Prime Minister Stephen Harper to meet First Nations leaders Jan. 11

By Joanna Smith Toronto Star January 4 2012 

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Stephen Harper has offered to meet with a delegation of First Nations leaders to discuss treaty and aboriginal rights and economic development.

“I will be participating in a working meeting with a delegation of First Nations leaders co-ordinated by the Assembly of First Nations on Jan. 11,” Harper said in a statement Friday.

The statement was issued to the media minutes before aboriginal leaders were set to begin a news conference about the continuing hunger strike of Theresa Spence, chief of the struggling Cree community of Attawapiskat in northern Ontario.

The prime minister has been under mounting pressure to sit down with First Nation leaders as the result of a nationwide protest movement known as Idle No More, which gathered more steam when Spence began her hunger strike on Victoria Island, in the Ottawa River, on Dec. 11.

Danny Metatawabin, a close supporter and spokesman for Spence, said he started to cry when he heard the news of the proposed meeting Friday morning.

“Tears started to come down my eyes and I had to hold off my tears because I wanted to share my tears with Chief Theresa and all the helpers that came to support her,” Metatawabin said at a news conference in Ottawa.

“It’s a small step of a very big process that we have to go through to rebuild that nation-to-nation relationship.”

Metatawabin and others said that Spence, who is in good spirits but showing “signs of fatigue,” will continue her hunger strike until the Jan. 11 meeting actually takes place.

They suggested this would be enough to satisfy the demand Spence has made to meet Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston to discuss issues facing First Nations people, but noted the meeting could not be the end of the road.

“It will not take just one meeting to fix that relationship that has been broken or that is broken,” said Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

“We will continue to hold the prime minister’s feet to the fire to ensure that meeting, if it does happen next Friday, will begin to establish that process. But the issues that we have are many and it will take a very constructive and a very meaningful process to repair the damage to that relationships and begin to address the issues that Chief Spence and others have brought forward,” Fiddler said at the news conference.

“This isn’t going to work as a simple photo op … I think we’ve reached a tipping point and now it’s time to start repairing that relationship,” said New Democrat MP Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay).

In Oakville, Harper avoided mentioning Spence or the Idle No More movement by name as he described the Jan. 11 meeting as part of an ongoing dialogue with the Assembly of First Nations and its National Chief Shawn Atleo that grew out of the historic Crown-First Nations gathering in Ottawa last January.

“We arrived at work plan on a number of things we want to see move forward, obviously, these are long-term challenges but we are committed to addressing them. I met with National Chief Atleo in November about setting up future meetings to follow progress and ensure we are making more progress on all of the items and so we’re following up on that and so the Assembly of First Nations will determine the composition of their own delegation,” Harper said.

Harper also urged protesters to obey the law.

“My only comment in terms of … various protests and demonstrations is the following: in this country, people have the right in our country to demonstrate and express their points of view peacefully, as long as they obey the law. But I think the Canadian population expects everyone will obey the law in holding such protests,” Harper said Friday in Oakville, where he made an announcement regarding an automotive innovation fund.

The statement from the prime minister issued earlier Friday also referred to the Crown-First Nations Gathering of Jan. 24, 2012, where the federal government and First Nations outlined areas to be worked on.

“While some progress has been made, there is more that must be done to improve outcomes for First Nations communities across Canada,” the prime minister stated.

Harper said the government and First Nations leaders need to continue working on a set goals agreed to last year, including:

Building effective, appropriate, transparent and fully accountable governance structures;

Empowering success of individuals through access to education and opportunity;

Enabling strong, sustainable, and self-sufficient communities;

Creating conditions to accelerate economic development opportunities and maximize benefits for all Canadians;

Respecting the role of First Nations’ culture and language in our history and future.

Harper’s announcement Friday of the Jan. 11 meeting came as New Democrat MP Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay), National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Shawn Atleo and other native leaders were holding a news conference to discuss Spence’s hunger strike.

Meanwhile, members of the Kingsclear First Nation are staging an Idle No More protestalong a busy highway near Fredericton, N.B. and say they’ll stay until the prime minister meets with Spence.

About three dozen people stood along Highway 102 at Kingsclear on Friday holding signs in opposition to the federal government’s recently passed omnibus budget legislation, Bill C45.

Kingsclear Chief Gabriel Atwin says it’s important that Harper respects treaty rights and meets with Spence right away because she is now into day 25 of a hunger strike.

First Nations leaders had initially proposed a Jan. 24 meeting with Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnson, but Spence said her failing health means she can’t wait that long for assurances that her concerns about treaty rights will be addressed.

 

CBC News Jan 5, 2013

The grand chief representing First Nations communities in the James and Hudson Bay areas including the northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat says he welcomes the decision by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to hold a “working meeting” with a delegation of First Nations leaders co-ordinated by the Assembly of First Nations next Friday.

In an interview airing Saturday on CBC Radio’s The House, Stan Louttit, Grand Chief of the Mushkegowuk Council, told host Evan Solomon he was “pleasantly surprised’ when the news of the meeting came 25 days into the hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.

“The prime minister did the right thing,” Louttit said.

While Spence was “overjoyed” at the news of a meeting with Harper, on Friday she said she would continue her hunger strike at least until the day of the meeting.

Unless there are “concrete results,” said Louttit, “there is a chance that the hunger strike will continue after Jan. 11.”

And while Louttit acknowledged that one meeting will not solve everything, he said he will be looking for “some commitment by the prime minister that there is going to be continuing dialogue, that there’s going to be continuing discussions beyond Jan. 11.”

Louttit called on First Nations leaders to “seize this opportunity with the prime minister, and that’ll set the stage in terms of any future discussions that might be required with other government leaders including the premier, including the governor-general.”

Harper said in a statement released Friday that the meeting, which will include Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister John Duncan, is expected to focus on “the treaty relationship, aboriginal rights, and economic development.”

Spence refused to meet solely with Duncan despite numerous attempts by the minister to do so.

“[I’ve dealt] with his little ministers before and they don’t really work with us. They always put [on] a band-aid solution,” Spence told CBC News on Dec. 27.

When asked about Duncan’s handling of this file, Louttit told Solomon: “I want a new minister because he has shown with the Attawapskat crisis that he could not deal with that situation, that he fumbled through that process.”

Louttit said he’s not alone, that First Nations leaders would not only like to see a new minister in place but would also like to have some input into the selection of the next minister overseeing the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio.

In a separate interview airing on The House, Greg Rickford, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Aboriginal Affairs, defended Duncan saying he has “nothing but admiration for the leadership he’s shown on a number of key files, not the least of which would be education.”

Rickford, who confirmed he will be attending the Jan. 11 meeting along with Harper, Duncan and “another minister,” described the federal government as a “willing partner in a process that will focus on economic development on reserves and certainly issues around treaties.”

Pam Palmater, a lawyer and Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University, doubts there will be any concrete results stemming from next Friday’s meeting.

In an interview with CBC News Network on Saturday, Palmater said she wouldn’t even qualify this meeting as “a small step” forward.

Palmater said “oppressive legislation” and “significant budget cuts” is all that followed last January’s gathering of the Crown–First Nations leaders.

But the parliamentary secretary to the minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development also defended the changes included in the second budget implemetation bill.

“With respect to Bill C-45, the changes to property leasing provisions, these changes respond directly to the request of a number of First Nations Chiefs to provide them with more flexibility,” Rickford said.

Palmater, who is also an indigenous rights activist with the Idle No More movement said, the news of this meeting has had for effect to see their activities “ramped up” and there will be “more activities” in the lead-up to Friday’s meeting including a “massive rally” in Ottawa.

Toronto Star editorial January 4

Aboriginal frustration, fuelled by decades of neglect, prejudice and wilful deafness from the country’s leaders, has built to a danger point.

None of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s usual tactics — wilful silence, blaming the victims, imposing top-down solutions — is going to work this time. Canada’s 1.7 million indigenous people now have the strength and solidarity to force a reckoning.

Three converging developments in early 2013 are propelling this issue to the forefront: A 26-day (and counting) hunger strike by Chief Theresa Spence of the impoverished Attawapiskat First Nation; a proliferating grassroots protest called Idle No More; and a piece of legislation that stuck in the craw of First Nations, Métis and Inuit, as well as many non-aboriginal Canadians.

It’s a volatile combination, one stoked by social media and fuelled by a buildup of grievances ranging from wretched living conditions to broken treaties.

Harper has rejected Spence’s demand for a face-to-face to meeting, insisting she negotiate with Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan. The prime minister has, however,agreed to meet a delegation of aboriginal leaders next Friday.

There is no indication he is willing to discuss Bill C-45, which will expose waterways that cross aboriginal territory to unwanted commercial traffic and industrial development. Nor is he acknowledging the anger among aboriginal young people. But he will emerge from his cone of silence.

Welcome as Harper’s belated concession is, the meeting has little chance of achieving his goal: to build a relationship “based on mutual respect, friendship and support.” Two barriers stand in the way:

The first is Harper’s belief that, as head of a majority government, he has the right to impose his agenda on aboriginal peoples. He may be able to force bills like C-45 through Parliament, but he can’t force aboriginal peoples to abide by his dictates, putting their territories and waterways at risk of irreparable environmental harm. Nor he can expect First Nations to wait patiently for habitable housing, decent schools and safe drinking water.

The second is the 156-year-old Indian Act, which has come to symbolize Ottawa’s failure to respect native treaty rights and the failure of successive governments to address the chronic deprivation on reserves. But replacing the outdated legislation requires trust and patience, neither of which Harper has shown. He has unilaterally legislated changes in everything from property rights on reserves to public scrutiny of band funds.

Conservative commentators defend Harper’s top-down approach by pointing out that many reserves are poorly managed; some aboriginal people have turned their anger on their chiefs; and Idle No More, which grew out of a workshop in Saskatchewan, does not represent all First Nations.

All that is true, but it does not justify shutting out thousands of voices. Grassroots movements are often leaderless and discordant. Young activists don’t always have policy-friendly solutions to the problems they highlight. Consider the Arab Spring or the Occupy movement.

It will take a generation — or longer — to dissipate the bad blood that has built up between Ottawa and First Nations. But, as former prime minister Joe Clark said after meeting with Spence in late December: “My experience has been that direct and honest dialogue is always useful — and sometimes essential — particularly in dealing with issues as complex and multi-faceted as the relations between First Nations and Canada.”

It is a shame Harper didn’t meet personally with Spence. It would have cost him nothing to offer Canada’s struggling indigenous people the sign of good faith they were looking for. But he has a second chance to open the lines of communication. He has offered to talk about the two issues that matter most to indigenous people: treaty and aboriginal rights.

That’s a fair basis for conversation. With enough good will on both sides, it could be the first step in a long journey.