Slow but steady support for change

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The Anishinaabe nation of Treaty 3, a territory encompassing 28 communities and 55,000 square miles, is working on replacing an Indian Act governance regime with a traditional one, but it was only last month, with five years invested in the process, that leaders at the Grand Council's central office in Kenora issued a press release stating their "core governance is beginning to emerge."

On July 25, Treaty 3 Grand Council announced it has formed an executive branch, with purely political functions as opposed to administrative functions, made up of an elected regional chief from each of the four regions of Treaty 3. The four are Leroy Quoquat (North); Adolphus Cameron (West); Dan Kelly (South); and acting regional chief Richard Bruyere (East). This month someone will be selected to fill Bruyere's temporary spot.

"This is a defining moment in Treaty 3's evolution. A purely political executive is a required element of any government. Today we have accomplished the first step," Treaty 3 Grand Chief Leon Jourdain said.

The move conforms to their people's expectations for "future leadership and structures," as expressed in "extensive grass roots consultation," the press release said. The executive council is charged with developing the Treaty 3 nation, with renewing the relationship with Canada and other governments, while staying focused on "inherent Aboriginal jurisdiction."

The grand council's communications spokesman is Randy White. He said there are two main challenges in working out governance:

"They're not reaching as many people as they would like (and) there is a need to educate people about our history," he said.

With a young population, many people don't have the memory of how a traditional government worked before the federal government intervened in their affairs, White said.

There are two to four facilitators on each of four teams in the four regions that are consulting people in every community. The "trust-building phase" of this "people driven" process has been underway for two years, and they are now "slowly" contacting off-reserve members.

White also put Bimiiwinitisowin Omaa Akiing, their governance initiative, into historical context.

In April 1996, the chiefs in assembly identified the principles and steps to exercise Anishinaabe governance. That June they got the approval of the Elders to proceed.

Their mission statement is "To give life to the spirit and intent of the Treaty, and to rediscover and relive the life and law of the Anishinaabe through the exercise of our inherent jurisdiction."

In July 1996, the grand chief and the Indian Affairs minister agreed to work towards "meaningful expression" of the spirit and intent of the treaty. In October, the chiefs in assembly confirmed the "mandates, structure, process and terms of reference for the chiefs negotiating team on governments."

Their guiding principles emphasized the Anishinaabe nation will determine government priorities and create its laws based on community consultation; they will write Anishinaabe nation laws in both Ojibway and English; they will include federal authorities at all levels of consultations, and the nation will adopt Anishinaabe laws that "will be consistent with and will have the protection of the Constitution of Canada."

In May 1997, a "Framework Agreement on an Agenda and Process to Negotiate an Agreement-In-Principle" was signed between the grand council and the minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

Chief Clarence White from Naotkanegwanning (Whitefish Bay) is on the chiefs' negotiating team and is the only chief to respond to our request for an interview. He spoke about the process of returning to a traditional form of governance and the progress they have made so far. Their aim, he said, was to implement treaty-wide core governance in the six broad areas of child care (Chief White is also chairman of the child care committee), land, health, economic development, education and justice.

Underthe Indian Act system, he said, "it was only the chiefs that could select a grand chief, and then the next step was that the chief and councillors select the grand chief, and that's where the process is at now. And now the next is that the whole First Nations, all the people, will vote for grand chief."

Chief White said that when Grand Chief Leon Jourdain was elected it was done "with a stand-up vote, the traditional way of doing it." He said in a standing vote, no ballots are cast.

"Whoever is nominated for the position, they just stand up, around after a ceremonial way, and then whoever you want to select, you just go stand behind him. It's an open thing.

"We go by what they say is that Creation watches. It's transparent. Everything is in the open. There's no secrets. Everybody watches."

Chief White said the process requires people to think seriously about who they should vote for to represent them, in accordance with the Elders' wishes. He said now Treaty 3 is discussing how to "do it as a whole territorial thing" and a number of suggestions are under consideration.

The chief said it could be another five years before they have a governance process that is acceptable to all the Treaty 3 member nations, but they are not going to rush. Their Elders have told them to make sure they consider, consult, and finally include every aspect of governance in a system that respects the diversity of the communities.

"The progress that we're making-I think sometimes we think it's too rapid, moving too fast." He said they are discussing ways to set up their government "maybe through the clan systems or the old traditional way of governing ourselves."

Chief White explained the old way, according to their Elders, was that "the grand chief was the boss of the chiefs. And it changed somewhere around the early '60s or late '50s and now the chiefs are the boss of the grand chief. Because of the distance of people living apart, they had to do it a different way. But now they ar looking at . . . how it worked before."

In Chief White's community, they had talked about the same issues for 10 years and "it didn't really get off the ground. We'd done it about three-quarters (of the) way" before joining the territory-wide initiative to work out traditional governance five years ago, he said. The biggest challenge is getting the people united, he said. The main problem was not geographical separation but that each community has its own priorities regarding governance.