Harper tough to pin down on Native issues

Page 10

With the Liberals in opposition and Prime Minister Paul Martin about to hand over power and then step aside as party leader, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) faces the prospect of having to construct a new relationship with the Prime Minister's Office and the federal government.

So far, AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine, whose greatest political advantage has been his access to-and influence on-federal Liberal ministers and the prime minister, has only been communicating with Prime Minister-elect Stephen Harper through open letters and meetings with Conservative party officials.

To be fair to Fontaine, he was not the only person having trouble getting a face-to-face meeting with Harper. He scheduled his first press conference after being elected for Jan. 26 (after Windspeaker's publication deadline). For three days after the polls closed, Harper refused to speak to reporters. He huddled with his advisors, selecting his cabinet and preparing for the transition to power.

And the Conservative Party of Canada was very disciplined during the campaign, making sure that no candidate would say anything that might eat into their slim lead in the polls. There were several media reports of candidates with right-wing views on issues such as gay rights, abortion and other hot button issues being kept away from reporters. In one case it was reported that a journalist was physically restrained from approaching a Conservative candidate who had expressed hard line views in the past.

In the latter days of the federal election campaign and in the days right after the Conservatives were handed a mandate to form a minority government by the Canadian electorate, Phil Fontaine sought to get Stephen Harper to clarify his position on a couple of hugely important issues. Those issues-most notably the first ministers meeting agreement and the residential school compensation agreement-are as important to Fontaine politically as they might be for Aboriginal people across the country.

The national chief found himself following up on a letter penned by Harper to Dwight Dorey, a man who calls himself the national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP), much to the consternation of AFN insiders, for information about the Conservative's plans.

Fontaine saw within Harper's answers in that letter the possibility that the leader might back away or modify both agreements. Harper also hinted, in his letter to CAP, that the Conservatives might bring forward its own version of the First Nations Governance act, Chretien-era legislation that was shelved by outgoing Prime Minister Paul Martin shortly after he was sworn in.

Fontaine, regional vice-chiefs Rick Simon and Angus Toulouse and AFN Chief of Staff Bob Watts sat down with Conservative Indian Affairs critic Jim Prentice and Conservative party officials just before the election.

Prentice told them the governance act was not being contemplated.

Given the confusion, Fontaine sent a letter to Harper asking for clarification. The letter was dated Jan. 19.

The AFN executive met in Vancouver to discuss these latest developments and other matters. Since the national chief is the chair of the executive board and was not available, regional Chief Simon spoke to Windspeaker on Jan. 25.

The AFN had still not received a response to the national chief's letter, Simon said, but the meeting with Prentice and party officials at the Ottawa airport was "pretty frank."

"We haven't seen anything in writing yet as far as an official response. I didn't really expect it. You have to take into consideration that they're in 'over-joy' from getting elected. They're trying to get themselves organized," said Simon. "We did have a commitment from Jim Prentice that they would have somebody at our executive meeting here in Vancouver this week, either today or tomorrow, but we haven' got any firm commitment on that unless somebody's going to show up and we're not aware of it."

The regonal chief for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland said AFN officials watched the election campaign closely and noted that some of the more extreme candidates were strangely silent.

"But our biggest concern was mixed messages," he said.

The AFN leadership was very concerned about the apparent split between the former Reform and Progressive Conservative wings of the Conservative party. The subject came up during the airport meeting.

"We had discussions on whether Prentice had any clout or not. He gave us the impression he did, that he was the spokesperson on the file on Aboriginal issues and he was the one that we should be speaking to," he said.

But they didn't really pin Prentice down on whether Harper would be most influenced by Reform-minded advisors or those with a more moderate viewpoint.

"Not really. Our focus was more on trying to educate them," he said.

Since Fontaine has been personally involved in the very complex residential school compensation agreement, Simon said the national chief was able to score points with Prentice by making the argument that the Conservatives should learn more about the agreement before they say they plan to make slight changes to it. Fontaine has maintained from the start that the agreement is such a delicate arrangement of competing and diverse interests that any "tinkering" might bring it all down.

"Prentice started to see more clearly the dangers of doing that," the regional chief said. "We made the point that, if anything, that would be playing into the lawyers' hands."

Simon said lawyers are already trying to convince their clients to take the costly litigation route rather than buy into the compensation deal.

"We know a number of the firms are actively trying to engage the survivors to reject it," he said. "In my view, that's in the lawyers' best interest because there's more money in it for them."

As for the mixed messages from Prentice and MP Monte Solberg (see story page 9), the AFN delegation tred very hard to get crystal clear commitments from Prentice that he was the party spokesman and they could expect the party to honor his word.

"I guess the way we left the conversation with Prentice, basically we asked each other two or three times, 'Are we clear in what our understanding is here?' And the first priority was the residential school agreement and they had no intention of tinkering with it if they thought it was going to unravel," he said.

The AFN leadership has enjoyed a very good relationship with the Paul Martin Liberals. Windspeaker asked Simon if the AFN executive's and the national chief's effectiveness have been limited or reduced by the change in government.

"On the surface, that would be the first thing that people would like to think. But if you scratch a little bit deeper, you've got to take into consideration that the reality of the situation is that the shelf-life of this new government is maximum two years," he replied. "That being said, whether they like us or not, the way we left the conversation with Prentice was this: we said, 'What kind of relationship do you want?' Do you want a Robert Nault-Matthew Coon Come kind of relationship? If that's the type of relationship you choose to engage us in, come 18 months or two years down the road, if you think First Nations people are actively engaged politically now, how do you think they're going to be then?"