Chiefs reject executive-negotiated governance plan

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A special chiefs assembly is expected to be scheduled- probably in Winnipeg in February-to discuss what the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) will do now that the chiefs have rejected a plan that would allow the assembly to work with the government to change the Indian Act.

In a vote that was conducted behind closed doors at a Confederacy held in Ottawa in early December, the chiefs voted 126 to 49 against entering into a joint governance consultation process with Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault's department. Two other work plans that were part of a package negotiated jointly by the federal government and AFN executive were put on hold pending the special assembly.

The press was not allowed entrance to the meeting during any part of the governance discussions, which occupied most of the first day and about half of the second day (Dec. 4 and 5) of the three-day Confederacy. Sources who were allowed inside say the support for the work plan came mostly from British Columbia's First Nation Summit. Some Saskatchewan chiefs also voted in favor, those sources added.

National Chief Matthew Coon Come told reporters there was a spirited debate among the chiefs on the first day.

"We certainly are having a very good discussion," he told reporters in a scrum at the end of Day 1. "There certainly hasn't been one stone that's left unturned. We're looking at all our options and looking at the work plan to be able to assess where we want to go with the issues that we want to raise. Overall, I think it's a very good, healthy discussion."

The rejection of the work plan received a mixed reaction. Immediately after the vote, the national chief left the conference, brushing past reporters and declining to be interviewed. Before and during the Confederacy, Coon Come had refused to reveal whether he supported the work plan or not, saying only that the chiefs would decide the issue. Speaking notes prepared for AFN executive members make it appear the executive supported the work plan. Witnesses say British Columbia Vice-chief Herb George was visibly angered by the results of the vote. Other B.C. chiefs said the rejection would "close the door" to any future joint work with the minister.

Government reaction was mixed as well. A story by National Post Ottawa bureau chief Robert Fife, that appeared in the Dec. 18 edition, quotes one or more unnamed sources -identified as senior government sources-as saying the minister now sees the AFN as an "irrelevant" organization with "dysfunctional" leadership. Indian Affairs spokesman Allistair Mullin was quick to disavow the remarks and attitudes attributed to the minister, saying the source was not from his department.

A letter written just before the Confederacy to the national chief by the minister exerted strong pressure on the executive to finalize the agreement on the work plan and begin to implement it.

Nault appeared to be pressuring the national chief to schedule a joint announcement that the AFN and government would proceed together on governance.

Last month, the national chief told this publication that the executive had persuaded the minister to add two of the AFN's main areas of concern to the talks in exchange for the chiefs' consent to participate in Indian Act reform. In Ottawa, Coon Come said the work plans dealing with the AFN issues were not being challenged by the chiefs.

"We have commitments from the minister to deal with the social-economic conditions. We have a commitment from the minister to deal with the inherent right to self-government and treaties," he said. "We have a problem with the First Nations governance act because that's not our legislation, that's not our agenda."

AFN sources say the main concern inside the organization was that the minister would get what he wanted in the short-term while the chiefs would see their part of the bargain delivered over the long term. The worry was that there was no guarantee that the government would follow through once t got what it wanted.

Nault said he was disappointed that the executive members couldn't persuade the chiefs to accept the package his department had negotiated with them.

"I don't know how we're going to work with AFN if they pass resolutions in July saying they want to work with us, we put a work plan in and then somebody comes to a Confederacy and 100 chiefs or so decide they want to take the agenda over and then send us right back to square one," the minister told Windspeaker. "You'll have to answer those questions through conversation with the leadership because, quite frankly, I find it very frustrating to work in that environment when I have other partners who have mandates that allow them to work with the government of Canada."

The minister was encouraged that the AFN resolution allows First Nations that want to participate in governance to do so.

"I am a little bit surprised that the national chief and the executive would have this initiative, that they were supportive of, derailed at a Confederacy that did not represent the whole assembly, but that's something that they'll have to deal with on their own because their internal structures are obviously of their own making and their own affair. But I will continue to leave the door open, as I always have, to work with the AFN," he said. "But with the understanding now that the resolution that was passed at the Confederacy had a clause in it that said even the though the AFN was not giving the green light to work with the minister and the government on governance, that individual First Nations and regional organizations could. And I will work with those individual communities and their leadership who believe as I do that we can't continue working with an Indian Act that does not meet the modern needs and does not have the tools necessary to build a successful society. And that's what this debate is really about."

The minister's comments during media interviews while the chiefs were in Ottawa were a facto in the chiefs' decision to reject the work plan, witnesses to the debate said. Coon Come downplayed the importance of those comments at the end of the first day of debate.

"That's nothing new," he said "There's a lot of distrust, for sure, of what the minister's doing. People here don't trust him. He has cut funding, not only for AFN but for the other First Nations. There's one chief here and he had to collect funds so he can get here to this meeting. There's stories here where the funds have been cut where commitments have been made. There's one chief there that talked about if the government is sincere about governance-we had agreed to a First Nations governance Iinstitute and the minister cut that back. There's a lot of discontent."

Manitoba Vice-chief Ken Young said the minister's attempts to pressure the AFN were unfair and showed a lack of respect for the democratic process.

"We adopted that work plan as an executive subject to the approval of the chiefs," he said. "But the minister kept trying to end-run us by saying it was a work plan that was ready to be implemented. It wasn't ready to be implemented at that stage. There wasn't any deal; it was subject to chiefs' approval."

While the minister is taking shots at the AFN for not being able to get its members in line, Young pointed out that Nault isn't any more able to act on his own than the executive members are.

"He has a mandate with cabinet. He can't go beyond that. He has a mandate that he has to comply with and we had a resolution and we had to go back to the chiefs on something as fundamental as governance for their approval or rejection," he said. "He was in the same position as us. He would have had to go back to cabinet to get an expanded mandate on some aspects of that work plan. He couldn't say, 'Well let's do it.' The prime minister would have turfed him."

It was not up to the executive or the national chief to "sell" the work plans to the chiefs, the vice-chief added.

"That's not the ay to do work with your people. Sell? You explain and you try to give the idea that this work plan is do-able. You explain it and let them decide and that's what we tried to do," he said. "We explained it and the decision was taken otherwise. And you live with that. That's fine. I accept it."