Mercredi calls for co-operation

Page 1

Self-government will have to be achieved by co-operation with the government and people of Canada rather than through declarations of sovereignty, Ovide Mercredi said.

"When I say I believe in Indian sovereignty...I don't say I believe in absolute sovereignty," the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations said.

"There is no nation state that is absolutely sovereign. We live in a time of inter-dependence. We have to lift ourselves up and reach out to other Canadians and their governments.

In a speech that stepped back from the post-referendum calls for a unilateral exercise of self-government rights, Mercredi said self-government will have to be achieved within Canada.

In the weeks following the defeat of the Charlottetown accord, Mercredi urged first nations governments to exercise a "defacto recognition of the inherent right" based on the failed constitutional agreement. He said the strategy enforcing Native laws over child welfare and economic development projects like gambling parlors would also test Ottawa's tolerance on sovereignty issues.

But in his speech last week to a group of economic development workers, Mercredi said political growth should be based on a "dual vision" shared by first nations and non-Natives.

"In order to reach that objective (self-government) we are going to need the co-operation of Canada," he told an audience of more than 300 at a fund-raising dinner for

a new organization for economic development workers.

"The people I represent want to be included in this country in a fundamental way."

Mercredi also appealed to Ottawa to look beyond its fixation on the multi-billion dollar federal debt and develop an economic policy that will guarantee a "standard of life" for all Canadians.

More than 450,000 young first nations citizens will be in the national work force by the year 2000 and they will need economic opportunities, he said. But he tempered his criticism by claiming that the Mulroney government had helped 5,000 Native businesses

and now hopes to double that number.