Who speaks for Canada's aboriginals?

Article content

In early May, Shawn Atleo stunned federal political circles by abruptly announcing that he was stepping down as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the advocacy organization that says it represents more than 900,000 indigenous people in Canada.

Soon after, according to one friend, he jumped on his motorcycle and headed south.

“He is decompressing,” explained Grand Chief Doug Kelly of the Sto:lo Tribal Council in British Columbia. “When you have the kind of stress he had, it takes a while to unload that.

“And so he’s been riding his iron horse. He has a Harley Davidson. He loves that thing. He’s been letting the stress and anxiety go as he rides the highways of the United States.”

Balancing atop the pinnacle of First Nations politics would challenge any leader, but the “stress” that prompted Atleo, 47, the AFN’s national voice since 2009, to quit, included an internal revolt within the organization over his handling of the Conservative government’s bill to reform First Nations education on reserves.

Publicly, Atleo said he did not want to become a “lightning rod” distracting from the need to give aboriginal children a better education.

Privately, says Kelly, Atleo had gotten wind of a plan by some chiefs to assemble a group within the AFN — known as the Confederacy of Nations — to try to impeach him.

“That’s where they were going with this. Shawn saw that coming and he said, ‘Okay, this is no longer about the education of our children. This is about kill Atleo. This isn’t about kill the bill. This is about kill Atleo.’ ”

The former national chief hasn’t said anything publicly since he walked away from the job May 2.

But Kelly says Atleo was the victim of “partisan politics” within the AFN, an organization he says is riddled with aspiring leaders who are trying to achieve power and influence for themselves.

Nearly two months after Atleo’s resignation, the AFN is in near-shambles: without a leader, rife with internal turmoil, and facing a federal government that now won’t deal with it.

The consequences could be significant. Aboriginal issues — inadequate education and housing on reserves; the need for proper policing; the alarming rate of missing and murdered indigenous women; and concerns about the construction of pipelines — are important to all Canadians.

With the AFN now opposing the government’s education reform plan, the Tories have put the bill on ice – and taken a promised $1.9 billion in education funding off the table.

This has occurred despite the crying need for action. Aboriginal education is considered underfunded. Sixty per cent of First Nations youths in their early 20s do not have a high school diploma, compared with just 10 per cent among non-aboriginals.

The AFN says it represents First Nations people regardless of where they live (about 481,00 live on reserve, while 436,00 reside off reserve.) But the internal turmoil sparked by Atleo’s resignation has prompted a crucial question: Who, now, speaks for Canada’s aboriginals? Who do Prime Minister Stephen Harper or Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt negotiate with?

Among the harsh facts that have given aboriginal politics an unpredictable future:

• The AFN national chief has little real power as an advocate and must take his lead from 634 independent First Nations communities that comprise the assembly.

• The lingering political divisions that follow a leadership battle for AFN chief can be toxic, if not debilitating, a lesson learned by Atleo, who was elected by chiefs in 2009 and re-elected in 2012.

• Regional divides are brewing, in part because some First Nations have decades-old treaties they want upheld, while others, in places such as British Columbia, don’t have treaties. Moreover, some aboriginal politicians say B.C. has a disproportionate advantage in leadership races because it has a large number of chiefs representing small communities.

• A fundamental, polarizing debate is emerging among aboriginal leaders about the proper approach to dealing with Canada’s government. Some advocate collaboration; others take a hard line, coupled with threats of protests and civil disobedience that could affect the Canadian economy.

• Grassroots movements such as Idle No More, fed by social media, have shown that the AFN’s aboriginal leaders don’t have all the power. Increasingly, the chiefs must listen to their own people — particularly the fast-growing population of aboriginals under the age of 30. Although their disparate ranks don’t have a clear leader, they are growing in influence and are frustrated.

In hindsight, there were signs of the looming crisis years ago.

Hayden King, director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University in Toronto, says the AFN came into existence in 1982 as a “pan-Canadian” lobby group to push for enshrining aboriginal rights in the Constitution.

But, he says, the “pan-Canadian” approach hasn’t been as effective since then.

“First Nation politics is not dissimilar from regular Canadian politics. Just like Canadians who have diverse interests and a plethora or ideologies and perspectives, so do First Nation people.”

King, a member of the Beausoleil First Nation, says the AFN’s influence began to “crumble” years ago when it diverged from the desires of many native people by lobbying to reform federal legislation instead of flatly opposing it.

More recently, “I think the writing has been on the wall since the Jan. 11, 2013 meeting between the AFN and the federal government,” he says.

That was the day, following the Idle No More protests, that Atleo and some of the AFN executive met with Harper in his office across from Parliament Hill. Aboriginal leaders were deeply split. Some chiefs, including those from Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, refused to attend. Outside the building, thousands of aboriginals protested.

“I think that’s when you really started to see people viewing the AFN kind of like a puppet, to some degree,” says King.

“As an organization, it wasn’t really representing its people any more. So I think that the AFN is probably disintegrating.”

At a special assembly in Halifax next month, the AFN will decide when to hold a leadership race to replace Atleo. It will also face fundamental questions about its own relevance.

“I think if it’s not dead, it’s about to be dead,” Kelly says.

“When we allow our more vocal and angry chiefs to hijack the agenda, then we deserve it. Nationally, if we can’t stand up to that idiotic unprofessional behaviour, then our national organization deserves to die as far as I’m concerned.”

But Perry Bellegarde, Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, argues strongly that the AFN should not be disbanded — although he says it needs reform so it is “more relevant, responsive and respectful of our diversity.”

“We have to come together as First Nations leaders and citizens and stabilize operations,” says Bellegarde, who ran second to Atleo in the 2009 AFN leadership contest.

“The need for a strong national, collective lobbying and advocacy body remains. And it’s too important to put our heads to the side and say ‘Forget about it.’ ”

Former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin has accused the Conservative government of establishing a toxic environment of distrust — playing “wedge politics” by setting leaders like Atleo up for failure within AFN by not giving them sufficient time to arrange consultations within First Nations communities. The government says it genuinely consulted with First Nations, but chiefs complain it was just window dressing for a true consultation — noting that a draft bill was released to them last October and that the law was supposed to be in place for a new education system within a year.

Martin says it took 18 months of patient work for his government to eventually craft the $5-billion Kelowna accord in 2005 that included a commitment to pump $1.8 billion into aboriginal education over several years. (Harper abandoned the accord when he became prime minister.)

Martin argues the aboriginal education system is under-funded and says it is “disgusting” that Valcourt has pulled back the Tories’ promised $1.9 billion in funds for aboriginal schools because of the AFN’s troubles.

Valcourt declined an interview request. His spokesman released a prepared statement saying the minister was “extremely disappointed” the AFN “did not honour the agreement” on the education bill, C-33.

For now, the government is waiting for the AFN to pick a new national chief.

“As we have said all along, this legislation will not proceed without the support of the AFN and funding will only follow real education reforms,” said Valcourt’s prepared statement.

Earlier this year, it appeared the government’s plan — a centrepiece of its aboriginal affairs agenda — might find a willing partner in the AFN. Atleo seemed to have employed a clever strategy: Pushing hard last autumn for improvements to the initial plan; offering cautious approval alongside Harper in February when the $1.9 billion was promised; and ultimately planning to push for more amendments when the legislation was introduced in April.

But his efforts backfired. He was viewed by some as Harper’s pawn; some felt the Conservative government had not given him enough time to bring the reforms back to First Nations communities for their input; and there were lingering political tensions among Atleo and other AFN leaders.

Some chiefs say Atleo overstepped his mandate; others say he was merely pursuing a resolution the chiefs themselves passed at a special assembly in Gatineau, Que. last December to “advocate urgently and strongly” for Harper’s government to increase aboriginal education funding.

But senior members of the AFN executive say they were given less than 48 hours’ notice by the Prime Minister’s Office to appear with Harper and Atleo at an Alberta school on Feb. 7 to unveil the educating funding announcement.

They say that in the days leading up to Atleo’s resignation in May, aboriginal leaders were expressing concerns about how they felt the bill removed First Nations’ control over their own education, and how they had not been consulted.

Sorting through the fallout, Chief Joe Miskokoman, of the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation, near London, Ont., says it’s never been easy to lead the AFN.

“I do not know of any national chief that has had smooth sailing where everyone has held hands around the fire and sung Kumbaya. There’s always been dissonance, there’s always been people that disagree with a variety of approaches that national chiefs take.

“It’s a fine art of finding consensus.  That’s a very difficult centre ground to get to. And sometimes that ground is very narrow to stand on.”

However, Miskokoman says, these days it’s even harder to find that narrow ground. He says if there is a lesson to be learned in recent weeks, it’s this: the federal government must be patient if it wishes to work with aboriginals.

“The proper consultation on our end needs to have more time. We don’t act as the government of Canada where the PMO dictates something to the rest of cabinet and they follow though.

“We have a whole lot of independent-minded people that have a long historical basis of grievances on a number of issues, and there’s a deep-seated distrust of the government of Canada.”

mkennedy@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/Mark_Kennedy_

Aboriginal politics: the players

Shawn Atleo: The former AFN national chief has disappeared since his stunning May 2 resignation. But he is a passionate believer in the need for better education for aboriginal children.

Perry Bellegarde: He is chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) and is also a member of the executive of the AFN. He ran second to Atleo in the 2009 leadership race that took eight ballots and nearly 24 hours to complete. Many view him as a likely candidate in the upcoming race to be National Chief.

Derek Nepinak: He is Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations and was a major rival of Atleo’s. He refused to participate in Atleo’s meeting with the prime minister in early 2013 and later that year he organized a competing gathering of chiefs at the same time the AFN was meeting in Whitehorse. Given his criticism of the AFN, it’s unlikely he would run to be national chief, but nothing is certain.

Pam Palmater: She is a Mi’kmaq lawyer and activist from New Brunswick who is academic director of the Centre for Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University in Toronto. She ran to be AFN national chief in 2012 and finished second place, to Atleo. On the final ballot, she had 141 votes, compared to 341 for Atleo.

Bill Erasmus: He is Dene national chief and the Northwest Territories’ representative on the AFN. He ran unsuccessfully to be national chief in 2012 and has said after Atleo’s resignation he isn’t interested in running again. Still, he is an influential leader within the AFN.

Jody Wilson-Raybould: She is the regional chief of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations and a member of the AFN executive. A well-spoken leader, she is influential but says she’s not planning to run for AFN national chief.

Wab Kinew: He is the University of Winnipeg’s director of indigenous inclusion and is seen, at the age of 32, as a rising star among young aboriginals. He is known primarily for his work as a musician, and as a CBC broadcaster. He says he’s thinking about running for the AFN leadership.