Liberal frontrunners court Native delegates Edmonton

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When the Liberal Party's leadership convention finally kicks off in Montreal on Dec. 2, at least 245 Aboriginal delegates will be there among the potential 6,000 voting delegates.

The race seems to be down to four serious candidates. Former Harvard professor Michael Ignatieff leads in the preliminary delegate count going into Montreal with 29.8 per cent. Former Ontario premier Bob Rae has 19.8 per cent. Former Ontario cabinet minister Gerard Kennedy has 16.8 and former federal cabinet minister Stephane Dion has 16.6.

All the other candidates still in the race combined don't quite match Dion's total.

For the first time ever a couple of the candidates reached out to Windspeaker as they campaigned. Rae even visited our Edmonton offices on Aug. 15. Dion participated in a telephone interview on Oct. 24. Kennedy is said by insiders to still be working on his Aboriginal policy. Ignatieff attended a meeting of the Prince Albert Grand Council on Oct. 23 to roll out his Aboriginal platform.

The candidates clearly see the environment, Aboriginal issues, women's issues and other social justice issues as the Conservative Party of Canada's major weak spot.

And with polling numbers in late October suggesting the Liberals are ahead of the governing Conservatives, the urgency of the Liberal leadership has been turned up a notch.

"Yes, I think it gives our members an additional reason to be very careful in the choice of our leader," Dion said. "We may choose, and it's more likely now, the next prime minister for the years to come."

Dion and Rae issued detailed Aboriginal platforms that promise dramatic change. Both promise universal access to post-secondary education for qualified Aboriginal students, although neither took the bait when asked if the government had an obligation to fund post-secondary.

"I think the fundamental position of every Canadian government has to be that no one will be denied access to post-secondary education because of a lack of resources. I really think that when we look at what's happening to Aboriginal kids we find that kids who are living on reserve, or off reserve, but if they're members of a band, have to be on the band list and that funding has been frozen for many years, so we're simply not seeing the attendance that we need," said Rae.

"The thing I want to do as a teacher myself," Dion said, "is to be sure that each Aboriginal individual, when they are at the end of secondary school, have the capacity to go to post-secondary education and to be backed by the government of Canada. We'll give them an academic passport to study where they want. I think this is the key to success. To have strong communities and to have the capacity to succeed in life, more and more you need access to post-secondary education."

Portability of rights is an issue that's being discussed in Ottawa. The concept that the federal obligation to First Nations people ends at the edge of the reserve is seen in many quarters as unconstitutional. Dion acknowledged he was still wrestling with the subject.

"I'm open to the idea. I'm ready to look at it. I don't feel I have enough expertise now to make up my mind," he said. "I need to study that much more because it's awfully complex. If wherever you go you have the same rights there are advantages because you don't have an obligation to live on the reserve but it may create also huge costs for the government. I need to study that much more."

Rae, as a former premier, has fewer doubts. He's seen the federal government off-loading to the provinces and he doesn't believe it's a sound approach.

"We've had this notion that as soon as an individual leaves the reserve the responsibility of the federal government ends. I don't think we can say that anymore," he said. "We're in the middle of a demographic revolution with a young Aboriginal population. I think if we don't resolve this, and we're losing time, we're going to lose our way as a country. That's why the federal governmet can't just walk away and see this as a watertight compartment."

Both Dion and Rae said the land claims settlement process must be speeded up dramatically. Rae said the current approach was wrong on many levels.

"People use delay as a deliberate instrument of policy. Delay being a deliberate instrument to save money and kick the problem into the never-never. It's a deeply cynical process that has to be challenged because it does mean that there's a lot of issues that never get resolved one way or another," he said.

Dion favors an independent claims body, starting with specific claims and perhaps expanding to comprehensive claims.

Ignatieff seems to favor an approach that involves "going beyond Kelowna," something Dion advocates as well.

"A future Liberal government must meet our commitments to the Kelowna Accord in full," Ignatieff said. "But we must go beyond Kelowna by addressing the gaps in housing and employment facing urban Aboriginals and by supporting Aboriginal entrepreneurs who have brought jobs and self-reliance to remote communities."

Dion, Rae and Ignatieff favor pushing towards capacity building that will lead to self-government sooner rather than later.

"Liberals know that the right destination for Aboriginal Canadians is clear: self-governing communities who are able to use their traditional knowledge and resources to sustain and enhance their distinct existence and culture," Ignatieff said.

"The thing I want to do is to offer to Aboriginal communities the opportunity to get out of the Indian Act when they have the governance capacity," said Dion who said he saw the Westbank self-government agreement as one possible option.