Draft agreement on governance ready for chiefs to consider

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The Assembly of First Nations and the department of Indian Affairs have come to an agreement that could result in a truce on the governance issue.

A three-part workplan that has been developed jointly by the government and the AFN executive will be presented to the chiefs at the Confederacy meeting in Ottawa in early December.

The first phase of community consultation on changes to the Indian Act wrapped up on Oct. 30 without any input from the national chiefs' organization. Minister Robert Nault forged ahead with his plan to amend the Indian Act despite opposition from the chiefs. A 30-day break in consultations, granted by the minister so the chiefs could try to work out a deal that would allow them to participate in the consultation process, expired without an agreement, but National Chief Matthew Coon Come had his staff keep looking for a way to get in on the process under terms that would satisfy the members of his organization.

"The 30 days are up, but we have not stopped talking to the minister," Coon Come told Windspeaker on Nov. 19. "We now have a workplan which we are now circulating to all the vice chiefs and to our fellow chiefs, giving them a heads up, and this will be considered at our Confederacy Dec. 4, 5 and 6 in Ottawa. I can tell you that a majority of the chiefs will have received and will have had a chance to review it before the confederacy. I've already talked to the Alberta chiefs and given them an outline. I've talked with the Atlantic chiefs already and this week I'll be going to Whitehorse [Yukon] and next week I'll be at the Summit [British Columbia]. I'm going to be, probably, with the Quebec chiefs. So there's various meetings that will happen between now and December."

At the AFN's annual general meeting in Halifax last July, the chiefs agreed to consider participating in the consultations if certain conditions were met. The AFN executive has since been looking for a way to satisfy the conditions imposed by the chiefs that would also be acceptable to the minister.

"There was an opening there for us and that was to seek a process with the federal government in regards to our issues. The issues are: can we deal with the inherent right to self government? Are we ready to tackle the whole treaty issue? Can we also deal with the social issues of our people, which is the Throne Speech," Coon Come said. "At the same time, the minister's only preoccupied with three areas of the governance-accountability, elections and the legal status of the bands."

AFN funding levels dropped by almost half as the chiefs resisted the governance consultation process. Many chiefs believe the funding cut was meant to punish them. Coon Come said the push to get involved in the governance process was not motivated by money.

"We did not discuss this, but we do have a table with the minister to discuss our budget for next year. That was not the issue or the purpose of meeting with the minister," he said. "In the workplan there will be a budgetary items for all the work I'm talking about. So that would be new monies that we'd be able to get from the minister."

An earlier AFN workplan was rejected by the minister as too ambitious. Coon Come said the revised version made some concessions, but will still push the minister to go further than he originally planned.

"There have been various exchanges of drafts and the last one that you have is the one that we sat down with the minister to see if he is in agreement," he said. "Because we wanted to have an assurance that we were given a mandate as an executive to seek a process given the circumstances and the positions taken by the government. I felt we had pushed the minister and now we have something that we can give back to our members and let them decide."

But the national chief refused to personally endorse the workplan. He'll let the chiefs tell him what they think.

"Well, we felt that what we have there reflects what's in the Halifax resolution. We were askd to take a process and we feel as it is right now that we can present it to the chiefs. And we will take a position within the next two weeks following discussions whether to not just present it but also to argue for it or against it. At the moment, of course, the executive is in agreement in principle, subject to giving it to our regions and to present it to the assembly."

Nault has taken a tough approach with the chiefs, cutting funding in several areas and ignoring complaints that he is imposing his agenda despite objections from First Nations leaders. The news that a tentative deal has been worked out will surprise many people given the minister's confrontational approach. Observers in Ottawa say the AFN has used the Prime Minister's interest in Aboriginal issues to gain some leverage. Prime Minister Jean Chretien, in last January's Throne Speech, said he wants to address the social problems of First Nations people. Government officials say he sees it as his legacy issue.

"The minister has cut the funding for the First Nations Governance Institute and we objected to that, however, in the workplan itself we hope to be able to look at the treaty issues that are more important to us, look at the issues we want to deal with and hopefully deal with the bread and butter issues," Coon Come said. "One of the most important parts of the agreement for the workplan is setting up a process as to the parameters that we're going to work within so that we are involved in implementing the Throne Speech. That deals with economic development, it deals with education, with economic infrastructure. It deal with housing. It deals with reducing the digital divide, reducing the incarceration of our people, head start programs, all those issues. The fact that we had already met with the reference committee just last week gave an indication to me that we are going to go down a road where we are going to deal with issues that we want to tackle. The minister made an effort to try to wrk in isolation without us and that doesn't work and, certainly, if he will consider the First Nations' issues then I think we can work together and move forward."

Coon Come was asked if the AFN had done a little old fashioned horse-trading, giving a bit on its objections to the minister's Indian Act amendments in exchange for the promise of government attention to social issues.

"Exactly, and I think we've always stated that I believe in community driven initiatives. I think the poll the minister had done clearly indicated what the issues are. Seventy-one per cent of our people said deal with the children's issues; sixty-six per cent said deal with health care; sixty-five per cent said deal with education and then deal with treaties and this went down the line to housing and at the bottom of the scale was self government. Those are the issues that we want to tackle," he said.

But he emphatically denied the chiefs are backing away from the fight for self government.

"No. We know there are pre-conditions to implementing self government. Certainly, within the workplan there's inherent right to self government, at least to review and analyze as to how we can proceed with implementing the inherent right to self government. Everybody recognizes there are pre-conditions to self government. You have to have certain institutions in place, whether it be school boards, health boards or your own judicial system if that's what you want to do. Those are areas I think that each band would have to look at and how far they want to move down that line."

There hasn't yet been any visible sign that the government has changed its approach on basic areas of contention like sovereignty or improved access to lands and resources or significantly increased social budgets, but Coon Come said he believes some big changes are coming.

"Let's put it this way. We've met with the reference committee. We've identified our issues. We made a presentation to the parliamentary standing committee n our budget, identifying the areas. We've done our homework. We are certainly well aware of the circumstances that have changed since Sept. 11 and the government's agenda on security, on the anti-terrorism bill, etc. Given those circumstances, I still feel we have moved our agendas forward and if we can agree to a process...and we are ready, with the pre-budget submission we have identified the areas with costs and debated the costs of doing nothing, of putting capital towards economic infrastructure. We want to track investment. We've done a lot of work and now that's completed. And we've been going around the Hill making presentations and meeting with various ministers and causing quite a ruckus, because now they have a pre-budget submission. We've identified the issues and now we're telling them, 'Tell us what's wrong with this. Tell us if our figures are way out.'"

He said the atmosphere within the government bodes well for First Nation issues.

"Everybody is talking about looking outside of the box. When I looked at the Prime Minister last fall when he came out of the first sitting of the House, when he was asked for his fall agenda he said it was economic, environmental and Aboriginal strategy. When the minister of Finance was asked the question, he said, 'I will put my money towards innovative initiatives and Natives.' So, I believe we're still within the radar screen," he said. "I've been pushing in regards to implementation of the Throne Speech, how we can get involved in the beginning of a process of inclusion, in developing a master plan on how we can implement the Throne Speech."