed to be the grassroots awakening that aboriginal people have needed for decades.
But there are several problems with Trudeau’s highly political take on rival gatherings of the Assembly of First Nations in Whitehorse, and of a new splinter group, the National Treaty Gathering meeting at Onion Lake. These simultaneous events stand to be counterproductive for ordinary First Nation people.
For starters, Trudeau seems to have conveniently forgotten the Liberal party’s own record on First Nations development, which is hardly any better than the current government’s.
Even under Liberal administrations we saw the decline of treaty rights, the existence of residential schools, and the recent revelation by food historian Ian Mosby that malnourished and hungry aboriginal children and adults were used by Liberal government scientists in experiments in the 1940s and ’50s.
This latest shocking and twisted report had AFN Grand Chief Shawn Atleo demanding that Harper make amends for past wrongs by doing more to ensure aboriginal families today have access to healthy food. “Our children were literally lab rats for the most unconscionable, horrific testing,” Atleo said in Whitehorse.
The Conservative government called such experimentation “abhorrent and completely unacceptable.” Given that it was Harper who finally apologized to the First Nations for the residential schools fiasco — again, much of which also occurred under Liberal governments — maybe young Mr. Trudeau needs to climb down a bit from his high horse.
First Nations problems did not start with the Harper government, and it doesn’t help to exploit the current divisions among First Nations leaders for partisan political gain.
That said, one truly wonders how ordinary First Nations people could possibly be better off if their leaders become exhausted fighting among themselves, especially when so much of the battle seems to be over a power grab rather than ideologically different approaches to helping their people.
One needs to be careful here because to simply suggest the new group, led by Manitoba Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, should not be allowed to challenge the AFN would be to badly miss an important point about First Nations self-governance.
Nepinak certainly favours a more radical approach and — along with Atawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence — has seemed to glom on to the kind of grassroots politics demonstrated in Idle No More. It should be up to First Nations people to decide who they want as the leader — although their ability to make that choice seems to be the critical issue.
Disconcerting, however, is that the National Treaty Gathering at Onion Lake is making the same old demands for more federal dollars through the treaties, with little thought of doing anything differently. There is no talk of true grassroots democracy that would prevent local First Nations from being coerced into voting for their chief and council, and then have only those chiefs select the national leaders.
And there sure isn’t much policy innovation — or any discernible difference — when it comes to the treaty gathering’s take on revenue generation. Where is the badly needed economic development plan? Where is discussion of individual property rights?
First Nations people need new ideas and innovation from their leaders. But what won’t work is more of the same old failed ideas, accompanied by the same squabbling that we see in federal politics.