Unity achieved, say numbered treaty groups

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The First Nation communities that are party to the numbered treaties have voted to unify and speak with one voice, and they intend that voice to be heard at the First Ministers' Meeting (FMM) in Kelowna this month.

The "Gathering of Treaties 1 to 11" occurred in Edmonton on Sept. 28 and 29. During that meeting a half-dozen resolutions were passed by an estimated 120 chiefs. Two of those resolutions will have a direct effect on the ongoing discussions involving the Assembly of First Nations, the department of Indian and Northern Affairs and the Aboriginal Affairs Secretariat of the Privy Council Office that will culminate at the FMM.

Tsuu T'ina First Nation (Alberta) Chief Sandford Big Plume was the mover of the "Declaration of unity between the treaty nations of treaties number one to 11" resolution. Rolling River First Nation (Manitoba) Chief Morris Shannacappo seconded the resolution.

Shannacappo told Windspeaker on Oct. 24 that the treaty nations will demand a seat at the table at the FMM.

"If we can't get a seat at the First Ministers' Meeting, we're going to run a parallel meeting at the same time with press conferences outside," he said.

The numbered treaties cover an area stretching from around Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. to the top of the Rocky Mountains, south of the 60th parallel.

The declaration of unity created the position of national treaty spokesman, and Big Plume was appointed. The resolution also called for the creation of an "interim treaty council of chiefs" and a "treaty chiefs secretariat."

The secretariat will require a staff and office. Shannacappo said the "living rolling draft" plan for the establishment of these entities is not complete. He didn't know where the treaty office would be located.

"I'm not certain. It may be smack dab in the heart of Treaty 1 to 11 country or it might be in Ottawa," he said.

Those First Nation leaders who believe a hard line interpretation of the historical treaties is the only way to negotiate with the federal Crown appear to be saying through this declaration that the AFN is not pushing the treaty rights agenda far enough.

Shannacappo was asked if that was a fair interpretation of the resolution.

"That's exactly what it is. We have treaties that have to be looked at and worked at," he said.

But setting up a national office with a national spokesman should not be interpreted as an attempt to reject the leadership of the national chief, he added.

"It's going too far to say rejection. I'll say that we want to make sure that we have our treaty status conveyed to the national chief and to make sure that we're not throwing the treaties away,"

Shannacappo said. "We're trying to make sure that we're working with our national chief. We're not ousting him. We're not doing anything damaging, hopefully, not damaging to him. But we just want to alert him on some of the treaty issues and we want to work with him."

The chiefs held a press conference during the two days of meetings in Edmonton to announce the unity declaration.

"In the past there's been alliances, organizations put together to speak on behalf of our treaty people. But it's never gone nowhere, through funding, through budgets, through internal problems of our treaty areas," said Big Plume. "But now we have set all our issues aside and we want to come forward collectively. There's representation from every treaty area that has concerns with the national organization and the way our message is not being taken forward," he said.

He was asked what it would take to satisfy his group during the FMM.

"We have to be recognized as treaty people. We signed the documents to allow the sharing of the land. We have never been heard. We allow organizations to talk on our behalf, talk program. We don't want to talk program. We want to talk political process," he said.

Back in March, at a special assembly in Vancouver, the AFN presented a draft political accord that was to be presented at a Cabinet retreat afew weeks later. The Alberta chiefs asked for time to review it and were essentially told there was none. Sources say there was great anger in the Alberta caucus after that. Big Plume hinted that that anger played a role in getting chiefs motivated to start work on unifying the numbered treaty groups.

"The national organization that we now have representing us had an opportunity to listen to the concerns, especially of Alberta. When they went ahead and did not take Alberta's concerns ... and this has gone on in the past, we made very clear we did not like the process," he said.

Sandford Big Plume denied, however, there was a rift growing between the Alberta chiefs and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN).

"No, I have my brother with me, [AFN regional vice-chief for Alberta Jason Goodstriker] who is representative of the AFN. If there was, we would not allow him in the room," he said.

Shortly after the Edmonton meeting, the Quebec chiefs met and discussed their dissatisfaction with the way information about the many initiatives being pursued by the national chief and his staff is distributed to the communities. The Quebec chiefs debated, but did not vote on a resolution that would have stated they would not be bound by any decisions made at the First Ministers' Meeting without their explicit approval. The resolution was sent to committee for more work and may resurface.

First Nation officials in several other regions also expressed concern that the national chief's office has been slow to include the regions in decision-making and planning. Morris Shanacappo, the spokesman for the Treaty 4 nations in Manitoba, said his fellow chiefs are also feeling out of the loop.

"We're feeling a little bit of that. In fact, we had discussions last Friday as to some of the goings-on with the AFN and the FMM and there's a lot of things in the air," he said. "The AFN didn't sign treaty on our behalf and they can't represent us at the treaty table because our ancestors here siged the treaties."

Shannacappo said the treaty chiefs believe the federal government is trying to extinguish the numbered treaties and replace them with an arrangement that is more favorable to the Crown.

"That's where they want to go, I do believe," he said.

He points out that while there is an immense amount of work being done on what Prime Minister Paul Martin calls the "transformative change agenda," there is no work being done in Ottawa on implementing the historic treaties.

"There's no treaty policy," he said. "We still have to do a treaty audit to see what actually is owing to treaty Indians."

Attempts to reach National Chief Phil Fontaine for comment on this development were not successful.

AFN spokesman Don Kelly said the national chief travelled to Alberta to meet with Treaty 8 chiefs on Oct. 24.

'The national chief has stated many times that treaty issues are of key importance to the AFN," Kelly said when asked about the numbered treaty groups' resolution. "Treaties are central to much of what we do. And the national chief has also often stated that the AFN is not party to any treaty. Facilitating a way for a First Nation to get to the table is our role."

Another resolution that came out of the numbered treaties meeting in Edmonton seeks to stop the off-loading of federal responsibility to provincial governments. The "Sovereignty, treaty relations and treaty implementation" resolution is three pages long and lists a variety of areas that fall under provincial jurisdiction that the officials working at the federal-AFN roundtable discussions are looking at.

The resolution then calls for the creation of federal government processes for First Nations dealing with education, social services, health and other areas that are considered provincial areas of responsibility.

The resolution reminds all the parties that the federal Crown has the fiduciary responsibility for treaty First Nations and goes on to call on the federal government to spell out cleary where its legal obligations begin and end. Analysts of intergovernmental affairs say the federal government continually looks for ways to force provincial governments to take responsibility for things the feds have been responsible for in the past. They say the federal government has quite intentionally resisted clearly defining its responsibilities because off-loading would then have to cease.