OTTAWA – Now that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has agreed to participate in a meeting of First Nations representatives on Friday, the focus has turned to what might be accomplished at the gathering.
The Idle No More series of protests has seen highways and railways blocked over the past several weeks and a refusal by Theresa Spence, chief of the northern Ontario First Nation of Attawapiskat, to eat solid foods as part of a demonstration in Ottawa.
Late last week, Harper gave these protesters one of the many things they were demanding – a commitment of his presence at a meeting to discuss native issues.
In announcing this, the Prime Minister’s Office said the occasion is meant to follow the “the historic Crown-First Nations gathering held last January” in which commitments were made to continually work toward progress on a number of issues including treaty rights.
This week’s meeting will also focus on treaty matters, as well as economic development, the PMO said.
Tim Powers, a lobbyist with Summa Strategies in Ottawa with Conservative ties, said a challenge of the meeting will be to identify particular areas of priority and for all sides to recognize that not everything can be solved in one sitting.
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“If it’s treaty rights, that’s a longer-term process,” Powers said. “I think the prime minister’s inclination, and he’s stated this often . . . is to get stuff going on education, get stuff going on economic development and other training so that you’re actually making a meaningful difference in the lives of so many individuals who could avail of these things.
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“It’s an exercise in priority-setting and then a commitment to those priorities. I think the danger with these meetings is they become about every possible grievance or matter that people believe deserve attention, and that’s why things don’t get done.”
Powers acknowledged this kind of focused approach is not going to satisfy everyone and is unlikely to stop the Idle No More protests.
In an appearance Sunday on the Global News program The West Block with Tom Clark, Idle No More spokeswoman Pam Palmater said the people she represents need “an actual commitment to action” before the protests stop.
“So I think at this meeting, the best Prime Minister Harper could do is come in and say, ‘Listen, we’re going to put some good faith on the table and here’s what it is: we’re going to deal with the crisis in First Nation communities around lack of water, housing, sanitation, education, and we’re going to do that immediately. And then we’re going to set up a process – a longer-term process – to deal with how we’re going to deal with the lands and resources.’”
Spence issued a statement Monday saying some of the things she’s looking for from the federal government are that “legislation related to lands encoded in Bill C-45 must be rescinded as soon as Parliament resumes” and “there needs to be a process of resource revenue sharing for indigenous peoples.”
New Democrat MP Paul Dewar said Harper needs to use this week’s meeting as an opportunity to “reset” relations with natives. He said there needs to be something “other than the same kind of response we’ve seen from this government, which is dictating terms and not having a respectful relationship.”
An example of this type of approach, Dewar said, was imposing a third-party manager on the Attawapiskat community in late 2011 when that community’s sub-par housing conditions came to light, and then requiring that community to pay the manager’s fees.
“That was just adding insult to injury,” Dewar said. “The Conservatives have to prove they’ve learned a lesson (at this week’s meeting).”
Carolyn Bennett, aboriginal affairs critic for the Liberal party, expressed hope that real progress is made this week.
“I think that this an opportunity to begin a process where progress will be measured and there’ll be hard targets and that there actually has to be significant commitment in this meeting in order for it to satisfy Chief Spence and hopefully that we get back on track in terms of developing a meaningful and trusting relationship.”
Bennett said the government needs to spend more money on things like adequate housing, education and clean water for First Nations communities, though she did not speculate on what that amount might be.
Asked if this would cause resentment from others dealing with spending restraints by a government focused on deficit reduction, she said: “The core Canadian value, I think, is fairness. . . . I think that what this year has got to be about is to make sure that all Canadians, that the 96 per cent of non-aboriginal Canadians, are really able to understand really what is at issue here in supporting and working with the four per cent of First Nations and Metis Canadians who really aren’t prospering.”
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