The premiers said they were there to listen and the prime minister said he was there to act. But one chief said history will judge them by a different measure.
“History will not remember us for gathering in a room, taking photographs, making speeches,” Chief Sheldon Sunshine of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation in northern Alberta told Canada’s premiers and prime minister on Monday morning.
He paused for dramatic effect before adding: “History will judge us by what we change.”
And thus began the first Indigenous-focused first ministers’ meeting in 21 years — and the first such meeting in 119 years to focus solely on First Nations issues.
The group convened not on opposing sides but in a circle behind closed doors in Ottawa at the John G. Diefenbaker Building on Sussex Drive, where there was no shortage of calls for change.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew surprised reporters by holding up his Indian status card as he called to abolish the Indian Act. Prairie chiefs joined former national chief Matthew Coon Come demanding Canada revisit the 1930 Natural Resource Transfer Acts that handed control over resource development from the federal to provincial governments.
“If this first ministers’ meeting succeeds, it must come up with strong, concrete measures for next steps. If they don’t do that, then this is another meeting of just talks,” Coon Come told reporters.
Chiefs from Ontario called for constitutional amendments that would recognize First Nations as distinct orders of government. Grassroots activists protested outside, while inside Assembly of First Nations (AFN) leaders and Canada’s first ministers debated the country’s future.
As the meeting wrapped, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced both financial and political commitments. He said he shares Kinew’s view that the time has come to reform or even abolish the Indian Act and would direct his ministers to work with First Nations on a path forward.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said ‘there’s many reasons’ to move on from the Indian Act, speaking after Monday’s meeting between First Nations leaders and first ministers. Carney said the solution ‘could be moving beyond, it could be reforming, it could be abolishing’ the 1876 law in order to establish a modernized relationship.
He said he will instruct his finance minister to work with First Nations to develop new revenue-sharing mechanisms, including a potential sovereign wealth fund, which the AFN sought in one of its position papers circulated ahead of the meeting.
Carney also announced some proposed new spending, likely foreshadowing the Nov. 5 federal budget. This includes more than $2.5 billion over five years for emergency preparedness in First Nations communities across the country, and more than $630 million over four years for First Nations and Inuit policing.
In televised opening remarks earlier, Carney called it “sobering” that two decades have elapsed since the last such meeting, held when Paul Martin was prime minister in 2005. That meeting in Kelowna, B.C., yielded an agreement dubbed the Kelowna Accord.
“This is an important opportunity, yes, to share perspectives, to listen, to learn, but above all to commit to action,” Carney said.
But the meeting unfolded under a cloud of skepticism, the absence of three premiers and concerns from some chiefs that the Carney government is using the meeting as political cover for its streamlining of major infrastructure projects.
The day included a blunt address from the Algonquin Nation on whose unsurrendered land Parliament Hill now sits.
“Our nation is still waiting for justice,” Verna Polson, grand chief of the Algonquin Anishinabeg Nation Tribal Council, told the group.
In her opening remarks, AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said nation-building “can’t just be about ramming through major projects” as fast as possible.
“The national interests must also include the proposals, law and policy reforms that First Nations seek,” she said. “We have been persistent and patient, but we cannot afford to wait many, many years for results and implementation.”
Speaking at the opening of a historic First Nations and Canadian first ministers’ meeting, Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak says Indigenous rights ‘can’t be respected after the fact.’
Around 40 people gathered outside to protest AFN participating at all because it’s a federally funded national advocacy body elected by chiefs and not rights-holding grassroots people.
Russ Diabo, spokesperson for the Truth Before Reconciliation Network, told CBC News the Carney government is on the wrong track.
“What [Carney] should be doing is changing the way he’s interacting with First Nations and Canada and not using these administrative bodies that he controls like the Assembly First Nations,” Diabo said.
Reviews were mixed coming out of the meeting.
Cody Diabo, grand chief of the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke, left early, denouncing the meeting as all about “butterflies and rainbows” and not dealing with big-picture substantive issues. Hereditary Chief Na’Moks of the Wet’suwet’en Nation in B.C. felt the meeting was about finding “cheerleaders” for the federal agenda.
Others were more optimistic. Abram Benedict, AFN’s Ontario regional chief, said he felt good about the investments and potential creation of a wealth fund, but there was no firm pledge to hold these meetings annually, as the AFN requested.
“There seems to be a willingness, but there was no commitment,” Benedict said.
Carney said the right timeline for the next meeting is probably two years. Woodhouse Nepinak told reporters she was happy with the day and the tangible commitments secured.
