New gender initiative seeks to rectify past harm

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With the acknowledgment that more than 50 per cent of the Aboriginal population are women, the Assembly of First Nations wants to ensure that their unique interests are being served.

That is a statement from AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine, released in a bulletin on May 5. Fontaine refers to the difficulties the AFN struggled with in the past to address women's issues in a constructive way. The establishment of a gender secretariat will change the way policies and programs are developed, states Fontaine.

According to the press release, the gender secretariat is being established at the AFN after Fontaine received direction from the Confederacy of Nations to include a gender equality initiative.

Windspeaker attempted on numerous occasions to get further comment from the AFN on the government-funded secretariat, but the media contact listed on the press release could not speak to the issue and no other knowledgeable representative could be reached.

The goal of achieving equality for Native women is the main thrust of the Native Women's Association of Canada's work, however, and has been for the last 25 years, said Marilyn Buffalo, NWAC president. A national conference on the effects Bill-C31 legislation had on that equality was held in Edmonton on May 14 to 16. Fontaine was invited to the conference, but did not attend. Neither did Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart, though she was scheduled to give an address to the group.

"The gender equality secretariat is a way of ghettoizing Aboriginal women's issues, because it would be a token voice, Buffalo said of the AFN initiative. "It would not reflect an independent voice."

The women that the AFN consults on gender equality will be chosen, hand selected, and that is an insult to Native women in Canada, said Buffalo.

Buffalo doesn't wonder what happened to the four proposals NWAC submitted to the Ministry of Indian and Northern Affairs that outlined the very same initiatives the AFN is now working on. The minister stamped AFN on them and then funded the AFN initiative, she said.

The initiative launched by the AFN is an attempt to nullify the voice of NWAC, because it did not accept the Gathering Strength document and what Buffalo calls the non-apology from the federal government last February, she said. The Gathering Strength document is Canada's response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

"The AFN gender equality initiative is just smoke and mirrors because there is no way that Aboriginal people have accepted Gathering Strength. The AFN and the government of Canada are in partnership to try and take away the voice of Native women," said Buffalo.

Buffalo points to the AFN conference in Ontario last year where discussion revolved around gender equality. The Native women in Ontario rejected what the AFN had to offer because NWAC had not been invited to discuss these issues, said Buffalo.

At the 'Equality for All in the 21st Century' in Edmonton, several workshops focused on the principles of equality in self-government and gender equality in the next decade. Many participants pointed to the Indian Act and Bill C-31 as creating an unfair and unequal situation in Canada for Aboriginal women.

Many participants agreed that the act needed to be changed through consultation at the grassroots level on how government legislation effects them. There was also the acknowledgment of how the task force reports on Aboriginal issues are not given serious attention by the government. These are some of the contributing factors that block progress towards equality, said participants.

Buffalo believes the AFN has a responsibility to strongly advocate for Aboriginal women, but that was not proven on the issue of Bill C-49, the First Nations Land Management Act, she said.

The act will give First Nation people the means to undertake land projects without prior approval of Indian Affairs. NWAC wanted matrimonial property laws built into the act, but that was not to e.

Buffalo pointed to the amendments NWAC put forward to an independent fact finder set up to examine the property issue and opposed by the AFN and Indian Affairs. NWAC was the first to raise the issue of discrimination against women in the Indian Act on the division of matrimonial property.

For Buffalo, her work at NWAC is about full equality for Aboriginal people everywhere, especially the advancement of women to full equality by the middle of the 21st century.

"We are a group of grandmothers who want to teach our young women to be strong," she said.