Hot time expected despite winter’s chill

The chiefs of Ontario are devising a number of strategies to make the provincial and federal governments sit up and take notice of their concerns about the plan to impose the harmonized sales tax (HST) come July.

Grand Chief Patrick Madahbee of the Anishinabek Nation, representing 42 First Nations, predicts it’s going to be a long winter of sustained activity in the province. Expect direct action, political lobbying, and litigation.

Madahbee has even told the chiefs that any political party that supports the HST legislation should not be welcome in their communities. Given the fragile nature of the federal minority governments, he said, it won’t be long before politicians come knocking at the door looking for support. If they come from a party that supports the HST, they should be punished at the polls.

The grand chief insists the chiefs have drawn a line in the sand on this issue, because the HST represents just the tip of the iceberg of an erosion of their treaty rights, and the responsibilities to them by the federal government.

“We see it as part of other government strategies on assimilation and municipalising our communities. There is a whole number of agendas going on,” he told Birchbark.

“We should have drawn the line when it came to child care issues, and education or housing or social services. The fact, I guess, is that this is such a crucial issue that not one single individual, both on or off reserve, is not going to feel the brunt of this thing. It’s going to hurt that single mom that’s trying to buy stuff for her kid. They’ve gone to the heart of hurting people here.

That’s why we can’t allow this to happen, because it’s just going to be too devastating to our communities.”

Mainstream business has been calling for the implementation of a harmonized sales tax system for some time now. Once the HST is implemented in July, businesses will be able to claim 13 per cent as input tax credits as compared to the five per cent GST now claimed.

But Kady Stachiw, a co-author of a report on the HST prepared by the Small Business Consulting Department of Lakehead University, says that while the HST is a good thing for business, consumers and First Nations will be hit hard.

From the First Nations perspective it erodes the tax exemption provisions of treaties, and, specifically, removes the point of sale exemption of the current provincial sales tax.

“Look, tax your own people, but you have to acknowledge and recognize our treaty rights to tax immunity,” Madahbee said he told Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, who promised to raise the issue with the finance minister, who had refused to meet with the chiefs.

The grand chief said that many of the concerns being raised are falling on the deaf ears in both the provincial and federal governments, with both governments pointing fingers back at the other saying it’s the other guys’ responsibility to provide provisions to protect the tax exempt status of First Nations.

“There is a real federal/ provincial ping-pong match going on...but neither of them are going to do anything about it.”

Madahbee speculated the impact of the HST could mean the start of a whole new black market economy on reserve.

“You think they are having problems with the cigarette trade.... If they don’t listen to us, well, we’re already starting to talk other tactics here.”

One of the tactics came before the holiday season when the Batchewana and Garden River First Nations asked their citizens to use their Christmas spending clout to fight the HST, withholding revenues from local business. The chiefs of those nations encouraged their members to cross the border into the United States and spend their Christmas cash there. They even provided transportation to the U.S. malls on Dec. 21.

“We call on the 10,000 plus Native people in the Sault Ste. Marie area and the 220,000 First Nations people across the province to join with us in solidarity for this momentous occasion. We call on you to spend your millions of Christmas dollars in the United States,” said Chief Dean Sayers in a press release on behalf of both councils.

He also called upon business to contact local MPs to voice their concerns about the HST.

“It’s not too late. It isn’t law yet.

It is still making its way through Canada’s Senate and has not attained royal assent,” Sayers said of the legislation.

Madahbee also said the chiefs were seeking to put pressure on the Senate to find ways to address First Nations concerns about HST. He said even if the Senate approves the bill, the fight will not be lost.

“Even in July this fight won’t be over. I didn’t say we drew our line in the sand for nothing. We don’t plan on giving up on this issue,” Madahbee said.

There has already been a rally in Toronto, and chiefs are working on what will come next.

A legal challenge is being considered. Each nation in Ontario would be expected to contribute to the cost, and it could be based on a constitutional breach or on the lack of consultation and accommodation of First Nations interests, an issue of law as set out in Supreme Court decisions.

Madahbee says the strategy will be to attack the legislation on several fronts.

“We expect things to get a little hot around the territory here.”