Native leaders blast McKnight

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National Aboriginal leaders are slamming the recent Western Diversification fund and have attacked Indian Affairs Minister Bill McKnight, after a government document indicating that no new monies will be allocated to Native economic development was leaked this week.

"Western Canadians should examine closely whether (Prime Minister) Mulroney's new fund is actually a new injection of capital, or whether it is just smoke and mirrors," said Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations.

The leaked briefing note on the western aid package, prepared for DIA Minister Bill McKnight (who is also responsible for the aid fund) "indicates that Native economic programs will not get new monies," said Fontaine, Manitoba vice-chief of the assembly.

"Either the government has a double standard when dealing with Aboriginal people, or more likely, the Western Diversification Fund as a new initiative is a sham."

The McKnight document also indicates that six months of promised consultation with Aboriginal people on economic development programs would only start after cabinet had made its decision on the program's future.

"We have witnessed Mr. McKnight's conscious lack of commitment to those who have been reinstated to their communities under the provision of Bill C-31," said Dorothy Wabisca, western vice-president of the Native Council of Canada. "If he is two faced with us on our economic development needs, how will he treat western Canadians with their economic development fund?"

There is also "an alarming potential for conflict of interest," on McKnight's part, said AFN's Fontaine.

"If, as minister responsible for Western Diversification, Mr. McKnight is overseeing new exploration and development of oil and gas resources on First Nations lands, which the diversification clearly calls for; what happens to his trust responsibility under the Indian Act?" asked Fontaine. "How can he support private resource exploitation and at the same time fulfill his legal responsibility to protect First Nations' interests?"

With the revelations of the leaked document, the assembly and the council have declared they will halt their consultation on economic programs, rather than see them used as a rubber-stamp to existing cabinet decisions.

The leaked note indicates the proposed consultations are to be used merely to "ensure Native commitment" to new programs already decided upon by the government.

"This has been the government's form of consultation," said Fontaine, "It is certainly not ours.

To clear up this and other matters, the AFN and NCC are calling on Prime Minister Mulroney to meet with them in September.

"We are going to ask him to account for his broken promise to us of April 18, 1985, when he said ' . . . policies regarding Aboriginal people will be made after open public consultation, especially at the grassroots level,'" stated Fontaine.

"Mulroney's government has been making unilateral policy decisions, one after another, for at least two years . . . to the detriment of First Nations," he said, "We are coming to the conclusion that Mulroney is fully aware of and supports the actions of his ministers in this regard."