Fontaine uses bank time to demand apology

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Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Phil Fontaine travelled to the steel and concrete heart of corporate Canada recently, but the message he delivered was aimed squarely back at Ottawa.

During an address at a Royal Bank symposium on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Fontaine demanded an apology from the federal government for the widespread abuse inflicted on Native people in the residential school system.

"I think it's time for this government to apologize to First Nations people," he said. "If we don't do it now, the cost will become prohibitive."

Native people are not out to sue government for past wrongs, Fontaine said, but they require an acknowledgment of the abuse that took place in joint church- and government-run schools over a period ending in the 1970s and 1980s.

"We're not after money. We're after a commitment so we can put this experience aside. It's cost too much and it's hurt too many people," he said.

Fontaine delivered the remarks at Toronto's Royal York Hotel to an audience which included Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart and about 100 delegates from corporate Canada and Aboriginal communities, businesses and organizations.

In a press conference, Stewart did not say whether the apology would be issued, saying only that government was considering different forms of redress, including a public inquiry, healing strategies, and pursuit through the courts.

"We are not interested in re-writing history, but we are very interested in recognizing the impact," she said. "It's a priority to find the right way for government to play a role in this healing."

Fontaine's request formed a stark departure from the meeting's agenda, which the Royal Bank had titled, "The cost of doing nothing: a call to action." The event was billed as a "wake-up call" to corporate Canada to help further the recommendations put forward by the commission in its report last November. Those recommendations include helping Aboriginal businesses gain access to capital, an expansion of the land and resource base through existing treaties and treaty negotiation, employment equity, and pooling individual welfare support for use on community-based projects.

Failing to contribute to Aboriginal development now will cost the country billions of dollars in the coming decades, Royal Bank executive vice-president Charles Coffey told delegates.

"I would challenge every business in Canada to look at itself and ask, are we removing the barriers, solving the problems, and providing the opportunities that will enable Aboriginal people to become full participants in our society and in our economy?"

By the year 2016, the commission report predicts an additional $11 billion in lost revenues and federal expenditures if action is not taken now to improve the economic conditions of Native communities. That requires an effort by both government and the private sector, the report states.

But the first public appearance by Fontaine and Stewart to discuss the report was marked by Fontaine's address to government, rather than to corporations.

"We insist on some level of accountability in political culture, that diversity be respected," he said. He added the AFN's new approach was conciliatory. "We are no longer interested in being adversaries, or obstructionist," he said.

However, Stewart made little reference to government plans to implement the report's recommendations. Instead she addressed the corporations, urging them to deal directly with First Nations to form new business partnerships.

"In the past, as soon as we say 'Native person,' people say, 'oh, that's the federal government,'" she said. "We have to blow this up. We in corporate Canada have to talk to First Nations - that is the right connection."

During the press conference, Fontaine said Native communities now want to cultivate a new relationship with corporations. When asked about a lack of corporate accountability towards Native communities in the past, Fontaine said ties have changed.

"One can't discount important factors such as racism and discrimination. Now there is an expressed willingness on the part of corporate Canada to do things differently," he said. He added big business did not understand Native culture because Aboriginal communities have kept a low profile.

"One thing we haven't been doing effectively enough as a community is marketing ourselves," he said.