Two hundred organizations buck AFN boycott

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Just over 20 per cent of the approximately 900 federally funded Aboriginal organizations in Canada are committed to participate in the First Nations governance act initiative spearheaded by Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault.

Nault revealed the number during an interview on June 8. He expects more organizations will decide not to go along with Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come's call for a boycott of the consultation.

More than 200 organizations have accepted or soon will accept federal funding to participate in the consultations. Many of those organizations are not of a political nature. Ministerial staff said the department has acquired $10 million in new funding from Treasury Board to pay for the process for this fiscal year. In addition, "INAC has internally reallocated significant additional resources to the First Nation governance initiative to deal with associated major internal costs," a fax from the minister's office stated. Though specifics about the amount of all money being allocated to the governance initiate was promised by the minister, they were not disclosed by INAC staff.

As Parliament breaks for the summer, the minister is hitting the road to talk up his new initiative. Details of what National Chief Matthew Coon Come will do to counter the minister have not been revealed.

During the June 8 interview, Windspeaker concentrated on questions dealing with money. Asked what the consultation process will cost, Nault responded: "I don't have the exact number but I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of about . . . between six and seven million (later revised to $10 million). But I can get you the exact number because I think that's a fair question and one that I'm concerned about answering for you right to the nickel."

Later, INAC provided a breakdown of its budget allocation to the regions. Atlantic, $342,773; Quebec, $588,125; Ontario, $1,192,757; Manitoba, $879,761; Saskatchewan, $874, 415; Alberta, $735,869; British Columbia, $901,955; NWT, $266,891; Yukon, $217,454.

The minister said those figures reflected the fact that the AFN was not participating.

"We had made some resources available to the AFN and they chose not to participate in the consultations," he said. "If there's no work-plan or no agreement on a joint initiative, I can't flow any funds to the AFN. So that changes the dynamics. I have entered into an agreement with the Native Women's Association of Canada. I think we've already signed an agreement with the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and so those resources are in the process of being transferred to those national organizations to participate. I think the friendship centres are already involved as well."

Those organizations complained loudly a few years back when INAC dealt almost exclusively with the AFN during Phil Fontaine's tenure. Now that the AFN is not co-operating with the government, the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction.

Dwight Dorey, chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, believes the off-reserve and non-status people he represents will benefit from his group's participation in the consultation process.

"It's absolutely crucial that my organization and the people we represent are included in the process since we have such a major stake in what may result," he said. "The provisions of the Indian Act have a direct effect on registered Indians living away from reserves and on many non-status Indians as well."

Although he said he'd rather see the government implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission regarding governance, he'll go along in the hope any changes to the Indian Act will benefit his constituents.

"Ideally, I'd like to see the Indian Act replaced entirely by legislation better able to deal with modern Indian needs and conditions and hope that perhaps substantive changes to the present act will be a step in that direction."

Funding negotiations with prospective participants are being handled through te regional INAC offices.

Windspeaker asked how much the organizations would retain of the funding they received to conduct a consultation meeting. Most funding agreements involve an administration fee the entity receiving the funding uses for expenses. It averages between 10 and 15 per cent.

"It wouldn't be your standard process that you're talking about. It would sort of be a hybrid of that," Nault said, without providing a specific answer to the question.

He was also asked to reveal if the department has hired or retained Native people to lobby in support of the initiative and if so, who they were and how much they were being paid.

He answered only in general terms, revealing that 26 people have been hired to work on governance at headquarters.

"We have put together a governance team in headquarters," he said. "That's the extent of the minister's involvement vis a vis individuals. Some of them are on contract and some already work for us in the department. In the regions, as I understand it, there are consultation teams, and the consultation team includes both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal and departmental and non-departmental and those people are getting paid, obviously. I couldn't tell you exactly how many are Native and non-Native but it would depend on the region.

Later the minister's press secretary, Nancy Pine, provided additional information.

"There are various regional teams working across the country," she said, "that are made up of employees working in lands and trust services, communications, First Nations employees and other directorates. But technically speaking, I guess you could say all employees are working on First Nations governance, as had been requested by the minister."

A big part of the political dialogue these days centres on who is working for the government and who isn't. Names of people who have been associated with the Liberal Party or are seen to be politically opposed to Coon Come are suspected or rumored to be helping the govrnment push its agenda forward. In response to our inquiries, departmental staff stated categorically that Phil Fontaine, Harold Cardinal, Chief Leon Jourdaine, Blaine Favel and others are not on the government payroll. Other than that, no specific answer in regards to who the department has hired was provided. But Nault confirmed he's looking for champions for his cause.

"We certainly are looking for what we call spokespeople to speak on behalf of the importance of this initiative," he said.

No grassroots groups have signed on yet, though the minister said he would welcome them. He said the organizations that will participate will be listed on the INAC website.

While many chiefs say the consultation process is flawed, Nault said he will insist that everything about it is open so there's no reason to suspect the government is manipulating the data.

"One of the things I did make quite clear at the very beginning of this exercise of consultation is that we would be completely transparent and open with our partners as to who we would be talking with, what we would be talking about-it's pretty much well known at this point-and we were going to follow through on the exercise of putting it on the web what the results of the consultation were in the different communities," he said. "Within 24 hours of the discussion of a consultation, you would be able to access that on the web. We want to implement change based on what we heard, not what some bureaucrat or some other individual might think we should be doing."

No national strategy has been revealed as of yet to counter the government activity. Chief Daniel LaForme of the Ontario Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation told Windspeaker he believes chiefs must get busy to counter what he called the "bad press" the chiefs are getting so far.

"We're going to try and address that ourselves," he said, saying his council will state its position on local radio and mail-outs to members.

LaForme believes INAC's website qestionnaire is vulnerable to manipulation.

"There's no way of monitoring who's responding," he said. "It doesn't make much sense to us what he says he's doing. He's talking about getting a lot of his reports from the internet. Who says who's calling on the internet? He said it's a different way of consulting but it's not consulting with the First Nation leadership. That's what we're asking for, consultation with us."

The chief accused the minister of using the mainstream press against First Nations by releasing salary information that inflames the public and doing it at a critical time.

"All he's doing is a public campaign to turn the average Canadian against First Nations," he said. "Well, let's put it this way. When you read comments about the average chief making $200,000, the average is not way up there. Myself, I make a little over $40,000 a year and that's it. I guess we're caught behind the eight-ball because we haven't been doing anything in the media. The Chiefs of Ontario and the AFN are talking about it."

If the minister wants to preach about openness and accountability, LaForme said, he should start by improving the way INAC accounts to First Nations for the way trust funds and administrative dollars aimed at First Nations get chewed up within the department. He could also explain to the chiefs how the government is so selective about exercising its fiduciary obligation to First Nations, he added.

"That's a major concern of mine.

"That's what the leadership has to understand in Canada. Nault is taking a paternalistic view, it's more of a hard line. When everyone's talking about how INAC is supposed to be there for the First Nations, to me it doesn't seem like it," he said. "They put those numbers out to the public and make it look like First Nations are living off the fat of the land. But a lot of it gets dealt out in administration before it gets down to us."

One after another, mainstream dailies have endorsed the Nault initiative in editorials