Awareness slowly moving MPs to want to work with First Nations

First Nations leaders could be meeting with federal ministers this winter.

“The meeting that we have been pursuing is a First Nations-Crown gathering whereby the First Nations, and particularly Cabinet, would sit and have a meeting with First Nations leaders from across the country,” said Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo. “(The Prime Minister) has by letter expressed an openness to that and we’ve had further developments.” The meeting has been talked about for almost a year.

“What we’re looking to do is to see the First Nations-Crown gathering as an opportunity to reset that relationship so that we jointly design a way forward,” said Atleo.

He anticipates a heavy agenda that would challenge the federal government and First Nations to work together, which Atleo said has “always been the objective of the treaties.” As well, the agenda would include implementing First Nations governments and finding the support necessary to reach that goal, and the creation of new fiscal relationships.

“We will be unrelenting in our pursuit for this,” he said.
Atleo said he doesn’t accept the Canadian government’s plea that a strained economy means no additional money for First Nations concerns. When the economy was strong, he said, the government still didn’t have money for First Nations. He noted that the federal government has stuck stubbornly to the two per cent cap when it comes to First Nations support, while providing funding at more than six per cent to the provinces in such areas as education and health.

Atleo also said that First Nations have propriety rights to all that lies below the surface.

“We’ve got to communicate that First Nations poverty is expensive to this country,” he said. “Resource revenue sharing …should be seen as a way not only to give effective treaty rights, but to support First Nations governments to be self-determining and to be autonomous and to be sovereign.”

Economists say that First Nations have the potential to contribute $400 billion to the economy if education and labour market gaps were closed. They say the federal government could save $150 billion in expenditures.
Atleo said he would push for the First Nation right to be consulted in resource development, with the principle of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as a guiding document.

There are so many issues to discuss, he said, that it could “feel numbing.” His list includes the issues of clean drinking water, the retention of culture and language, lack of housing, developing an education system that battles the damages caused by residential schools, standing vigil for murdered and missing women, and the high number of young people incarcerated.

Structural changes are needed, Atleo said, and that should include the formation of an independent tribunal to address treaty matters, such as outstanding land negotiations.

“Other elements of potential structural change (are) to move toward a treaty-based and rights-based relationship as opposed to one that is only defined as the way the Indian Act currently defines our relationship,” he said.

However, Atleo stressed that he has not said the Indian Act has to go but that the government has to reassess its approach to treaties.

In a recent meeting with Members of Parliament, Atleo said there were “expressions of will (from MPs) to address these long outstanding relationship problems we’ve got between First Nations and the rest of Canada.”

He also said that there is a “growing awareness” from elected officials but that didn’t mean that all MPs understood the issues facing First Nations or how dire the situation was on many reserves. Atleo said that work with premiers and territorial leaders also had to continue.
“The time (for change) is not five or 10 years from now. We would encourage the federal government to walk with us to set an agenda for change. We could start putting deposits in a mutual trust account and I mean working to overcome the mistrust by starting to see action that could actually be tasted by our people and felt by our people,” said Atleo.
“There’s no reason why the government can’t make commitments in budget year 2012.”