Strange bedfellows

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Former National Chief Phil Fontaine and Senator Partick Brazeau, together? I hope someone with a cell phone took video.


YK Dene Chief skeptical about mining rare earth metals

- An exploration company is renaming a deposit southeast of Yellowknife today, in a traditional ceremony with the Dene First Nations.

But the proposed mining project may be too close for comfort for some.

Yellowknives Dene Chief, Ed Sangris, says the rare earth metal deposit at Thor Lake is close to traditional hunting and ancestral burial grounds.

He says although Avalon Rare Metals, Inc. has been consulting the First Nations about the drilling operation, the Dene still have to decide whether mining that close to home is worth the economic benefits.

“You gotta find the balance… do we do away with traditional culture… or do we keep our traditions?”

The deposit at Thor Lake is being renamed as Nechalacho, which Sangris says, in the Dene language means “the wind is always blowing”.

The company is flying the former Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Phil Fontaine, along with Canadian Senator Patrick Brazeau and the NWT Premier to the renaming ceremony southeast of Yellowknife. Sangris adds he’s not sure what Fontaine is doing on the company’s board of directors.

“I don’t know what they’re trying to pull. Maybe they’re just trying to garner First Nations support behind the project, you know, get someone in there, like Phil Fontaine, to convince us, ‘yeah, it’s okay’, but we have to make our own decision.”

Sangris says he plans to discuss the mining project with the Dene membership, while Avalon is conducting a pre-feasibility study at the Nechalacho site, expected to be finished by early 2010.

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Post responding to Dirk Buchholz's most excellent observations

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A gentleman going by the name of Dirk Buchholz left a very good comment under our post "Shawn Atleo new National Chief." He asks: "Can any real progress really be expected when AFN is funded and wholly accountable to the settler government rather than to indigenous peoples, the very peoples it claims to represent?" and more. These are smart questions worthy of more attention than he would get if this was left under comments, and some intelligent debate. So I have reprinted his comment below as a post. (For Bad-Anon who likes to troll here, plz note I said "intelligent".) Dirk's comment reprinted below. I have weighed in, my thoughts and opinions follow.

Dirk Buchholz said:
I was wondering if you could explain to me what the actual role of AFN is and how it can claim to represent indigenous peoples. Does not the very existence of AFN lend a kind of legitimacy to the Indian Act? Can any real progress really be expected when AFN is funded and wholly accountable to the settler government rather than to indigenous peoples, the very peoples it claims to represent? Is not government funding of F.N org's just another tool of assimilation, i.e the acceptance of gov funding tends to subvert, de-radicalize grassroots activism ?

I am a bit of a history buff, so I think the issue of government funding for national First Nations organizations needs to be looked at first.

History

It was a real struggle to organize a national organization during the early part of the 1900s. This was the period where oppression of First Nations people really began. The new Canadian government as well as First Nations had looked to what was happened south of the border and neither wanted to pursue wars to deal with the land issue. On the part of the Canadian government, they could see that the US had spent more money fighting Indian wars in 6 months that they had in their entire coiffeurs. First Nations saw the weapons that were being brought in and had lost their advantage in numbers, first due to death by disease, then after the early 1900s to waves of immigration under the effective recruitment campaigns of Minister Clifford Sifton after 1902. First Nations never felt they got enough in the treaties (certainly the land bases in the US are much more generous) and Canada felt they had given too much - housing, the medicine chest, and other items that are still debated today. It's important to note that not all First Nations signed treaties which led to early land claims in Ontario Quebec and BC. These would be put on temporarily on hold for 40 years or so due to oppressive new clauses of the Indian Act.

Between 1900 and 1950 some of the most oppressive measures were passed under the Indian Act. These included: making it illegal for Indians in the west to leave the reserve without a pass issued by their Indian agent; making it illegal for Indians to gather for political purposes, it was illegal for lawyers to represent First Nations on land claims, Indian farmers could not sell their goods with out express permission from an Indian agent (this was passed to stop Indian competing with white farmers who were being recruited to settle the west, and resulted in ruining several good reserve economies) ; residential schools, bans on traditional dances and spiritual practices, and a host of others. Apart from the political obstacles, there were language barriers, a lack of communications infrastructure like telephones, and Indian Affairs refused to provide mailing addresses from one community to another.

In the same period you had a number of First Nations going off to fight in WW1 and WW2. Many came back saying they had been treated as equals while in the war and found it unacceptable that they returned to be treated as wards of the state. Many of these veterans led early movements to forge a national movement. They had support from other veterans and some Christian faith groups (which is very interesting considering what was happening in residential schools in the same period). First Nations leaders broke the law and attended political gatherings. The RCMP arrested a number. Some polic it should be noted were very reluctant to do so, as many felt this was an oppression of human rights, law or not.

Frederick Oliver Loft of Six Nations a WW1 veteran was key in uniting Ontario and Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Regional leaders like John Tootoosis appeared. Loft was able to garner much public sympathy and was a constant thorn in the government's side. Loft was forced to absent himself from the political movement for a number of years when his wife fell ill. When he returned, the recession had hit and he could not raise monies to take Canada to court over land claims, which was his goal. The Canadian government intercepted letters outlining his plans to do so. As this was illegal they threatened him with prison. Loft was in his 70s by this time and backed down.

Jules Sioui, a Huron appeared as the next leader. He was radical, outspoken and considered by many in at Indian Affairs to be politically dangerous. In the early 1940s he organized a political meeting in Ottawa. At the same time Fred Kelly and Andy Paull had united BC, while some infrastructure on the prairies remained from Loft's earlier movement. A number of these leaders met in Ottawa. Apparently it was quite the scene with multiple translators posted around the room. Up until this point all movements had been funding by First Nations people in communities.

Andy Paull eventually took over the national movement. The government decided to meet with them and address some grievances which resulted in the relaxation of some of the harsher rules under the Indian Act in 1951.

After this the federal government organized a series of yearly consultations with representatives from each region. It was here that Andy Paul first suggested that the leaders receive pay form the government for their work. The government refused saying that if leaders were paid by government they would probably no longer be trusted by their people. The government did pick up the tab for travel for the meetings.

As First Nations leaders were getting together regularly but not making much progress on promoting changes after 1951, they took advantage of the meetings to discuss forming a new political organization. The first was the Native Council of Canada. This dissipated because it was essentially a body of leaders meeting with no popular support. Despite some good efforts, communications infrastructure was not good and the majority of grassroots folks and local leaders had no idea they existed. There was also some squabbling between on-reserve and off reserve. In 1968, the federal government offered some small core funding for a First Nations organization, but said they would only fund Status Indians as they were not constitutionally responsible for non-status and Métis. This led to a split that formed the National Indian Brotherhood (Later the AFN) for status Indians, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), and later, in the 1980s when the constitution was being patriated a split between CAP and a newly formed Métis National Council (MNC). Today all of these groups are funded by the government. It's worth noting that what prevented the NIB/AFN from becoming another head without a body was the 1969 white paper. The White paper backfired so badly on government that a rush of government, academic and other researchers moved in to study First Nations, and the government upped funding to these groups. It improved communications and allowed a stable political infrastructure to grow for the first time.

The questions, and some initial thoughts/opinions

Q: I was wondering if you could explain to me what the actual role of AFN is and how it can claim to represent indigenous peoples.

Opinion: AFN represents only First Nations - not Métis or Inuit. It is supposed to represent all First Nations but is very weak on representing off-reserve, non-status and some would argue women although they have improved on this last point over the last ten years. The National Chief and the AFN office get constant input from chiefs through assemblies, chiefs committees on various topics. When it works well, the chiefs raise an issue through a resolution. The AFN then does all the research and legal work on the issue to try and find a solution. This is developed into a business case and reported back to chiefs. If there is agreement the AFN moves forward working with government on the option supported by chiefs through presenting the business case to government.

However multiple things can go wrong in this process. Chiefs may not agree - take for example the Kelowna accord. Chiefs in Quebec did not support it. Or the federal government may not share the same priorities or may just be - as the current government is - difficult to deal with.

Q: Can any real progress really be expected when AFN is funded and wholly accountable to the settler government rather than to indigenous peoples, the very peoples it claims to represent?

Opinion: Well the AFN is definitely accountable to chiefs. They hear about it when they are perceived as being too close to government, it causes splits and chief threaten to pull out from the AFN. The Mohawks did so during the Kelowna debates and I am not sure if they have participated since, although they were sending observers to meetings for a while.

Certainly some progress was made on residential schools. This seems to have been made by not only presenting a solid business case showing that it was cheaper to solve the problem rather than to let it fester in the courts (especially when the government looked like it would lose and wind up paying more anyway in addition to legal fees.) This appears to have been done by uniting with numerous other lobby groups to force the government's hand.

However, it must always be on the minds of leaders that funding can get cut at anytime. I think this is why you have such a PR war over accountability, lately. IF the feds can paint the AFN as a backwards old boys club standing in the way of progress while sucking funds off the public into a black hole, then they will have support for cutting it off. I do believe the AFN is in more than 1 million dollars debt this year - that was reported on their books at the AGA. Why they are in such debt was not explained as the meeting was cut short. Whether it was because - as former National Chief Phil Fontaine hinted in his goodbye speech - that the feds are cutting funds to impede the work the AFN is doing, or whether it is because they have been irresponsible with money, is uncertain. However if it was entirely the latter I expect we'd see the feds denouncing hate AFN publicly. A closer look at the books is needed. They should be up on the AFN website somewhere and I'll post a link if I can find it.

So would the AFN be better off funded by FN? I think so. There seems to be money to do so. The large sum of moula donated by AMC to the Canadian Human Rights Museum may have been better spent shoring up a more independent AFN, in my opinion.

Q: Is not government funding of F.N org's just another tool of assimilation, i.e the acceptance of gov funding tends to subvert, de-radicalize grassroots activism ?

Opinion: Yes. I think so. I think it is definitely an attempt to co-op. I think the worst example of what can happen was displayed by the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP) over the last few years where their leader just aped everything the conservatives said. It got some dollars for the organization – for example their Powley and governance research, but ultimately their leader benefited the most by securing a Senate appointment. While something this dissapointing has not yet happened at the AFN, it could, although I imagine chiefs would just pull out and stop supporting the AFN if it did. It is more likley that government would just cut funding as it did in 2002 when the AFN refused to support the First Nations Government Act, the First Nations Statistical Management Act, and an early version of the Specific Claims Act.

I really hope that Wideye weighs in because she knows a lot more about the AFN than I do, having followed Indian politics longer. I would love to hear what she thinks. I think it’s fair to say we often disagree but I always respect her opinions, they are very insightful. I also know we got more than 2000 hits a day while elections were going on. I hope some of those folks will weigh in as well. Certainly this has been a hot topic of debate in Indian country for years.

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HOLY LIZARDS!!

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Shawn Atleo 276 to Perry Bellegarde 274. Five hundred-forty-eight ballots cast none rejected. Another ballot.................wish I was there! Perry picked up 112 votes to Atleo's 38! Atleo hanging on to his lead but by fingernails. Can Perry's team capitalize on Atleo's apparent lethargy?

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Wait some more.....

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So results for second ballot will be in at 7:00 pm EST....better hope there is a clear winner if you are following this blog cause that’s my bedtime. After that, if I am awake expect wine to influence the writing.

So I hear that Atleo’s team is looking tired – if that’s the case they should quit the race now! It’s SECOND BALLOT! Maybe Bellgard is the better person – a person at the helm of AFN would require stamina yes?

I’ve heard the Nation’s of the West Coast abhor confrontation but that’s a misnomer....if Atleo caves from exhaustion or pressure it’s more likely because he hasn’t got a strategy. And that’s just sad.

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First Ballot discussion

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First Ballot Discussion
Beaucage pulled out and is supporting Bellgard! (desperate pitch!)

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AFN Elections

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So the elections are underway in Calgary and I hope to provide you with almost instant updates throughout the day. But you can link to the AFN Webcast and watch too. Ward was able to provide us with background info on each of the contenders in an earlier blog entry but thanks to the intrusion of real life neither of us was able to keep up. Bills!

I also released some comments that were caught in the moderated comments section. Please accept our apologies for not blogging again before now.

But let’s get to what we really want to blog about...what the heck is happening in Calgary? I have some information from a few sources for but sure would welcome input from anyone else following. BUT before we start and finish I would like to lay out my guess for what happens.

I say Shawn Atleo narrowly beats out Perry Bellgard in the fifth ballot. First out is Terry Nelson from Manitoba, Bill Wilson from British Columbia is out on the second ballot. A close race between Bellgard, Atleo, and Beaucage opens up the race. My guess is that Bellgard squeezes past Beaucage on the third ballot and the race is on between Bellgard and Atleo but because the winner must have a majority vote – a fifth ballot will take the vote into the wee hours of the morning.

A few weeks ago I would have thought Atleo had it hands down but I’m not so sure anymore. There was a debate at the Odawa Friendship Centre in Ottawa that Ward and I discussed with a few people. Atleo was thought to be a bit of a disappointment. He was not a very powerful speaker in fact was rather flat. He spoke in broad terms with no path. We know we need to end poverty through economic participation so I was left wondering where the meat and substance was.

Another factor I forgot about was the ‘local boy’ effect. Perry can and has brought a large body of support from Saskatchewan with him (according to a source on the floor Perry is commanding a lot of attention...at least there are a lot of Perry buttons). I’ve been told there is a feeling on the floor that Atleo lost some ground as a result of the debate – but made a funny joke about how his Grandfather was even shorter than him.

Another source on the floor said Perry was pulling ahead of the Beaucage and was now challenging Atleo. But I don’t know if it’s enough to win. I hear he is definitely the sweatiest candidate and has a nasty habit of making a snort noise after he speaks ( not that that is a bad thing).

Beaucage makes the best comments and made the grandest entry with a troupe of supporters banging big black balloons on signs with his entry – unfortunately those balloons look like big condoms! (heeheehee)

Wilson was boring – and THAT surprised me as I think he is many things but not boring! But he did manage to fit the word “poop” into his speech (in reference to farmed salmon). So.....lets wait for first ballot shall we?

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The Transcript of the Senate fiasco is now online

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As a follow-up to the day of anti-reconciliation, here is the portion of the transcript where Senator Patrick Brazeau personally attacks National Chief Phil Fontaine. For the full transcript click here Aslo you can tune into CPACto watch the whole thing.

You know when I reread it, it's just like watching a traffic accident in slow motion. Brazeau has really lost it this time. What was he thinking?

Senator Brazeau: My second question deals with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Obviously, we had some good news announced yesterday with respect to the commission having different individuals named so they can start the important work that needs to be done. However, if we go back a little, we had a credible and capable individual step down, former Chief Justice LaForme, who was applauded by the Aboriginal community. He indicated that one of the reasons he stepped down was political interference by the Assembly of First Nations.Having said that, everyone knows that your former chief of staff was also the executive director who was fired by Justice LaForme. Some have suggested as well that perhaps the interference was by yourself in trying to have family and/or friends hired on to this commission. I ask you this question with all due respect. Can you comment on that, please?

Senator Carstairs: Colleagues, I have known Phil Fontaine in several incarnations, both as the Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs...

Senator Brazeau: No answer?

Senator Carstairs: — and also as the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. I want my colleagues here in the Senate to know that his legacy will be that it was never about Phil. It was always about his people, and particularly the children and his desire to have Aboriginal children have appropriate housing, education, health care and children's services.Meegwech, Phil. I want to ask a question about children's services. The Wendy Report was clear. The amount of money given to Aboriginal people, whether Metis, or off-reserve or on-reserve persons, is far below the amount of money that is afforded to any other people when their children need to be in care. At the same time, there are greater numbers of children in care than in the general community. I would like to hear from Chief Daniels, Chief Fontaine and Mr. Chartier about what we need to do to ensure that your children receive the services they require.

Mr. Fontaine: I am not aware of the rules and procedures of this place and whether one has immunity from making certain accusations about individuals. What I have heard from Senator Brazeau is defamatory, and I need to protect myself.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

Senator Moore: Absolutely!

Mr. Fontaine: One would make such arguments when one does not understand the settlement agreement or has never read it. The fact is that there are six parties to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. The Assembly of First Nations is one of those parties, in fact the only party that has a clear and explicit role in terms of an ongoing responsibility for the implementation of the settlement agreement. For example, on the recent appointment of the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and two other commissioners, the Honourable Minister Strahl consulted with me because that is one of the provisions in the settlement act. I consider myself one of the architects of the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. When we were fighting for this issue, we were a lonely voice. I never heard Senator Brazeau raise his voice once — not a single time — to talk about the great importance that the fair and just resolution of this matter meant, not just for the survivors but the for entire country. It was only after we had completed the difficult and complicated negotiations that people started complaining. Until then, we met with silence.

I am quite disappointed that Senator Brazeau would make those kinds of allegations. They are completely uncalled for but very consistent with Senator Brazeau. I want you to understand that that is the settlement agreement, and I would urge you to read the provisions of it. Then, you will understand why the Assembly of First Nations had a strong interest in ensuring that the provisions of the settlement agreement are honoured and that everything proceeds in the best interests of not only the survivors but of the country. This is about Canada.

Do we have any regrets about the past? Of course. Will we be stuck in the past? No. We are moving forward with the government on the implementation of the settlement agreement. This very important undertaking will be before us for five years. It represents not only a tremendous opportunity for the country but also a tremendous challenge to get it done right.

The Chair: Witnesses and honourable senators, I am sorry to interrupt but the committee has been sitting for two hours. In conformity with the Order of the Senate of June 9, I am obliged to interrupt proceedings so that the committee can report to the Senate. Honourable senators will join me in thanking most sincerely the witnesses for being with us today.

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