Chiefs formulate plans for self-governance

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Nishnawbe Aski Nation chiefs met to outline their vision and prepare a plan for governance of NAN communities at their winter assembly held Feb. 25 to 27.

NAN Grand Chief Stan Beardy said the meeting had an excellent turnout: 42 out of 49 chiefs and six proxies showed up.

"We presented the basis for our nationhood, which is what we call traditional governance-it's a framework that outlines our philosophy, our values or principles."

He said the chiefs accepted the principles, but they wanted to take them back to their communities for further discussion.

"I think the first step is that chiefs will have to have a concept and say 'This is the direction we'll go.' But to have actually fully implemented it will take a while, because we'll need the resources to do that. It becomes critical that we have to find a way to finance our own activities."

The grand chief added that at the present time, NAN First Nations depend on the federal government, and when the federal and provincial governments aren't getting along, Aboriginal people "get punished," he said.

"The chiefs should be able to charge for the resources on their traditional territories, so that they can begin to generate their own revenues."

Beardy explained that the plan for traditional governance as a base for their nationhood came about from NAN meetings and 30 years' work.

He said their plan "outlines some of the areas where we could have NAN-wide common understanding, some of that could be regional-like groups of First Nations governing themselves but tied into the overall NAN-wide umbrella-and then of course we have at a community level individual First Nations and what role they would have...

"So it will have layers. The power, the authority will be at a committee level, which is chief and council . . . and they themselves will decide whether they want to go forward as individual First Nations or groups of First Nations."

Then, he said, the development of a First Law will be necessary. "We need the First Law because from that document will flow all the natural laws that will govern, provide a general guide of where we need to go from here."

Beardy describes Nishnawbe Aski Nation as a provincial territorial organization, which "was not really set up to begin to assert nationhood or the idea of self-determination."

He said, "There is no real governing structure at NAN at the present time, other than an organization that has agreed to work together towards just common issues. But we start to go beyond that and begin to look at governing structures, so that we have self-determination within our treaty territory."

Nishnawbe Aski Nation covers two-thirds of Ontario's land mass, or 210,000 square miles. Beardy said that three distinct groups of First Nations reside within this territory: "Mushkegowuk [Cree First Nations] along the [James Bay] coast; then in the middle we have what we call Oji-Crees; and in the southern part of my territory I have what we call Ojibways.

"So what we're saying is that it is not at this stage possible to try to fit everybody into one one-size-fits-all. We have that knowledge that we have three distinct groups, and what we're saying is that we have to figure out how we're going to work together, how we're going to lead together, so there are some common denominators like the land base that will pull us together: the land and the treaty itself."

Beardy said they will develop some policies that will apply as a general guide right across Nishnawbe Aski.

He said several communities already identify their governing structure and authority within their defined territory, they have started to develop their own constitutions and have begun to identify group objectives in economic development and education.

The next meeting is being planned for mid-May.

"It's really exciting because here we'll talk about our natural resources and we know those are ours, so we had to strategically position ourselves to participate in resorce development. We have a land base, so the chiefs are directing Nishnawbe Aski and myself to begin to look at ways of establishing an economic base for our future generations," said Beardy.