Category: Aboriginal Affairs

Confused about Harper's intentions for Friday's AFN meeting?

Two nights ago, Ottawa-based APTN reporter (and former colleague) Jorge Barrera tweeted:

 

That got a lot of Twitter pickup, with nearly 30 re-tweets etc.

A few minutes later, after being contacted by a spokesman for Harper, Barrera tweeted:

That one didn’t get so much pickup. Only 4 retweets.

Today, (another former colleague) Gloria Galloway reports in The Globe and Mail that:

” At the same time, the Prime Minister signalled that he would attend only part of the Friday meeting …  Many [chiefs] said they were also unhappy to learn that Mr. Harper might be present for just half an hour at the beginning of the talks and half an hour at the end. When asked if that was Mr. Harper’s plan, spokesman Carl Valée replied: “Things are still being worked out at the moment.”

Galloway did not, however,  report how this idea — that Harper will spend only an hour with the chiefs Friday — surfaced. Who  “signalled”? How did it happen?

I asked the Assembly of First Nations yesterday if anyone had told that organization that Harper would be present only briefly for the meeting and whether, for that matter, the AFN had any other details about the meeting such as where it will be and when it will start. Here’s the answer from an organizational spokesperson:

“Meeting details – location, timing, etc – still being confirmed… I understand it will be a full day meeting with PM and members of Cabinet.”

Again, that’s from the AFN at mid-afternoon Wednesday. Presumably, National Chief Shawn Atleo and other AFN chiefs would have had that same information as they were meeting at the same time at an Ottawa hotel. Where did this “signal” come from?

I also asked the same question of the PMO yesterday — What is the level of PM’s involvement in the meeting? Where will it be? Will it start in the morning? Mid-morning? Late afternoon? — and was also told, “Details will be forthcoming.”

The only thing the PMO would tell me was that Barrera’s initial assertion — that the PM would simply show up,make a statement, and leave after 30 minutes — was wrong. And that’s what Barrera’s second tweet was all about.

Still: I’m not sure why the PMO is being so coy about details about a meeting that is happening tomorrow. Surely when the PM proposed the meeting last week he himself would have had an idea how much engagement he personally wanted to bring to the file. In the meantime, the silence from the PMO on the meeting details makes it easy for those who already dislike the Harper Conservatives to continue telling everyone he’s hardly going to be there.

He may yet hardly be there. But he may not, as well.

 

Chief Theresa Spence: "controversial leaked audit no more than a distraction"

Earlier today, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development published, on its Web site, an audit into the finances of the Attawapiskat First Nation. The audit covers the period from 2005-2011. Theresa Spence was the deputy chief from 2007 until 2010 and since 2010 has been the band’s chief.

In a letter, dated August 28, sent to Chief Spence and which forms part of the audit, auditors Deloitte Touche said:

“…we were unable to conclude whether the claimed expenditures were in accordance with the terms and conditions of the funding agreements between Attawapiskat First Nation and AANDC and Health Canada, respectively. The lack of financial management controls to support compliance with the terms and conditions of the agreements is inconsistent with the requirements of the funding agreements with the Government of Canada. We were unable to determine if the funds were spent for their intended purpose.

There is no evidence of due diligence in the use of public funds, including the use of funds for housing.”

Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan did not take questions from reporters today but issued this statement through a spokesperson: “The independent audit from Deloitte and Touche LLP speaks for itself, and we accept its conclusions and recommendations.”

Chief Spence, like Duncan, did not take questions from reporters today but, a few minutes ago, issued this statement:

For immediate release:
January 7, 2013, Victoria Island, traditional territory of the Algonquian Peoples….a controversial leaked audit (which was completed last September), is no more than a distraction of the true issue and to discredit Chief Spence who Continue reading Chief Theresa Spence: "controversial leaked audit no more than a distraction"

Letter from Attawapiskat: "We are in full support for an forensic audit"

Here’s some correspondence, obtained last year through a Access to Information request to the federal department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, that speaks to at least some dissent in Attawapiskat when it comes to the leadership of Chief Theresa Spence and her band council. Particularly relevent given the results of the audit the government released today:

Attawapiskat elders write to Department urging audit

Note: If you were the author of this letter and would like to chat more about this, feel free to call me collect!

Chief Atleo has a political problem on his hands

On Thursday, the Assembly of First Nations, which purports to be the umbrella organization representing more than 600 First Nations bands across the country, issued a press release announcing that it and its National Chief Shawn Atleo were convening a meeting of First Nations (FN) leaders on Jan. 24 and that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor General David Johnston had been invited.

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, engaged in her own protest for such a meeting, rejected the Jan. 24 date, saying she needed a meeting to happen sooner than that, given that her protest consists of having consumed nothing but fish broth, tea and water since Dec. 11.

Less than 24 hours after the AFN issued their call for a meeting on Jan. 24, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced he would be prepared to meet with a delegation chosen by the AFN next week, on Friday, Jan. 11.

More than four hours after that announcement, the AFN issued a statement “welcoming” this news. But while Chief Spence took questions from reporters through a spokesperson, neither Chief Atleo nor any AFN spokesperson was made available to answer questions. There was no mention in the release which FN leaders would attend the meeting. Nor was there any mention of that status of the Jan. 24 meeting.

Chief Spence, though, told reporters the AFN would, in fact, include her in that delegation that is to meet Harper next week. (Harper told reporters in Oakville, Ont. today that the AFN can designate anyone it wants to meet with him and Aborginal Affairs Minister John Duncan) Spence also said she’ll continue her protest if next week’s meeting doesn’t produce an outcome she finds satisfactory.

Chief Spence is the elected leader of about 1,500 people from one community.

Chief Atleo was voted in by the 600 or so chiefs who represent not only Attawapiskat but First Nations communities across the country. He just won re-election last summer.

Who should Harper or Canada be negotiating with? Should Spence be calling the shots or Atleo?

Before you answer: Consider the tweets that have been coming forth from the account of Pam Palmater. Palmater tried to unseat Atleo as National Chief last summer with a campaign that put forward the idea that First Nations people needed to be much more militant. And while the Idle No More movement does not take direction from Palmater and other more militant FN leaders, it is clearly inspired by her call to action.

Here’s Palmater last June as she was setting up to try to defeat Atleo and change the AFN’s tone:

“The direction that the AFN is following, they seem to be following the path that the Conservatives have laid out,. To me it’s a very destructive path. And it looks like some people don’t even realize how destructive it is.”

The file, from Canadian Press, went on to say:

Palmater said [Atleo] has co-operated too closely with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and has little to show for it. She argues repeatedly on her blog that his leadership has taken First Nations down the path of assimilation.

“Being extra nice to the Conservatives isn’t actually advancing our interests,” she said in the interview, pointing to funding cuts. “We’re making things worse.”

So, as word of this meeting between Harper and a delegation of leaders picked by the AFN emerged today — and as some Northern Ontario First Nations leaders told reporters in the National Press Theatre that all First Nations people were united at this point, here’s some excerpts from Palmater’s Twitter feed (this was current at 6 pm ET Friday, she had not tweeted or re-tweeted anything in the prior 24 hours that  could remotely be described as supportive of National Chief Atleo or the AFN):

 No mention of Atleo (or Chief Spence, for that matter). Do click through for Twitter bios of this “dream team”.  (Should you do so, you will discover that one is a reporter for CBC’s The National and that reporter gave a “+1” to this post — an indication that he approves of and endorses the suggestion.)

Here’s University of Victoria political science professor Gerald Taiaiake Alfred:

  

 

  

Another academic, Niigaanwewidam Sinclair is a professor at the University of Manitoba:

Tanya Kappo’s Twitter bio says she is a Treaty 8 Cree woman from Edmonton:


On top of all that, here’s a press release from Chief Fox of the Onion Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan saying, basically, that Chief Atleo and the AFN do not speak for his band.

I believe the AFN chiefs — not only Atleo but also his executive committee — have their own political problem on their hands. If Canada negotiates with First Nations leaders, which are the First Nations leaders that can claim to be the legitimate leaders of their peoples? Is it a leader who wins a majority of votes from a handful of chiefs? From one chief who wins a majority of votes from one in his or her community? Or from those with more Twitter followers than their opponents?

Harper has his majority government and the full power of the Canadian state on his side at least until 2015.

 

Is Chief Spence setting a good example for aboriginal girls by threatening suicide?

Terry Glavin makes a not insignificant point about the potential harm Chief Spence’s hunger strike might have on First Nations communities:

Aboriginal teenagers in Canada are perhaps six times more likely to kill themselves than non-aboriginal youth. Among the Inuit, youth suicide is 11 times the national average. Between 2005 and 2010, Health Canada spent $65 million on a National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy. The kids kept on killing themselves, and in 2011 the Ontario Chief Coroner’s Office released a 215-page report on aboriginal suicides in Northern Ontario. One of the report’s key recommendations: the creation of a national suicide prevention strategy.

Then along comes Theresa Spence, the elected chief of the forlorn and remote Northern Ontario community of Attawapiskat. Since Dec. 11, Spence has been camped in a teepee on an island in the Ottawa River, threatening to starve herself to death — to kill herself — unless the prime minister and the Governor General accede to her variously contradictory and ambiguous demands ..

Read the rest: Idle No More? Let’s get serious.

Annals of colonialism, pt II: Empowerment of First Nations is also their subjection

And will the profits of destruction

Forever make your eyes blind
Do you bow to the corporations?
‘Cause they pay their bills on time

God bless Elijah, with the feather in his hand
Stop stealing the Indian land
Stop stealing the Indian land
Stop stealing the Indian land

– Lyric from the lead track, “Fools Like You” from the 1992 Blue Rodeo album Lost Together

Cornell University anthropologist Paul Nadasdy has an interesting idea. The idea that First Nations should be ’empowered’ — thats the call to action in those last few triumphant lines of the Blue Rodeo anthem quoted above — may not be such a progressive idea after all. In fact, Nadasdy suggests that “empowerment” of First Nations might just be one more trick in the colonialist’s bag. Continue reading Annals of colonialism, pt II: Empowerment of First Nations is also their subjection

Joe Johnson gets a hunting license

In a fascinating and provocative essay titled “Boundaries among Kin: Sovereignty, the Modern Treaty Process, and the Rise of Ethno-Territorial Nationalism,” Cornell University Professor Paul Nadasdy argues that land claims agreements and negotiations between the Canadian government and Canadian First Nations have, at least in some instances, led to the “the rise of ethno-territorial nationalisms among First Nations.” Moreover Nadasdy presents the thesis that the very act of trying to transfer power, governance, and control from the so-called colonial power — that would be Canada — to First Nations is itself a colonizing act because, Nadasdy says, it “implicitly devalue[s] aboriginal forms of socio-political organization [and] it is also helping transform First Nation society in radical and often unintended ways. One of the most significant aspects of this transformation is the emergence among Yukon First Nation peoples of multiple ethno-territorial identities and corresponding nationalist sentiments.”

Continue reading Joe Johnson gets a hunting license

For the record: Crown – First Nations Gathering Outcome Statement

Hot off the presses, offered without comment or annotation:

Crown – First Nations Gathering Outcome Statement

Ottawa, ON – January 24, 2012

Today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo participated in an historic Crown – First Nations Gathering.  The theme of the gathering was Strengthening Our Relationship – Unlocking Our Potential.  Continue reading For the record: Crown – First Nations Gathering Outcome Statement

Which leader was Mercredi referring to in this powerful paragraph?

Read this powerful paragraph from Ovide Mercredi, delivered at the Crown-First Nations summit in the presence of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and AFN National Chief Shaun Atleo: Continue reading Which leader was Mercredi referring to in this powerful paragraph?