Legendary organization re-visited

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Chief Sandford Big Plume and his Tsuu T'ina council have committed $10,000 to re-energize the Native political organization that is widely credited with stopping the 1969 White Paper.

The Indian Association of Alberta (IAA), led by Harold Cardinal, was a central force in the fight against then-Indian Affairs Minister Jean Chretien's attempt to end the reserve system and terminate Aboriginal rights, as put forth in the federal government White Paper in the late 1960s. As a result of First Nations political efforts, the Prime Minister of the day, the late Pierre Trudeau, was persuaded to withdraw the plan.

Tsuu T'ina councillor Bruce Starlight and Percy Potts, a former vice-president of the Treaty 6 tribal council who now works for the band, have been given the task of approaching the leaders in the province to attempt to get their assistance to re-vitalize the IAA.

Starlight and Potts invited Windspeaker to a Jan. 20 meeting at the Tsuu T'ina band office, located on the southwest boundary of Calgary. Jim Big Plume, the band's land claim research director, attended with Potts. Starlight and Mel Buffalo, the current president of the IAA, participated via conference call.

The IAA was stripped of all funding in 1996, but Buffalo has kept it alive with some assistance from the Samson Cree Nation in central Alberta. Starlight told Buffalo Tsuu T'ina's plan was to help him expand the scope of the IAA's operations.

"We want to try and get the association going again. There's a lot of problems right now with Bills C-6, 7 and 19, which are going to be read before March 31. We're in a lot of danger," Starlight said. "The present Prime Minister is the same guy who introduced the White Paper agenda in 1969. The government's agenda is alive and well and, really, we don't have any strong voice in Indian Country to stand up to these pieces of legislation that are going to affect our lives drastically everywhere in Canada. I guess the AFN (Assembly of First Nations) is very weak. I don't know if they have a strategy, but I thought the AFN was supposed to protect treaty rights."

"We really need to organize," he added. "Mel, we're not trying to step on your toes, but we'd really appreciate it if you could help us."

The unelected IAA president welcomed the idea.

"I think it's great," Buffalo told Windspeaker.

"We need to get the organization back on track with support from the community, from the individuals within the communities. This is a treaty-based organization that believes in the protection of treaty rights and that's our mandate to protect and secure treaty rights for our people," said Mel Buffalo.

Alberta mainstream newspapers have regularly quoted Buffalo on controversial subjects, calling him to get the Native point of view. Buffalo's critics have called him a self-appointed leader of a non-existent organization. He explained that the organization, while a shadow of its former self, still has a board of directors and files annual reports. His role has been as caretaker while the IAA went through some hard financial times.

Buffalo said the IAA is unique because it's the last political organization in the country with treaty-based membership, where all 126, 000 First Nation people are considered members. He said recent attempts to re-organize the IAA failed because government funding was not available. One meeting was cancelled when it became clear the government would not provide funding. He said it was his opinion at the time that the meeting should have been held anyway.

"I think if people are really interested they'll show up," he said. "They'll come at their own expense as they did in the past."

Buffalo said the fact that the IAA gets no federal or provincial funding may actually make it stronger because the government can't influence or control its activities.

Buffalo thought some drastic action is required if the government's agenda is to be slowed down or stopped. Existing political organizations havebeen ineffective so far, he said.

"I think they're shell-shocked. The national and provincial organizations are shell-shocked and they don't know what to do," Buffalo said. |

Starlight agreed.

"You've got it," he told Buffalo. "They've been so long under the government's thumb and they can't move without the funding. They're caught because they won't bite the hand that feeds them. It's so clear what's happening now in Indian Country."

Percy Potts said he has faxed every First Nation and tribal council in the province and spoken to many leaders about the plan. He met with Chief Rod Alexis of the Alexis First Nation on Jan. 17.

"He suggested that some task force be put together to revisit the mandate and the vision of the association. The terms of reference have been amended over time," he said. "The chief's concern was that in the last organizational structure as it existed the chiefs were not highlighted enough to the point where their authority could be recognized by Canada. I asked him to clarify and he said from the treaty perspective, we don't have that authority given to the chiefs. Rather it comes strictly from the Indian Act. We have to bring that to there somehow so the chiefs can stand on treaty and Aboriginal rights and not only the Indian Act of Canada."

He said the IAA could be the vehicle to allow the chiefs to exercise real non-delegated political authority that breaks the limitations the federal government has sought to impose.

"The chiefs have to be empowered again from that perspective," Potts said. "When the association was there, the chiefs spoke along with the president who was speaking for the people based on treaty and Aboriginal rights. Now, there's no association. Who do they speak through? They speak through their bands, through their tribal councils, things the government blessed and breathed life in to, gave money to. So now their 'children' are speaking to them."

Potts hopes the new IAA will be an expression of the collective wil of treaty First Nations people in Alberta.

"I have complete faith the people within the First Nations of Alberta will respond to this. They have been, kind of, out of the picture for the last seven years. They will come together and they will not object to the process as long as it encompasses everyone and the best interest of those people is sought and identified. They will support that," he said. "But if it's something here, something there, all over the place, that's where they're having the problem. They're still not, to a large extent, able to break through and understand the government's agenda of terminating all rights from a collective point of view, from a treaty point of view, from an Aboriginal point of view."

Both sides benefited from the treaties, Potts said, but that fact is ignored by non-Native people. That allows the government to refuse to consider a true nation-to-nation relationship.

"The treaty benefits both sides. It benefits us but it also benefits the Crown and every subject of that Crown. They have treaty rights. They receive benefits of the treaty every day, much more than we do. That's an understanding that's not broadcast," he explained. "They want to make it seem like they're supporting us. How can we have a treaty by ourselves?"

Potts said he has also had discussions with the man most people remember as the key figure in the IAA's heyday.

"I think Harold Cardinal carries a lot of weight. I don't think he wants to be involved in this process until the government of Canada comes to the point of recognizing the existence of treaty rights," he said.

A letter from the Tsuu T'ina chief shows how important this latest fight is seen to be by treaty nation leaders.

"We feel that this is our last hope in the stand against the government. As you know, the government is forging ahead with a pseudo-consultation process. The government intends to do away with all treaty and Aboriginal rights and replace them with individual rights under Setion 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We cannot over-emphasize the urgency of the task we are undertaking at this time," Chief Big Plume wrote.