Chief holding hunger strike
An Algonquin grand chief is on a hunger strike, protesting her community’s unequal role in the development of a major Indigenous centre in Ottawa.
Steps away from Parliament Hill, Verna Polson is lying in a wigwam under a heavy summer sun. She’s not eating food. She’s not drinking water.
Polson, head of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council, began her hunger strike late Monday night. Throughout Tuesday, volunteers helping at the site tried to cool her wigwam with a fan and air conditioning. The temperature in Ottawa reached a high over 30 C Tuesday afternoon and the forecast calls for the hottest stretch of the year in the rest of the week.
“She’s obviously tired, she’s weak in terms of physical strength,” said Frankie Cote, a band council member for the Kitigan Zibi Anishnabeg, an Algonquin community north of the capital in Quebec, who is working with Polson.
“But mentally, she’s still strong,” he said.
Cote said while he and the others gathered at the Wellington Street building support Polson’s action and goals, they were “very concerned” about her health.
“It’s literally putting her life on the line,” he said, adding he and others have been trying to convince her to at least drink water.
Polson’s refusal to eat or drink is in protest of the fact the Algonquin Nation is not an equal partner in the development of the building in the former U.S. Embassy directly across from the Peace Tower, which is meant to become a centre known as the Indigenous Peoples Space.
In June 2017, the federal government pledged the use of the embassy building to a group of Indigenous organizations, made up of the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Metis Nation Council.
The building, used for not much since American diplomats moved to a new larger building 20 years ago, was hung with banners representing the three large Indigenous groups and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to work with them to transform the property.
He held a large public event outside, calling the project a step to “ensure that the dialogue we have started is sustained and deepened as we move forward together.”
But Polson and Cote maintain the Algonquin deserve equal standing because the building is on unceded, traditional Algonquin land.
“This is our land, our territory. We want to be here and we want to host our brothers and sisters from across the country,” Cote said.
Cote said the Algonquin Nation is in active talks with Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, seeking a solution where the government recognizes them on par with the national organizations.
But so far, he said, the government’s position is that this issue should be resolved through conversations among the Indigenous groups themselves.
Polson, Cote, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde and others met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Monday, but Cote said the Indigenous leaders left the meeting “discouraged.”
The band councillor said the Canadian government is making a mistake in treating national Indigenous organizations as if they were governments, arguing that true reconciliation means a relationship with Indigenous people, not the umbrella advocacy groups.
“We’re distinct. We’re not an organization. We’re a nation,” he said.
Still, Cote said discussions are moving forward and he hopes all sides can come to an arrangement that might be brought to Polson to convince her to end her hunger strike.
An arrangement that gives greater influence to the Algonquin Nation would require the co-operation of the national Indigenous organizations currently in charge of the project, and a meeting last week with the groups representing Inuit and Metis peoples also “didn’t go well,” Cote said.
The ITK and the MNC have opposed giving the Algonquin Nation equal standing in the development process, and the two parties haven’t met since last week, Cote said.
The Assembly of First Nations, meanwhile, said it strongly supports Polson’s position and is hoping to work toward a solution that would end the hunger strike and strengthen the role of the Algonquin Nation.