Ovide missing from business session

Page 1

The election of a leader was all the business some chiefs were prepared to do at the Assembly of First Nations' convention July 5-7. Their lack of interest in a session where 21 policy resolutions were set to be discussed led to an early end to the three-day assembly.

Where as many as 460 chiefs gathered earlier that day to elect a national chief, only 130 showed up for the business end of the proceedings. Without a quorum, a large enough group to official form a decision-making body, the resolutions couldn't be formally discussed.

Among the most notable members of the assembly missing from the resolutions meeting was newly elected national chief Ovide Mercredi.

Dene Nation Grand Chief Bill Erasmus was angered by Mercredi's absence.

"Where is Ovide?" asked Erasmus. "We're here talking to ourselves. They said Ovide will change. Well, he hasn't."

Erasmus said the 21 resolutions were already drafted and many more would have been put forward if debate had been allowed.

"We're not impressed. On first appearance it looks like he came here to get what he wanted, which was to get elected, and then forgot the people." This session is where the chiefs give directions to the national chief before the next assembly, Erasmus said.

Erasmus was not alone in this condemnation of Mercredi. Matthew- Coon-Come, the high-profile environmentalist and grand chief of the James Bay Cree, also asked the assembly where no-show Mercredi was hiding.

"I want him to sit up there and listen," Coon-come said.

But other chiefs were more forgiving of the national chief, including Chief Alan Ross of Norway House in Manitoba.

"I'm a little disappointed that he's not here, but I also have to respect the fact that he is a high-profile leader and that he has obligations. Although his first obligation is to us, I respect that he has to address the concerns of the media," Ross said, referring to a number of interviews Mercredi had given that morning.

Those who did attend the session were frustrated by the rules guiding the assembly, which suppressed debate and held back the Native agenda, including defeated

candidate Wally McKay. McKay said meshing European and Native processes would never be successful.

"You often hear said 'Well, we're going it the white man's way again.' That's always going to keep coming up. You have to have the Aboriginal way of doing First Nations business."

A major overhaul of the AFN has to occur because the structure is strangling the process, said Ross.

"The Indian perspective, the First Nation perspective, the First Nation agenda has to be brought forward. There has to be a better way of doing business," Ross said.

The resolutions which were not attended to at the convention referred to issues such as free border crossing, gaming on reserves, unsolved murders, suicide and social issues and the right to health. All were weighty issues and many needed immediate response, said Ross.