First Nations leaders met Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday.
It was agreed to revisit old treaties and speed up land claims. “High-level” meetings will occur in four weeks
OTTAWA A divisive, hard-won meeting between First Nations leaders and Prime Minister Stephen Harper ended Friday with the Conservative government agreeing to revisit historic treaties and speed up comprehensive land claims.
Despite rancorous boycotts by some chiefs and a door-pounding protest on the front steps of the prime minister’s working office Friday, more than four hours of faceto-face talks set the stage for another round within the next month.
“We have achieved some movement today,” Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said in a statement.
“The prime minister listened respectfully to chiefs and responded to all they brought forward and for the first time, provided a clear mandate for high-level talks on treaty implementation. Prime Minister Harper also committed to high-level discussions on comprehensive claims.”
But secondary demands — including a repeal of contentious sections of the government’s omnibus budget bills — were dismissed or put off for another day.
And in order for the commitment to treaty talks to work, the Ontario and Manitoba First Nations who boycotted Friday’s meetings will have to come back into the Assembly of First Nations fold.
That’s because those are the country’s two key regions governed by treaties, and they need to figure out how the broad strokes of Friday’s agreement apply in their areas, said Grand Chief Edward John from the First Nation Summit in British Columbia.
First Nations in northern Ontario and Manitoba are among the most impoverished in Canada, and their people have long complained that Canada is not living up to its side of the treaty.
But the chiefs from those regions refused to attend the Harper meeting because it did not include the Governor General — a key demand since the treaties were signed by a representative of the Crown.
Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan said the talks with Shawn Atleo, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, and about 20 other native leaders were “frank” and “constructive,” while acknowledging much work remains.
Perhaps most significantly, Duncan said the prime minister and the powerful Privy Council Office — the bureaucracy that supports the PMO — will now take an active role on “those sticky items which are identified which could use some direction from the centre.”
In other words, one year after another highly symbolic meeting that was supposed to reset the relationship between Ottawa and First Nations, a sense of urgency may have emerged.
A central tenet of Idle No More dissent is the government’s overhaul of environmental oversight and protections of fisheries and waterways included in the massive budget bills rammed through Parliament last spring and this past fall.
On that point, Duncan said the government saw no reason to make any changes and had fulfilled its constitutional duty to consult with First Nations beforehand.
“We’re quite comfortable that we have met our constitutional obligations with those bills,” Duncan said.
Contrary to Harper’s original plan, he stayed for the duration of the afternoon talks, along with several key cabinet ministers: Duncan, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq and Treasury Board Secretary Tony Clement.
In support of the meeting, thousands of protesters filled the streets around Parliament Hill, chanting, and dancing. The Canadian Press