Harper shrewdly dodges big issues, grand vision at First Nations meeting

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper (C) looks on as Assembly of First Nations Chief Shawn Atleo (L) takes part in a traditional smudging ceremony at the Crown-First Nations Gathering in Ottawa.

OTTAWA — Ovide Mercredi didn't like the word "incremental." When it came his turn to speak at Tuesday's aboriginal conference in Ottawa, the former national chief of the Assembly of First Nations tartly noted that "to us, the answer is not about incremental change."

It was a not-so-subtle dig at Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who just a few minutes earlier had offered precisely that. After ruling out a holus-bolus scrapping of the Indian Act, Harper promised "creative ways, collaborative ways, ways that involve consultation between our government, the provinces, and First Nations leadership and communities . . . ways that provide options within the (Indian) Act, or outside of it, for practical, incremental and real change."

Phew. A mouthful. But it encapsulates in a few short lines the Harper government's strategy for addressing the endemic misery and suffering engendered by the reserve system. Here's a bet: Harper will get hammered, in the days to come, by those who believe he should have outlined a grand vision, or at least a few bold measures. But the PM may be crazy like a fox here.

Does the Indian Act have to go? Absolutely. This relic of 1876 (though it has undergone "updates" since the original) is unabashedly, explicitly racist. It is an abomination, in fact. And no one can credibly deny that the system it underpins perpetuates misery. Consider the numbers, all of which have been reported before, by me among others. They bear repeating.

In 2000, the rate of aboriginal mortality was twice that among non-aboriginals. In 2004, aboriginal Canadians were twice as likely as non-natives to be a repeat victim of crime, and nearly four times as likely to be the victim of spousal violence. Even within the aboriginal population there is great disparity in quality of life, based on whether an individual lives on reserve or off. In 2004, violent crimes reported by aboriginals living off-reserve registered at 953 per 100,000. For residents of reserves the number was nearly seven times higher, a staggering 7,108 per 100,000 people.

The current national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Shawn Atleo, has made no secret of his revulsion for the Indian Act and for the system in general. Indeed last summer he called for the Act to be abolished, along with the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs.

So, why would Harper not have been bolder?

In avoiding the grand gesture, in my view, Harper dodged a bullet. For had he made a sweeping pledge to abolish the Indian Act, rather that work within and around it as he did, he'd have roused suspicion and anger from at least some band chiefs, of whom there are about 600 across Canada (about 400 attended the meeting in Ottawa). They would have charged that he intended to reboot Jean Chretien's White Paper of 1969.

The White Paper, in keeping with Pierre Trudeau's Just Society, proposed that the Indian Act and the reserves be done away with so that all Canadians could be equal under the law. It was shelved due to opposition from the chiefs. The White Paper is remembered and reviled by many aboriginal leaders today as having been assimilationist and paternalistic. It's one thing for Atleo to say the Indian Act should be scrapped. It would be viewed as another entirely, within the aboriginal community, for Harper to do so.

Likewise Harper avoided the charged topic of private property. He touched a lot on economics, ("it is therefore in all of our interests to see aboriginal people educated, skilled and employed,") and did so in expressly conservative terms ("our goal is self-sufficient citizens and self-governing communities.") But he dodged the biggest economic issue of all, which is that most aboriginals living on reserve are deprived of the Canadian middle class's basic tool for creating wealth — building equity in a home.

Here again, Harper was probably wise to leave this alone, for now — because the pressure for greater access to private property is already bubbling up from within the native community, with reformers such as Chief Manny Jules, chief commissioner of the First Nations Tax Commission, leading the way. Had Harper pushed for it from his bully pulpit as prime minister, he would simply have coalesced opposition.

What's emerging is an oddly Canadian-libertarian approach to social reform: Put the principals in a room, listen, establish some basic ground rules (on the health-care file the rules were budgetary), then back off and let them find their own solutions. At the very least it avoids the suggestion that Ottawa is being a bully.

If it works in native affairs, even modestly, the potential political payoff for Harper is significant. For starters, it would establish that he has objectives that extend beyond minding the store. And it would raise his stock in centrist, vote-rich Ontario — still the key to his winning a second majority.

Harper calls for more 'modern' Indian Act

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper and National Chief Shawn Atleo both spoke of a renewed relationship Tuesday at the Crown-First Nations Gathering in Ottawa.

But when it came to specifics, the two leaders were slightly — maybe even completely — at odds. Harper said his government has no plans to repeal or rewrite the Indian Act, but Atleo said it is a painful obstacle to re-establishing any form of meaningful relationship.

Still, at the end of daylong meetings, which included 150 chiefs and 12 cabinet ministers, most chiefs said they were heartened by the dialogue and called the event an important first step.

Harper, who was expected to leave after the opening ceremonies, ended up staying through the day — a move Lake Huron Regional Grand Chief Isadore Day said showed "he was listening."

Day was part of a delegation of 30 chiefs who met with the prime minister Monday evening in an impromptu closed-door session on Parliament Hill.

"Last night had just as much, if not more, significance than today," said Bill Erasmus, Regional Chief of the Northwest Territories. "The prime minister heard directly from the leaders."

As for Tuesday's meetings, Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Stan Beardy said "a lot of beautiful words were spoken, but in terms of addressing the immediate needs of my people, there was nothing."

Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, expected the skepticism felt both by First Nations communities and all Canadians. In his opening speech, he said "the proof of our commitment will begin tomorrow, and in the weeks and months ahead, demonstrating that this time, this generation of leaders, will not fail to make the changes we all know are urgently needed."

He said the meeting was an important step in rebuilding a broken trust, and in renewing the partnership in the image of the first partnerships, which were built upon formal treaties entered into by two equal nations.

Harper said that co-operation on numerous levels is necessary to fully bring Canada's First Nations into the country's economy.

He said his government's approach will be to "replace elements of the Indian Act with more modern legislation and procedures, in partnership with provinces and First Nations."

Pam Palmater, a Mi'kmaq lawyer and commentator, said Atleo and Harper were speaking two different languages, and they had two different plans. She called Harper's plan of educating young aboriginals to bring them into the workforce "assimilationist," saying it would break up communities and take First Nations in the same direction they've been going for years.

Atleo, on the other hand, spoke about self-determination, getting back to treaty relationships and preserving First Nations communities, said Palmater. "There is no common understanding," she said.

Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said he was concerned the meeting hadn't yielded any promises from the government. "We're living in crisis right now in Manitoba, and I'm going home to that."

The prime minister called this meeting in early December in the midst of a dire housing crisis on Attawapiskat First Nation, as images flowed out of the remote James Bay reserve of children and the elderly living in shacks, without access to running water or toilets. Most of the community survives on welfare and, since the crisis, other chiefs have come forward saying their people face many of the same challenges.

"We need only to look to Attawapiskat, Marten Falls, Pikangikum, and St. Theresa Point — among dozen of other communities, on reserve and in our cities, to see the impact of broken promises, the pain of broken lives, the tragedy of lost opportunity," said Atleo in his speech. "Our people cannot wait."

For his part, Nepinak said he was hoping the government would announce a meeting with First Ministers and First Nations to talk about resource sharing. He would have been happy, he said, to hear the government promise to lift the two per cent funding cap on education, which was imposed in 1996.

Many chiefs said they had wanted to hear promises about a renewed treaty relationship, whereby First Nations would gain control over the natural resources on their territories and become part of the development process with the federal and provincial governments.

"We came here expecting a dialogue about our treaties. Instead I heard they want to train our young people to have jobs — to work for someone else," said Beardy.