“The government through its contribution agreements is trying to get First Nations to sign onto [their policies] or else be cut from their funding,” said Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta.
Mr. Adam, who was in Ottawa last week with a group of Canadian and U.S. First Nations chiefs to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline going through their lands, told The Hill Times that the ACFN has refused to sign its contribution agreement worth more than $1-million because it doesn’t agree with the federal government’s omnibus budget implementation legislation and bills such as C-27, the Financial Accountability and Transparency of First Nations Bill.
“Some of the bills that were passed on Bill C-45 and C-27 are all put into our contribution agreement and we’re saying we’re not going to sign it because it hasn’t even gotten royal assent, it hasn’t even become law and yet they’re saying we’re breaking the law if we don’t sign it, so therefore the Canadian government is more ways than one manipulating First Nations into signing a contribution agreement which they need to provide programs to their First Nation. I don’t think it’s right,” Mr. Adam said.
He said, however, that some First Nations are reluctantly signing the agreements because they need the money even though they don’t agree with some of the conditions. “The First Nations are saying no to some stuff in there, and yet they’re signing into it through this contribution agreement, so what Canada will say is that ‘look, they have no issues because they signed the contribution agreement, everything we put forward, they’ve signed onto over here.’ Well, they’re blackmailing us into signing it. That’s what they’re doing.”
Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul’s, Ont.), her party’s aboriginal affairs critic, told The Hill Times that what the federal government is doing is “appalling” and asked about the issue during Question Period last Tuesday.
“Concerns are being raised by First Nations that new federal contribution agreements include a clause that prohibits challenging government legislation through the courts. Surely, the new minister understands how completely inappropriate it would be for the government to hold First Nations funding hostage to such an undemocratic condition. Will the minister confirm today whether any Government of Canada contribution agreements with First Nations contain a direct or indirect threat to bar their access to the courts?” she asked.
Conservative MP Greg Rickford (Kenora, Ont.), Parliamentary secretary to the Aboriginal Affairs minister, responded: “These accusations are completely false. Changes to the funding agreements are solely administrative and do not create new obligations for First Nations. Our department is in contact with concerned First Nations and encourages any First Nation with questions and concerns to contact its local regional office.”
When asked to comment specifically on these issues, Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt’s (Madawaska-Restigouche, N.B.) office repeated Mr. Rickford’s statement, and added that “there is no explicit or implicit funding condition in any of the current or pending departmental financial agreements with First Nations regarding either C-38 or C-45, both recently passed legislation.”
Mike Harris, a columnist with iPolitics.ca reported last week, however, that there were two Saskatchewan First Nations bands who also did not sign their funding agreements—the Peepeekisis Cree Nation and the Onion Lake Cree Nation.
“One of the council members took the whole appendix home and read it all. There were a lot of conditions never seen before. Some signed and some didn’t,” Christine Dieter, a First Nations woman in southern Saskatchewan, told iPolitics.ca.
Mr. Harris wrote: “The appendix allegedly requires the bands to support federal omnibus legislation and proposed resource developments as a condition of accessing their funding. Some bands have already signed the funding agreements out of necessity, noting that they did so under duress.”
With a new fiscal year starting, that means as of April 1, some First Nations will have no funds “because they did not sign the agreement,” Mr. Harris reported.
Mr. Adam told The Hill Times: “It’s for all First Nations, right across Canada that they’re doing it to.”
He said despite that revenue stream loss, the ACFN will continue to oppose the federal government.
“We’re going to be defiant and we’re going to say no to it … until the government realizes that they can’t continue what they’re doing. It’s too bad the way this government is. He brings no credibility when dealing with First Nations issues,” Mr. Adam said. “There’s no negotiation, it’s take it or leave it.”
NDP MP Jean Crowder (Nanaimo-Cowichan, B.C.), her party’s aboriginal affairs critic, told The Hill Times that the government’s behaviour does not match its rhetoric on starting a new relationship with First Nations.
“There doesn’t seem to be any negotiation there. If this is a government that says they’re interested in a new relationship, they want to have a respectful relationship yet they’re doing that kind of stuff?” she said. “It’s a major concern. … This is an unacceptable practice. The question then comes for the government that if First Nations refuse to sign these agreements and the government refuses to give them money, who’s going to pick up the cost around income assistance, all of those things that are there, what’s going to happen? We’re going to end up with a crisis here. It’s not bargaining in good faith. Unilaterally changing agreements, there’s nothing good faith about that. It’s shocking.”
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo said he shares First Nations’ concerns on the conditional funding issue. “There is a commitment to a renewed relationship which must ensure fairness, respect and long term sustainable financial arrangements,” he said in a press release. “[I] call on Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt to revoke these changes until a joint process is identified and implemented that respects the duty to consult with First Nations.”
AFN Atlantic Policy Congress co-chair and Acadia First Nation Chief Deborah Robinson agreed. “First Nation leaders are being forced to decide between asserting and defending their rights and the ability to provide basic community services,” she said in a release. “This is a significant step in the wrong direction and does nothing to support our joint commitment to a fundamental transformation in the relationship between First Nations and Canada.”
Ms. Bennett said that the government sees First Nations as adversaries, rather than partners. “It speaks to the way First Nations are feeling because this isn’t surprising in the language that keeps coming from the government, ‘we’re prepared to work with First Nations who are prepared to work with us.’ And because the large, large, large majority of First Nations aren’t really interested in this new property ownership approach, they are worried,” she said.
Ms. Bennett said the government’s actions are “intimidation” and “really misguided.”
Meanwhile, the international delegation of chiefs and hereditary leaders that were in Ottawa last week promised to continue to oppose oilsands development through their territories.
“The Canadian government is spending a lot of money and time in the United States saying the tar sands are environmental and well-regulated, but my community—the polluted air we breathe, the polluted water we drink, the miles of toxic lakes—is living proof the Canadian government is telling one long, expensive lie,” Mr. Adam said in a press release.
Representatives of the Yinka Dene Alliance, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, the Yankton Sioux Nation and the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Nation told reporters at the National Press Theatre last Wednesday that the corporations behind the resource projects allowed First Nations to come together around the world to stand up for their environment and traditional lands and sacred spaces. They said they would go to court if they have to.
“We must ensure a clean and healthy world for future generations by providing different solutions. Together we are more empowered than apart. Our resistance is strong and growing and we believe we will succeed,” Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation in British Columbia said in a press release.
Mr. Adam said it would be a “long hot summer” as First Nations’ protests increase.
Meanwhile, the government appointed Doug Eyford as a special adviser to the prime minister on First Nations issues, who will consult native communities and report back.
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.) made the announcement last week, stating that Mr. Eyford, a Vancouver lawyer and chief negotiator in B.C. land claims, has been asked to “think boldly and creatively about the types of economic benefit that can flow from resource projects to ensure that all communities share in the increased prosperity.”
Mr. Eyford told The Globe and Mail that his job is to “sell” resource development to aboriginal peoples but also to report their views to the Prime Minister.
AFN Alberta regional chief Cameron Alexis said in a statement that the appointment was “promising” but that “it will be critical to those [resource] projects and to the Canadian economy that First Nations people and concerns be addressed respectfully. … Our peoples need to be full partners in development.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: Bea Vongdouangchanh
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