Trudeau’s ambitious aboriginal plan
THE PRIME MINISTER HAS OUTLINED PLANS FOR AN OVERHAUL OF CANADA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS INDIGENOUS PEOPLE. A LOT OF CHALLENGES STAND IN THE WAY
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged an ambitious agenda of reforms to improve the lives of Canada’s indigenous people.
But it’s far from certain that Trudeau’s promises of dramatic change will become reality or hit the same wall of good intentions that have plagued governments for decades.
Two obstacles — lack of government money amid a sluggish economy and traditional bureaucratic inertia — could get in the way of the historic progress the Liberals are promising.
From launching an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, to pledging to spend more money on First Nations programs and improve education on reserves, the prime minister called for a “total renewal” of Canada’s relationship with aboriginals.
On Tuesday, he laid down some specific benchmarks that will guide his Liberal government in the years ahead — providing Canadians with a yardstick on which to judge his success.
He issued his pledge in a speech to hundreds of chiefs gathered in Gatineau for a special meeting of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the country’s largest indigenous political group.
Justice Murray Sinclair, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that explored the residential schools saga, said in an interview this week that the Liberals are signalling they are serious about long-needed reforms.
“They’re going to face a lot of challenges,” he said.
He said social costs — such as high incarceration rates and growing numbers of aboriginal children in welfare care — are escalating rapidly.
Reforms are needed to stop those rising costs, he said. “While in the short term there has to be some extra spending that has to occur, we think in the long term there's going to be a cost-saving to the economy.”
Sinclair said a “whole new attitude” is needed within government. “That's always difficult for bureaucracies to engage in.”
Among the Liberal pledges:
An inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women will proceed next spring. In the meantime, the government will hold consultations to determine the best format and mandate for the inquiry.
The Liberals say the inquiry's purpose is to find out why indigenous women are disproportionately in danger of being killed, and what steps can be taken to prevent that.
The long-standing two per cent cap on federal funding increases for First Nations programs will be ended in the Liberals' first budget.
Trudeau said the cap hasn't kept up with “demographic realities” in First Nations communities, nor the actual cost of program delivery.
He promised “sufficient, predictable and sustained funding.”
Later, when asked how much this will cost, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said: “We are going to build our budget by walking through our campaign commitments one by one, making sure that we deal with, cautiously and carefully, what the costs are and the benefits are of each one of them.”
The government will conduct a “full review” of legislation that was “unilaterally imposed” on indigenous people by previous governments.
“Where measures are found to be in conflict with your rights, where they are inconsistent with the principles of good governance, or where they simply make no public policy sense, we will rescind them,” Trudeau told AFN chiefs.
The Indian Act, long considered a relic of a previous era, will be among the legislation reviewed. The Financial Transparency Act — put forward by Stephen Harper's Conservatives to force chiefs to disclose their salaries — will also be reviewed.
The federal government will make “significant investments” in First Nations education.
First Nations complain their school system is underfunded when compared to other public school systems.
The previous Conservative government increased funds for First Nations schools as part of a bill that would have reformed the system and introduced new standards. However, the government put the bill on hold when it was opposed by the AFN, which complained that First Nations were not appropriately consulted.
DUFFY TALKED ALMOST NON-STOP FOR TWO HOURS, BARELY PAUSING FOR BREATH, NEVER SHORT OF WIND: IT WAS A MIRACLE. — COLUMNIST CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD