Senate Committee hears from Native leaders

There's an increasing burden of poverty that First Nations people struggle with every day because of the two per cent cap on growth the department of Indian Affairs has imposed on expenditures for education, housing and infrastructure, social and economic development, National Chief Phil Fontaine told a parliamentary committee last month.
"Services for other Canadians, true health and social transfers, run at three times that rate," he said, speaking in favour of a private member's bill that mandates implementation of the Kelowna Accord. "This is not a theoretical math problem. It means that while inflation matches that two per cent cap, and our population grows at the fastest rate in the country, 3.5 times the national average, our communities fall further and further behind."
The cap means that 27,000 Aboriginal children end up in state care, stripped of their families and the love that every child has a right to expect, Fontaine added."This is three times the number of children that were in residential schools during the height of the residential school experience. It means that development is stymied and despair continues while people struggle to lift themselves from the grinding poverty that robs them of hope."
In the 12 years since the two per cent cap was introduced, First Nation governments have lost over 25 per cent in real purchasing power, he said, adding that it also means that in 39 communities across this country, children have no school to go to, and in the rest there are insufficient tools for modern education and insufficient funds to pay teachers.
"At a time when everyone recognizes that education is the single most important element in building a positive and hopeful future, First Nations children are denied by their government, funded at more than $2,000 less per child than other Canadian students," Fontaine said.
From the Aboriginal perspective, the Kelowna accord ­ agreed to by Canada, all provinces and territories and the leadership of the First Nation, Inuit and Métis peoples in November, 2005 ­ committed Canada to a 5-year, $5.1 billion initiative to eliminate disparities in health care, housing, education, water treatment, and economic opportunity. But the new Conservative government of Stephen Harper dismissed the deal as a partisan ploy by Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, defeated in the January, 2006 general election, and said they would take a different approach and target specific problems like contaminated water and specific claims. But the Conservatives formed a minority in Parliament and in March, 2007, the other political parties united to vote 176-126 in favour of Bill C-292, a private members bill put forward by backbencher Paul Martin to implement the Kelowna accord. That's the bill being studied by the standing senate committee on Aboriginal peoples, headed by Senator Gerry St. Germain.
Clement Chartier, president of the Métis National Council also appeared before the committee on April 16. The failure to implement the accord has been a bitter disappointment, he said.
Despite constitutional recognition of the Métis as one of Canada's three Aboriginal peoples and a 2003 Supreme Court decision that reaffirmed the Métis as a full rights-bearing people, the Métis remain excluded from federal jurisdictional responsibility and from all processes to resolve the rights of Aboriginal peoples, including specific and comprehensive land claims processes.
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"Even the limited test case funding that was made available to us to clarify our rights in the courts has been cut off," Chartier said.
The Kelowna Accord resolved the status of the relationship between the Métis Nation and Canada, and held the promise of revitalized Métis institutions. "Moreover it held all the signatories to account for the result," Chartier noted.
"This is a far cry from the entrenched, dysfunctional state of affairs and programming in which federal bureaucrats are in control of programs their departments do not actually deliver and Métis organizations are delivering programs that they do not control... As a consequence, no one is responsible for the result."
Claudette Dumont-Smith of the Native Women's Association of Canada appeared before the committee as well.
"The process that led to the accord marked a new understanding by the other participants of the need to include Aboriginal women in the joint development of balanced, holistic solutions," she said.
Peter Dinsdale of the National Association of Friendship Centres, who expressed support for Bill C-292 despite his association's concerns about Kelowna also stood before the committe.
One of the failures of the accord was that it did not attempt to address the "jurisdictional challenge' of who's responsible for urban First Nations people, Dinsdale said.
The day before Fontaine's appearance before the committee, Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl announced a two-year, $330 million program to assess drinking water in every First Nation community and train more water treatment operators.
Fontaine questioned the strategy which he said won't change the fact that over 100 communities will continue to live under boil-water advisories.
"It appears that the investment represents monies that were unspent and re-profiled in the recent budget. We understand, based on our analysis, that infrastructure funding in fact will go down and be reduced by $250 million over the next two years."

Crosby took part in the Malaspina protest to raise awareness across the country. "If they can do it to them, then they can do it to any of us, even though it's way over there."
She said some people in her classes were confused. "They are like, 'the government says that they have this responsibility to us' but they aren't living up to it."
She said it was important to her that First Nations unite when faced with a situation like what is playing out in Ontario, "because we can't fight the system when we are fighting each other."
She noted there were a lot of different nations represented at the Malaspina protest.
Wuttunee is pleased that her fellow students were focusing on the consultation issue, rather than on the fact that the leadership of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug was in jail. That fact may have been the trigger of the protest, but it was not the central question.
It's the land that's important, said Wuttunee.
At first there was grave concern for Begg, the lone woman jailed, she told Windspeaker.
Begg met with Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine.
"They were trying to say 'Maybe you shouldn't be in prison by yourself. At least the men have each other within this prison. You're going to be by yourself.' [Begg] said 'No. When I first took the job as a council member it's a decision that I made. If I have to go to jail for my people and my land, then I will.'"
Wuttunee said Begg didn't want their imprisonment to be the main issue.
"When a whole chief and council decides 'You know what? Put us in jail. If you are going to take away our land, you might as well take away our people right now,' and makes a stand. I think that this is what this is about."
Wuttunee said the treaties weren't signed "thinking that you were just going to come into our land and tell us how to live, after you've already taken most everything else away," she said.
"We just want to raise awareness, and say this isn't right. Something has to be done. The government too long has used their laws and their policies against us to further disconnect us from the land."

"Even the limited test case funding that was made available to us to clarify our rights in the courts has been cut off," Chartier said.
The Kelowna Accord resolved the status of the relationship between the Métis Nation and Canada, and held the promise of revitalized Métis institutions. "Moreover it held all the signatories to account for the result," Chartier noted.
"This is a far cry from the entrenched, dysfunctional state of affairs and programming in which federal bureaucrats are in control of programs their departments do not actually deliver and Métis organizations are delivering programs that they do not control... As a consequence, no one is responsible for the result."
Claudette Dumont-Smith of the Native Women's Association of Canada appeared before the committee as well.
"The process that led to the accord marked a new understanding by the other participants of the need to include Aboriginal women in the joint development of balanced, holistic solutions," she said.
Peter Dinsdale of the National Association of Friendship Centres, who expressed support for Bill C-292 despite his association's concerns about Kelowna also stood before the committe.
One of the failures of the accord was that it did not attempt to address the "jurisdictional challenge' of who's responsible for urban First Nations people, Dinsdale said.
The day before Fontaine's appearance before the committee, Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl announced a two-year, $330 million program to assess drinking water in every First Nation community and train more water treatment operators.
Fontaine questioned the strategy which he said won't change the fact that over 100 communities will continue to live under boil-water advisories.
"It appears that the investment represents monies that were unspent and re-profiled in the recent budget. We understand, based on our analysis, that infrastructure funding in fact will go down and be reduced by $250 million over the next two years."