What’s plan B? [editorial]

A recent comment from Conservative Party leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, about Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde’s supposed flip-flop over the First Nations Control of First Nations Education Act, highlights the need for a strong strategy, post-election, if the Conservatives do manage to retain power.

If you are watching the polls it’s like being at the track, with the federal Cons, Liberals and New Democratic parties jockeying for position as we head round a turn, and we haven’t even made it to the stretch. With the election in a dead heat, there is a likelihood—if Aboriginal voters stay home in droves, as is the usual practise—that another Conservative government is in our future. And then we get the same as what we’ve had before, only worse; a governing party, which is unwilling to see our perspective or respect our world view, with a renewed mandate.

The comment, if you missed it, came in a report from Jorge Barrera of APTN National News. Barrera reported that Harper accused the First Nations leader of changing his position on the education bill and wasn’t sure if Bellegarde would be willing to work with the Conservatives after a Con win.

Let’s put aside the fact that it’s beyond the pale that Harper should suggest the First Nations leader may not want to work with the government when it has been the Harper Conservatives that has been shutting out First Nations people over the last year and more. Bend to our will, or a.) we will ignore you, or b.) we will cut your funding and ignore you, seems the unwritten policy of Aboriginal Affairs. It’s the government that said it would not release additional moneys in education funds unless the AFN agreed to the bill. It’s the government that has not come back to the table.

And let’s even put aside the fact that Harper may have been correct in saying that Bellegarde waffled when it came to the education act. If you remember, that sudden resignation of national chief Shawn Atleo was prompted when rival Bellegarde announced his opposition to the education legislation in a letter from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians Nations, of which he was grand chief at the time. It was a member of the Atleo team, Sto:lo Grand Chief Doug Kelly, who told a reporter that Atleo felt betrayed by Bellegarde after what had been a “powerful demonstration of unity and support” from AFN chiefs and delegates for the resolution that endorsed the legislation that met their five conditions, which some argued the education bill did.

It is not unusual for politicians to step on each other’s necks to climb to the next rung of power. The knives get particularly sharp and pointed when you have your sights set on the top. Let’s look at how Harper himself found his way to the top of the Conservative Party of Canada, with help from Peter MacKay, a leadership hopeful in the 2003 Progressive Conservative Party race to replace Joe Clark. MacKay had signed an agreement with rival David Orchard to get elected. Orchard would step out of the race as long as MacKay promised not to merge the party with the Canadian Alliance, a promise that MacKay quickly and controversially ignored.

In December of that year, the Conservative Party of Canada was born from the Alliance-Progressive union, and in March of 2004 Stephen Harper was elected as that party’s leader. And with the right united, was able to take power in 2006.

With the Liberal Party now leaning left under the, really not so young, Justin Trudeau, and an astounding surge of popularity of the usually left leaning NDP under first, Jack Layton, who led the party to Opposition in 2011, and the powerful performance of Tom Mulcair over the time after Layton’s death, bringing the party to centre, now 60 per cent of Canada’s non-Conservative voters are splitting the vote enough to usher in another Conservative government.

So, what’s the AFN’s plan? Bellegarde himself has said the status quo is not acceptable. If the winds of change don’t blow on Oct. 19, the AFN will have to have something else up their sleeve.
Bellegarde has made much of being non-partisan. That embarrassment of a “Rock the Vote news conference where he encouraged First Nations people to cast a ballot in this election only to admit he wouldn’t vote himself was proof alone of that.

But non-partisanship does not mean you roll over. The AFN has been stagnating, and it needs a plan to breathe new life into it.

Right now, it’s doubling down on having a new ruling party with election promises in their back pocket to improve the government/First Nations relationship. But what if that’s not the outcome on election night. What’s the plan Oct. 20?

Windspeaker