Corbiere to run for chief

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John Corbiere isn't very happy with the way he sees First Nations chiefs and councils responding to the Supreme Court of Canada decision that bears his name.

The former chief of the Batchewana First Nation (near Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.) dropped in on Windspeaker for a two-hour meeting on Oct. 23. He feels the Assembly of First Nations has embarked on a plan to maintain the status quo, in defiance of what the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the case when it struck down a section of the Indian Act that prevented off reserve members from voting in band elections.

The court ruled the Indian Act section contravened Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The ruling was handed down in May 1999 but the court suspended the judgment for 18 months so the Department of Indian Affairs and the Assembly of First Nations could work out a way to accommodate off reserve members.

November 20 will mark the end of the 18-month period. Revised regulations were posted by Indian Affairs on Oct. 2 and went into effect on Oct. 20.

Corbiere said he's been left out of the process and claims it's been hijacked by the AFN.

"I've written three letters to Mr. Coon Come and he has not replied to any of them," Corbiere said. "He says he's going to stand with the people who've made a contribution to the benefit of a large number of Native people. Well, we've won an equality of rights issue which affects 200,000 people across Canada. So where the hell is he? Where is he standing? What tree is he standing behind?"

AFN staff say the implementation of the Corbiere decision will create an incredibly complex and unpredictable ripple effect that will cause trouble in all areas of band council administration. Basic issues in the delivery of services will be open to confusion as non-resident members are allowed to participate in programs that aren't adequately funded. The national chief, last month, urged First Nations to let Department of Indian Affairs staff run any elections conducted under the new regulations so the government, not First Nations, will be sued should things go wrong.

Okanagan Nation lawyer Carolanne Brewer is the executive co-ordinator of the AFN's Corbiere response unit. During an interview with Windspeaker affiliate radio station CFWE's Norman Quinney, Brewer dealt with several of the key problems her group sees with the implementation of Corbiere.

"The AFN has always taken the position that First Nations citizens don't leave their rights when they leave the reserve and that First Nation governments should be representative of all their citizens, irrespective of where they live," she said. "But how to arrive at the meaning that gives substance to this requires that First Nations have the resources to be able to conduct internal processes, so that members can address the issues that are going to arise. Those resources have not been provided. In addition to that, the regulations have been brought into place without adequate consultation and without a good number of communities even realizing they were going to be impacted."

She said the government spent six times more for a couple of days of ads than the amount of money that was given at a national level to the AFN. That she said is just the latest example of a government imposing changes to correct its mistakes that end up costing First Nations money and making things more difficult for First Nation people.

"The Indian Act has had a lot of impact on First Nation communities and it's been in place for more than 100 years, now. The impacts that it's had have been to separate the off reserve, although there had been some attempts in 1985 to address some of the historical impacts that had not actually worked in the best way because it had not been sufficiently resourced," she said. "For many communities, again, it ended up being another dividing factor."

Corbiere believes the real reason the organization that represents the First Nations chiefs is throwing up these objctions to the implementation of the court decision is that the chiefs see the participation of off reserve members as a threat to their power base.

"On Dec. 9, 1999, Minister [Robert] Nault made a statement. He said the changes would come in two stages, one, you vote but the consultations continue on and on and on. But these guys want to stop the vote for 18 more months so they can disregard the off reserve members rights a hell of a lot more than they've already done," he said. "Nault himself has said the Corbiere decision is one of the main decisions that will dismantle the Indian Act. So now they're making more excuses, saying 'Let somebody else do this, that or something else.' Where's this self government they're fighting for? If you're self governing and you can't even run an election, what's going on here?"

The AFN was hoping to persuade the court to allow another 18 months before the decision was implemented but that request was not granted. Corbiere thinks that was the right move.

"The first court trial in which (Judge) Strayer presided gave then 10 months to re-arrange the election regulations. That's 10 months and that was in 1993. Here in 1999 they get 18 more months - that's 28 months. And they want another 18 months," he said. "The minute we won, the DIA gave the losers (the Batchewana band council) $100,000 to prepare a data base. The losers wasted no time in jumping from one side of the fence to the other to gain control of the implementation process so they could put in more rules to control their off reserve people. It's not too often you see a losing faction implementing the decision."

Corbiere alleged his home territory is governed by a "cabal." He defines cabal as "a number of persons secretly united for self serving purposes in public affairs."

"A faction of Batchewana band council, by following their lawyer's general advice, with the band members funds, were able to enforce their will upon others in the band all the way to the Supreme Curt of Canada," he said. "They have a captive voting clientele. See, that's that circle that's within the reserve boundaries. Now, with this Supreme Court decision, that's broken."

He said band councils have never had the right to ignore a large segment of their membership and it took him many years and a lot of money to show them the error of their ways. But instead of embracing the spirit of the high court decision, he said, they're looking for a way out. He said that shows that the councils are less interested in serving the membership than they are in conserving their hold on power.

"The councils do not own the band. The Supreme Court judgment confirms the members own the band. Page 8, paragraph 17 of the judgment clearly states they are co-owners of the band's assets. The reserve, whether they live on it or off it, is theirs and their children's. The band membership have an equal per capita share of all band assets as indicated in pages seven, eight, 13 and 34 of the judgment," he said. "Membership in a band is ascribed at birth and that membership is secure whether or not the Indian was born on the reserve or ever set foot on the reserve land. If anybody can prove that wrong, I'd like to see it. A band cannot exist if there are no members. Therefore, the band is its members. This is not a municipal election, this is a unique communal elective system."

Now that the council can't legally prevent him from running in an election, Corbiere said, he plans on running for chief. The next Batchewana election is scheduled for Dec. 11.

The band has a membership of between 1,800 and 2,000. Corbiere said 600 live on reserve.

Corbiere's remarks show that there is a deep rift between on and off reserve residents. He said the stereotypical view of councils - that nepotism, corruption, intimidation and rule mandated and dominated by family connections are the main features of on-reserve politics - is true and the band councils are fighting desperately to keep control.

"Eactly. Now if you get the off reserves, you're going to get people who have lived in the mainstream of life and they're going to want more, better accountability. A lot of these people who are living on the reserve, who I refer to as a captive voting clientele, a lot of them have never left the reserve. They haven't been anywhere. They don't know. They've got no experience," he said.

He believes his community's government will be improved by the participation of off reserve members. He hopes to rally them all behind his candidacy for chief.

"It's up to the people," he said. "They know I'm acceptable to the fact of a nomination. I'm saying that I'm telling the story the way it happened. You had nothing before. You were discouraged from even coming into the band office. You were ridiculed. You were put down. Now you have the right and it's up to you to use it. If they want to use it for the people who've been kicking them around for the last 20 years, that's their right. Maybe they're masochists."