Media gets it wrong, says chief

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National Chief Phil Fontaine arrived in Vancouver for a special chiefs assembly with a goal of correcting what he called "an unfortunate report in the national media" that he was asking for almost $2 billion for the Assembly of First Nations.

The reality, he said, is that only one per cent of that proposed funding would go to the AFN.

Getting Results is a 10-point proposal to reform the Assembly of First Nations and dramatically improve the services available to First Nations people. The 40-plus page document was leaked in early October and widely distributed.

The "Getting Results Agenda" would bring as much as $1.7 billion in new money to First Nation programming if accepted by the federal finance minister.

The plan calls for new federal money for a wide range of policy areas, including $500 million for education, $300 million to increase the number of land claim settlements and $200 million for housing.

It does not call for the money to be funneled through the assembly, Fontaine said.

"This is an unfortunate misrepresentation of this pre-budget submission. What we are seeking is new money. New money that will be directed to tribal governments and First Nations governments so that they can administer these funds for housing, for education, for health, policing, languages," he said. "There's absolutely no plan or design to have AFN administer these funds. We've already said that we're not in the business of delivering programs and services. We're a political organization. It's unfortunate that people have this idea that what we're after is $1.7 billion that AFN will [get]."

Many veteran observers of First Nations politics jumped to that conclusion and, knowing the AFN takes a 15 per cent administration cut on all money it administers, saw Fontaine asking for almost $300 million for his organization, more than 10 times the amount of its highest budget ever. That was a crucial error, he said.

"There's no administrative cut in this case. In fact, we've made a point that the net effect, as far as AFN is concerned, is one per cent. We've made a separate submission to the government and we're still in the process of negotiating our budget. I'm hoping that we will be successful in securing additional revenue so that we can deliver on the instructions that we have received from the chiefs in assembly."

The Getting Results Agenda was presented to the media before it was formally presented to the chiefs in assembly for discussion and input, which caused some ill will at the meeting in Squamish. Fontaine was hoping that the agenda would receive the approval of the chiefs there, but instead the assembly passed a resolution to meet on the matter at another special assembly to be held sometime in December or January 2004. The chiefs said they needed time to discuss and digest the plan before they were asked to endorse it.