Organization looks for fresh blood

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The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples' (CAP) national chief visited Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in late October trying to strengthen his ties to provincial organizations that represent off-reserve Native people.

In Alberta, Dwight Dorey met with several people who might be willing to fill the void created recently when CAP severed ties with provincial affiliate, the Native Council of Canada-Alberta (NCCA).

NCCA is no longer recognized as a member of the congress and as a result loses connection to several funding sources, Dorey said, adding that most federal departments have a policy of only funding provincial organizations that are affiliated with national organizations.

Windspeaker received a tip that Dorey had removed NCCA.

"I prefer to describe it as more of a situation where they removed themselves," he said in an interview on Oct. 21. "They failed to comply with the constitution and bylaws of the national office and therefore put themselves in a position where they were no longer a member in good standing. Technically, I didn't remove them. I just informed them of that situation, gave them an opportunity to respond and to rectify the situation and they chose not to. There's a time lapse period in these kinds of issues and that just passed. So when the time passed, it wasn't a decision that I or the board of directors really had to make."

Doris Ronnenberg is NCCA's president, and Richard Long is the organization's executive director. Several phone numbers Windspeaker has for them are no longer in service or are not being answered. Neither could be reached for comment.

Dorey is now looking for a group, or individuals that could form a group, to take NCCA's place in the congress.

"Once they're no longer a member in good standing then they're no longer entitled to participate either on the board or in assembly. But it leaves the door open for any other group to make application to affiliate with us," Dorey said.

Asked what it was that put the Alberta chapter out of compliance with CAP's constitution, Dorey said, "it was a combination of reporting requirements, accountability."

He chose not to respond to questions aimed at exposing more details about the complaints against NCCA.

"On the face of it, they can say, 'we weren't evicted from CAP, we pulled out.' But the constitution of CAP requires that it be a resolution from an assembly for formal withdrawal as a member. It can't just come from the executive or the board of an organization. In other words, there has to be a clear indication that the people of the province in question want to disassociate from the national office. That never happened," he said.

The CAP national leader said he has work to do in the other two provinces as well.

"Each one is unique. Saskatchewan, at our AGA last year, we just brought in a new organization. The problem there is, for a number of reasons, there hasn't been the groundwork that needed to be done to have a strong, viable organization. That's being addressed now," he explained. "I have a situation that's somewhat similar in Manitoba."

The CAP president has been dealing with problems on the home front as well. Dorey was vague when commenting about questions regarding Frank Palmateer, the organization's national vice-president who was recently let go.

"... [T]here are some legal ramifications with respect to it, so I don't want to comment further," he said.