Native groups get support for land claims actions

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The Native groups working for land claims settlements got some support from a federal task force charged with looking into the land claims issues, when the task force released its report on March 19.

The report recommends that Natives signing land settlement be given much broader powers to govern themselves, not just money - something Native leaders have wanted for years it states.

The report goes on to say that not only are land claim settlements a legal obligation of the federal government, but they are the way out of a massive economic depression that has left Native communities the poorest of all Canadians, with the highest rates of crime, alcoholism, family breakdown, infant mortality and suicide.

The report urges the federal government to take a new approach in settling Native land claims, stating that Native people need political autonomy, not cash handouts. Land claims should be an opportunity for Native people to break their reliance on federal handouts, the report says, and the new approach to land claims is long overdue.

"If twelve years ago the federal government had had a policy along the lines suggested by the task force, there would have been many comprehensive claims settled by now," said George Erasmus, national chief for the Assembly of First Nations, in commenting on the report.

Erasmus calls the report an excellent report because these are issues Native people have been trying to get across for more than a dozen years in their land claim and constitutional negotiations.