Wind taken out of Fontaine's sails

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Opposition chiefs hijack special assembly agenda

Opponents of Bill C-19, the First Nations Fiscal and Statistical Management Act, succeeded in forcing an agenda change at the Oct. 8 and 9 special chiefs assembly that allowed them to defeat a resolution in support of the bill.

The chiefs who opposed the fiscal institutions legislation were on the offensive from the beginning. Technicians working to oppose the bill say the agenda seemed to have been set up for a vote on Day 2. The opposition strategy was to force the vote on Day 1 in the hope that not all the chiefs who supported C-19 would be in attendance.

When assembly co-chair Luc Laine tried to get the assembly agenda approved by the chiefs-usually a formality-Chippewas of Nawash (Ontario) Chief Ralph Akiwenzie was on his feet with a demand the agenda be significantly altered, suggesting working into the night, if need be, to get some work done.

The altered agenda resulted in the resolution put forward by Squamish Nation Chief Bill Williams being put to a vote. The resolution called for the assembly to reject the governance act, amend the independent claims body initiative and accept C-19. A vote soundly defeated the motion 109 to 65 with two abstentions.

Many of the chiefs in assembly attacked National Chief Phil Fontaine for his support of Bill C-19. Fontaine's position heading into the assembly was that he had campaigned on a platform of supporting C-19 as long as it was optional and contained a non-derogation clause. His recent election, he said, gave him the mandate to push that position. This unabashedly aggressive attitude was exactly what the assembly chiefs were concerned about, that their newly elected national chief was forgetting the bottom-up structure of the organization, where the top takes orders from the assembly, rather than dictates to the assembly.

The chiefs were concerned that the national chief and executive were preparing to steam-roll ahead with an agenda without their direction or consent, and this concern could have been at the root of the defeat of the C-19 resolution.

The national chief admitted to Windspeaker that he was disappointed with the loss.

"The disappointment . . . is one that I share, not only with the B.C. delegates here, but also with a number of delegates from other regions," said a newly chastened Fontaine on Oct. 9. "But we accept the decision of the assembly and we want to move on. There's important business to attend to and we want to deal with that business. As far as I'm concerned, the deal is done here as far as these bills and we will take our cues from the assembly and the assembly has instructed me on how I ought to proceed and I will take that very clear direction."

Though the chiefs forced Fontaine to back away from his position on C-19, it's uncertain what was gained since the bill was scheduled for debate in the House of Commons on Oct. 20 and he had already sent a letter of support of the bill to the standing committee on Aboriginal Affairs. Bill C-19 could still be passed into law after moving to the Senate for hearings and amendments.