Trust. Integrity. Reputation.
1999 Windspeaker December Headlines
December - 99
Margaret Wapass of Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan helps her grandaughter Kihewahpoo awasis light a sweetgrass braid. "My littlest granddaughter, Kihewahpoo awasis, who loves to play with my braids and hair ties, understands Cree and follows me around the house when I light the sweetgrass and smudge. She will learn everything I know, follow in my footsteps and learn to walk well in both worlds."
Photo Credit: Pamela Sexsmith
Bad faith is still bad faith
Racial hatred lies below the surface
Budget surplus battle starts early
Government won't move on Peltier case
Vets threaten to end association with foundation
Women chiefs focus of academic study
Taste of freedom changed everything - Guest Column
Was it a good year to be Native? - Editorial
The above is only a partial list of all the stories featured in the December, 1999 issue of Windspeaker.
If you are not receiving your own copy of Windspeaker, then you have missed out on a great deal of news, information and humour.
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
GITANYOW TERRITORY, B.C.While the British Columbia Liberal Party and the federal Reform Party rage impotently against the imminent ratification of the Nisga'a Final Agreement in the House of Commons, chiefs of a people directly affected by the terms of the agreement have abandoned the political process and are preparing for the worst.
The Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs have already secured a legal decision in British Columbia Supreme Court that backs up their contention the provincial and federal governments are required by law to negotiate in good faith. This, the Gitanyow claim, doesn't allow the Nisga'a deal to be finalized while negotiations for a treaty covering the same land are ongoing with the Gitanyow.
As they await the results of their legal action in provincial court, the chiefs are also considering a similar legal action in Federal Court, but community members are preparing for a more dangerous fight.
"People are quite concerned and scared, in fact, of what will happen early in the year 2000 because of the serious impacts that have not been dealt with by either government," said Gitanyow chief negotiator, Glen Williams.
The appeal of the Luuxhon decision, rendered by the British Columbia Supreme Court in March, is scheduled to be heard in May 2000, long after the Nisga'a agreement is scheduled to achieve ratification in Ottawa. The ruling that Canada and British Columbia have an obligation to bargain in good faith is being challenged by both governments, who claim that treaty negotiation is like buying a used car - anything goes. The trial judge ruled that wasn't the case. The second phase of the Luuxhon trial, where the Gitanyow are asking the court to rule that, by negotiating with both the Nisga'a and the Gitanyow for the same land at the same time, Canada and British Columbia were bargaining in bad faith, has been delayed by the appeal.
"By granting lands and resources that are covered in our negotiations, the governments are negotiating in bad faith and are actually in breach of their fiduciary duty," Williams said.
The 2,000-member community, in which hereditary chiefs handle state and political matters and work closely with the elected council that handles administrative matters, is preparing itself for the worst. Williams said the members are prepared to use force to defend their traditional homeland.
"More and more, that's been discussed. How do we do it and when do we start? We feel so helpless and yet we watch on TV the debate going on and knowing what problems that we have had and now the government is giving more weight to the Nisga'a Final Agreement and giving it the legal effect come Jan. 1," he said. "That's less than two months away and yet here we are. We have to make plans of how we defend ourselves and how we'll exercise our rights on the territory. Some people are very firm in that they'll have to slaughter us or else summon the peacekeepers."
Asked if that meant a potential armed confrontation with their neighbors, the Nisga'a people, Williams said, "I certainly hope that's not the case. What we've been trying to say to government is we want peace on the land, so for the time being, amend the Nisga'a Final Agreement to exclude our lands and resources or else put those lands in abeyance until we've had our day in court. Our position has always been against the two governments. But it's very possible that our actions will have to be against the Nisga'a central government or the Nisga'a Tribal Council."
Gitanyow chiefs say their predicament has revealed some very disturbing facts about the British Columbia treaty negotiation process, something other Nations in the process are beginning to see as well.
Williams said the First Nations in the treaty process are coming to believe that the process is a trap. Government negotiators put off talking about the most essential issue - extinguishment - until the Native parties to the negotiation have invested so much time and effort and borrowed so much money to finance the negotiation process that they can't turn back.
"From our perspective, certainty should be discussed first and foremost and is the essence of any treaty or agreement with government, but they're really reluctant to talk about certainty, or another model of certainty that we've advanced with a recognition of who we are and how do we reconcile our interests with the Crown and how our rights will continue to be exercised, and work together," Williams said.
In mid-November, Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault met with First Nations Summit chiefs and seemed to verify Williams' contention when he told the chiefs that Cabinet wouldn't allow him to change the rules of the process to deal with complaints from the First Nations.
"People are getting very, very frustrated with the lack of mandates of government negotiators and the inability of Cabinet to consider revising their mandates," Williams said.
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Racial hatred lies below the surfaceBy Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
NORTH AMERICA"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth ."- Adolph Hitler.
Alarming examples of racial hatred are smoldering in various corners of the North American continent at this moment, ignited by fear, ignorance and more than a bit of resentment of gains being realized by Native people.
Threats to the status quo, as courts undo injustices left over from colonial days when Indigenous people were the victims of widespread, state-sponsored discrimination, have been met with angry resistance with an unmistakably racist tone. Facts seldom enter into any debate or discussion along these lines. The only recurring themes are hate and intolerance.
South of the 49th parallel, two very serious cases - incidents that could be called declarations of war against Native people - have surfaced in recent weeks.
On Nov. 5, the Syracuse (New York) Post Standard published a letter from a group that calls itself the United States National Freedom Fighters (USNFF).
The letter claims the group has 34 members (not identified) who are willing to "give and shed blood for what we believe."
The Oneida Nation has filed a land claim, backed up by the United States federal government, saying New York State illegally took 270,000 acres of Oneida land in the state's central region. USNFF clearly isn't interested in the facts of the case. They promise violence if they don't get what they want.
"Beginning in mid-November," the letter states, "we will begin the bloodshedding (sic). We will execute one Indian approximately every three days, starting Thanksgiving Day. We will also execute one U.S. citizen (from the upstate New York area) who is noticed by one of the USNFF members as a person who contributes to the Indian nation by supporting the casino and SavOn gas stations. Women will not be spared. Those who contribute to the Indians are traitors, not worthy of sympathy."
The Oneida's Turning Stone Casino has been the subject of bomb threats by this group as well. Meanwhile, a Native-owned Rosebud, South Dakota newspaper, The Sicangu Sun Times, reprinted a pamphlet on Oct. 15 that appeared to be issued by the state's Game, Fish and Parks Department. Government officials deny any connection, but the content shows just how vicious the anti-Indian sentiment is in that region.
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the only Aboriginal member of the U.S. Senate, read the pamphlet into the Senate record and recorded his "anger and deep disappointment."
"The 'ad' which resembles a run-of-the-mill hunting and fishing season announcement, was located in the editorial section of the newspaper," the Senator said. "The 'ad' went on to outline the rules for 'Indian Hunting Season' in the state of South Dakota, including a limit on the number of Indians a 'hunter' was allowed to kill and the approved methods for killing them.
"I cannot express to you the anger and deep disappointment I felt when I read this ad because for those of you who think anti-Indian sentiment is a 'relic of the past,' I urge them to read this product of a twisted and hateful mind."
The ad began with a reference to the fact that the big game hunting season was cancelled because recognition of Indian hunting rights had left fewer animals for sports hunters to harvest. The rest of the document is designed to suggest that Native people should be hunted in place of the animals.
Hunting and fishing groups come into conflict with Native people in every corner of the continent because courts have recognized that Indigenous people have long-established legal rights to practice their traditional subsistence lifestyles. Many non-Native hunting groups oppose any recognition of these rights and complain that Native people shouldn't be given special rights.
On Oct. 3, there was a violent confrontation on the waters near the Burnt Church First Nation in New Brunswick. The issue there was lobster fishing and a Supreme Court of Canada decision that ruled that local Native people have the treaty right to fish, hunt and gather.
The Marshall decision prompted Mi'kmaq and Maliseet people to take to the waters to share in a very lucrative resource. Non-Native fishermen reacted strongly to this development. One Native person was injured in the Oct. 3 confrontation. Dozens of criminal charges resulted.
Rather than accepting a high-court analysis of the law of the land, commercial fishing groups appealed to the Supreme Court to change its decision. On Nov. 18, the court said it would not, although it issued an unprecedented clarification of its decision.
National Chief Phil Fontaine welcomed the court's response.
"It was the right decision. We knew the Supreme Court would not re-open the case," he said. "When the federal government was thinking out loud about the possibility of calling on the Supreme Court to suspend the decision or put it in abeyance, we knew it was unrealistic or impractical. We knew that the Supreme Court would never consider that seriously. That kind of commentary just caused us all kinds of unnecessary difficulties. One of the results of that kind of public musing was the action by the commercial fishers in the Atlantic.
"So we're pretty pleased. I think the structured process that the Atlantic chiefs had agreed to with the federal government will now be able to proceed unimpeded by this particular group. Our initial analysis shows that the court has restricted the application of the decision."
Fontaine believes a lot of the unrest in the region was created by the federal government's response to the decision.
"It's really interesting that the commercial fishery reacted as they did. One of the reasons they did so was because the governments, particularly the federal government, was so ambivalent when the decision was rendered," he said. "Instead of coming out and celebrating the decision and saying, 'we accept the decision that this is a constitutionally protected treaty right, and governments do not have the authority to go and seek from the courts to suspend or hold a decision in abeyance and that should never be when it comes to treaty rights.' We've made that very clear in letters to [Justice Minister] Anne McLellan and the prime minister."
The national chief believes the government has a duty to embrace court decisions such as Marshall and take steps to head off the inevitable backlash.
"We made that point in a number of discussions with Minister Dhaliwal, particularly. We expressed the same view in letters to the Justice minister and the prime minister," he said. "We expressed some very serious concerns about the ambivalent position taken by the government regarding this decision. We had hoped that they would be more forceful in supporting the decision. I mean, the highest court in the land had spoken out very clearly about this constitutionally protected right and there was an obligation and a responsibility on their part, either jointly with us or on their own, to go out and set the record straight."
The government did not take any concrete action in this area, leaving the mainstream press to deal with the fallout. That meant the majority's resentment of minority rights was left unchecked in the national press, which did not distinguish itself with balanced reporting of the issue.
"You'll recall, there were a number of editorial pieces in the National Post and Globe and Mail that was, in the main, a misrepresentation of facts. They didn't get their stories right. People didn't know that when the lobster fishery was fully operational we were talking about, at a minimum, about a million lobster traps in the waters," Fontaine said. "What did the Aboriginal fishers represent in terms of traps? Four to six thousand. And that represented less than one per cent of the total catch, right, and it's an industry that's valued at between $315 million and $350 million. It's really, a clear expression of greed on the part of the commercial fishery, there. They didn't want to share with anyone, but especially share with our people. At least that was the initial reaction, but once the chiefs staked out their position - the voluntary shutdown of the fishery - they were prepared to sit down in a reasonable fashion to try to arrive at a satisfactory arrangement. It kind of turned things around. There was a more positive reaction from the other side.
"I thought that took tremendous courage on the part of the Atlantic chiefs. They acted with a lot of foresight and all kinds of generosity and kindness towards the people who have been denying them their right and that turned things around."
Windspeaker asked Fontaine directly if he thought the government intentionally allowed public outrage to build by not strongly embracing the court ruling. His answer showed he was not prepared to make that accusation.
"We made it very clear to the prime minister and to the Justice minister that is was important that the government be very clear in their support for the decision. The fact that they were ambivalent caused unnecessary problems and in future in similar situations they should be more positively forthcoming in their comments," he replied.
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Budget surplus battle starts early
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
OTTAWAFinance Minister Paul Martin won't give his much-anticipated budget speech until February but the political maneuvering has already begun in every corner of Ottawa and around the country.
In the budget, Martin is expected to announce details of how the Liberal government plans to distribute a $100 billion fiscal surplus. Staff members in every ministry and every interest group in the nation's capital are scrambling to put their pet projects front and centre as the finance minister makes his final decisions.
In the previous budget, then Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart (since shuffled off to Human Resources Development) was able to convince Martin to set aside more than $500 million for Indian Affairs programming. At that time she credited Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Phil Fontaine for effectively lobbying cabinet ministers and persuading them the money was needed.
In what may have been a pre-emptive strike against a repeat of that success, the Globe and Mail published a front-page story in early November that stated it would cost the federal government $200 billion "to give Natives all that they're asking for." Fontaine labeled the language used in the article as an attack on First Nations interests.
The use of those particular words creates the impression that Aboriginal people with claims for compensation for sexual and physical abuse in government-run residential schools (an estimate of the cost of settling some 2,000 or more such cases was included in the $200 billion figure) were asking for a handout.
A more accurate description of that process might have included the fact that these victims have a legal entitlement to compensation. This compensation has nothing to do with their race (except for the fact that it was their race that exposed them to the abusive situations in the first place) or the budget of the Department of Indian Affairs, many Native leaders noted upon reading the story.
During a Nov. 18 phone interview, Fontaine said he and his media relations advisors had been in touch with several mainstream publications to set the record straight.
"We think there's a concerted attack against First Nations interests," he said. "That is being expressed in different ways. One of them, of course, is the story about the $200 billion package. The article said 'to give Indians all that they're asking for.' There are other stories that talk about all of the monies that are being wasted on Aboriginal economic development initiatives. It's reflected in the Calgary Herald story about the extra billion dollars that First Nations receive and yet First Nations are getting further and further into debt and there are more and more First Nation communities in deficit positions."
Fontaine and three staff members met with the editorial board of the Ottawa Citizen on Nov. 17.
"This is a gathering that has been a long time in coming. The reason we had asked to meet with the editorial board was our very serious concern that the editors of the Citizen, together with all the papers that are owned by Conrad Black, had undertaken a concerted attack against First Nations people. They've done so by concentrating on the most negative aspects of . . . or the most negative situations in our communities. Whether the story was true or not, it didn't seem to matter to the Calgary Herald, the National Post or the Citizen. They ran these stories without factual information in many situations, or, where they had facts, they misrepresented these facts. So we took advantage of yesterday's meeting as an opportunity to try and counter some of the myths and misconceptions that are held by journalists, especially those that work for Southam News," he said. "We feel pretty good about the exchange. There was an acknowledgment on their part that they've been wrong in the past and they will accept the offer that we've extended to them that they can call us anytime to check out their facts."
Fontaine then extended the same offer to the Aboriginal press, creating a long moment of uneasy silence among the half-dozen reporters involved in the conference call press conference, many of whom have had many requests for information rejected or ignored by AFN staff or First Nations officials.
"I would hope that the kind of commitment that we secured from the Ottawa Citizen will be forthcoming from you people. You have a particularly major responsibility resting on your shoulders and we really want to be able to co-operate with you to the fullest extent possible. We accept our responsibility that public education, public information is . . . indeed an obligation. And we want to be able to do that right. Communications is one of our mandates. It's a very big priority with the AFN and in order to meet expectations we need to work closely together," he said.
Fontaine said it's time to remove the stereotypes and pre-conceptions from coverage of First Nations politics. He noted that public governments may have debt situations that make First Nations seem exceptionally responsible but reporters in the mainstream press don't write stories that suggest Canadians aren't fit to govern themselves, a common theme in critical stories about Native governments.
"When people talk about the debt of First Nation governments and the fact that you have more First Nations that have third party management. You can bring forth those kinds of criticisms but they have to be balanced, in my view," he said. "I mean, Canada has a debt of $550 billion. This is the federal Crown."
While making these points and trying to quell what he sees as unfair coverage of his attempts to gain increased funding for First Nations and Aboriginal programming, Fontaine also revealed he is discussing several new ideas with Cabinet ministers. He said he will try to convince the finance minister that outstanding land claim settlements should be included in any calculation of Canada's debt. This strategy, if Martin buys into it, could mean that a significant chunk of the $100 billion surplus that is ear-marked for debt reduction would be destined for settling land claims.
"We've argued that part of Canada's debt includes the many outstanding liabilities related to land, whether we're talking about comprehensive land claims or specific claims," he said.
Fontaine said he is lobbying to change the way monies are allocated to First Nations. The AFN has taken Corbiere, a court decision that first seemed to be critical of its member chiefs for excluding off-reserve members from band elections, and used it to develop an argument that First Nations need to control all funding for Native people.
"Once people participate in an electoral process, in this case the First Nations electoral process, there's an expectation that their governments will be responsible for them in terms of delivering services and programs," he said. "So, we see Corbiere as being more than about the right to vote in band elections. It's about their government and how their governments represent their interests regardless of residency. It's one of the major items in the upcoming Confederacy meeting on Dec. 7, 8 and 9 here in Ottawa. We're really talking about a new fiscal relationship so that our governments are in a position to receive transfer payments that now go to the provinces without any references to First Nations people. We're talking about a significant transfer here because it's a per capita transfer. I don't think we're necessarily talking about more money, we're talking about a more efficient use of money meaning it ought to be directed to First Nations so that we can actually deliver programs and services to our people regardless of residency."
The national chief confirmed that he and his staff see the upcoming budget as a crucial next step in advancing the First Nation cause. It would also be a huge gain for First Nations governments, which typically collect a 10 per cent administration fee from all funding allocations received.
"We've been making the rounds here in town. We're working the room, as they say. We've met with the minister of finance, the prime minister's office, we've met with various ministers. I just spoke to the deputy ministers of the federal government last week," he said. "I just spoke to the Conference Board of Canada, a number of CEOs from major corporations in Canada. We're trying to get support from different sectors: private, government, other interest groups. There are others that are supporting our propositions, including the Royal Bank, who met with the minister of finance and suggested to the minister that the federal government has to deal with the Aboriginal issue because, as the report from the Royal Bank said, the cost of doing nothing is significant."
Fontaine said the government decision makers need to be shown that First Nations are on the right track before significant gains can be made. He believes he has the ammunition to meet that objective.
"What we need to do, you see, because these people here in the centre, the people who make the decisions - Finance, Treasury Board, PCO (Privy Council Office) - the questions they ask us are 'What value are we getting for the money that we've allocated for First Nations? Are you going to come back to us in 10 years with the same story if we give you what you're asking for?'" he said.
"Of course, the fact is what we're seeking is a fair allocation of government resources including the projected $95- to $100 billion surplus. It is easier to sell or market our position if we can talk not only about all of the impediments - the housing crisis or the health crisis or the terrible job situation or the infrastructure problems that result in 80 per cent leakage . . . of the $7 billion that's allocated for First Nations or Aboriginal people, there's 80 per cent leakage. That means all of the goods and services that need to be purchased in First Nations communities are purchased on the outside. We should be talking about how, in spite of these incredible impediments, we've been able to succeed."
One of the more impressive gains the national chief pointed to was the fact that the number of Native post secondary students has risen over the last 30 years from 80 to 27,000. He also mentioned that there are now 20,000 small business owned and managed by First Nations members.
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Government won't move on Peltier caseBy Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
OTTAWAJustice Minister Anne McLellan released a report on Oct. 12 that concludes Canadian authorities followed proper procedure in the extradition of Leonard Peltier.
Peltier, an American Indian Movement member who was charged in the 1976 shooting of two FBI agents on the reservation at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, fled to Canada to escape prosecution. It has long been believed American authorities fabricated testimony to extradite Peltier to the U.S. He is currently fulfilling a life sentence for the crime.
In 1994, Erin McKey, a former Crown prosecutor who was working for Justice at the time, was brought to Ottawa to perform an independent review of the case. Her report, completed in May of that year, concluded the government had handled the extradition properly and that justice had been done. Five years later, under pressure from NDP MP Peter Mancini and others, McLellan released the report to the public in an attempt to prove the government had no need to re-open the case.
Within days, former Cabinet member Warren Allmand released a point-by-point dissection of McKey's report. Allmand, a former Trudeau-era minister of Indian Affairs and Solicitor General of Canada, also released a copy of a letter he wrote in 1995 to then Justice Minister Allan Rock.
Previously, Allmand had refused to release his letter, saying his Privy Council oath prevented him from doing so.
"I felt that by releasing my letter, I wasn't revealing any fact that [McLellan] hadn't already released," Allmand told Windspeaker. "So, I spoke to people in her office and said I'm going to release it and they said, 'Well, that's up to you.' I said there's nothing in my letter . . . you know, if the department or the government goes after me, I'll argue there was nothing in my letter, as far as revealing facts was concerned, that wasn't already revealed by her."
Now director of the Montreal-based International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, Allmand has been actively pressing the government of Canada since the late 1970s to re-open the Peltier case. Allmand believes, after being allowed by Minister Rock to thoroughly examine all departmental records concerning the case, that the FBI submitted false and misleading information to the court during Peltier's extradition hearing.
Myrtle Poor Bear, a woman who lived on the Pine Ridge reservation at the time of the shooting, made three statements to police. Two of those statements claimed she had seen Peltier shoot the agents. The other, completely contradictory statement said she wasn't at the scene at all and didn't see anything. The Vancouver court that granted the FBI's request that Canada turn Peltier over to them, didn't get to see the third statement and was not aware of its existence.
"My bottom line is that if the three affidavits had been before Judge Schultz, there wouldn't have been any extradition. And their suggestion that he considered circumstantial evidence . . . he didn't really because he thought with the two affidavits he had, he didn't really have to look at it," Allmand said.
A lawyer himself, Allmand said the Justice department review is marred by the type of error criminal prosecutors are known to make.
"They're saying, 'If we were the judge and we had these three things before us, we would have still extradited.' Well, they weren't the judge and the person advising them is advising them like a Crown prosecutor. As I put down in my letter to Rock, Crown prosecutors have a tendency always to think they have a better case than they have. They have a certain amount of circumstantial evidence and they go to court and they lose. They don't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. And Erin McKey was a Crown prosecutor," he said.
Reading between the lines of both reports - Allmand's and McKey's - a picture of manipulation and deceit with the intent to railroad the Native activist begins to emerge. Both reports deal with the possibility the late Paul Halprin, a Canadian Department of Justice lawyer who was appointed to argue the FBI's case during the hearing, was aware of the contradictory Poor Bear affidavit.
"He insisted to the very bitter end that he did not know. The officials at the Department of Justice say he did not know and the American officials are divided - one said he did and the other said he didn't," Allmand said. "One official said he travelled down and looked at the three [affidavits] and he gave advice as to what they should do. Knowing how the FBI operates, I can't see them doing what a middle range Canadian official suggests. I would speculate that even if Halprin was there and he knew, they would say, 'Here's what we want to do. You make sure it fits.'"
Allmand pointed out contradictions in the McKey report.
"At one point she said it was hard for her to find out about circumstantial evidence at the extradition because very little was said about it, then later on she says there's all kinds of things to be said about it. Reading between the lines, you can trip her up," he said.
The former Cabinet minister did not want to answer "yes" when asked if he believed the Justice review made up its mind what its findings would be and then set out to justify those findings. But he did say that it's obvious to him, based on the inconsistencies in the report, that a close look was not taken.
"'If you try to say they didn't look at it, [McLellan] will argue that they did look at it. They had this internal review and they looked at it afresh. We're saying it wasn't done independently and now we're asking for an independent external review. We're looking at ways now where, if the government won't finance it, we'll try and finance it ourselves. We're talking to people in the Canadian Labor Congress and other trade unions who might help," he said.
As an exceptionally experienced political veteran, Allmand was asked to speculate about possible reasons why the government is not willing to revisit a decision made more than 20 years ago.
"I think it's - I'm speculating because nobody really knows what led [McLellan] to her decision - that the people who originally advised former ministers of Justice, who are responsible for the original opinion, are still there and she doesn't have the time to really go to the bottom of the thing herself. So when push comes to shove, she says to her senior officials, 'Well, what should I do?' They say, you should stick with the same position we've had for the last 10 or 15 years,'" he said. "Once they've taken a position, they hate to admit they're wrong. I convinced Rock that he couldn't rely on them and I guess they didn't like that. I said, 'You can't rely on your senior officials because they're going to tell you the same thing and this thing stinks and you should take an independent look at it.'"
Asked if the Canadian government was showing undue deference to what appears to be American wrongdoing in a Canadian court, Allmand said he'd anticipated that possibility.
"I knew from the beginning when I was pressing for this over the last year or so that they'd have to go through the Department of Foreign Affairs. If you're going to criticize any government in the world, whether agriculture or justice, you've got to clear it there. So I raised it with [External Affairs Minister] Lloyd Axworthy and sent him all the materials, too, saying you may be getting an approach from the minister of Justice about this case. I was optimistic at that time. I said I want you to know I wouldn't want you to turn it down if she says go ahead. But it didn't get to that point," he said. "Whether the reason is they don't want to embarrass the United States, I don't know. In my letter to Axworthy, I said this shouldn't cause you any trouble because you just criticized the execution of Faulder, the guy from Alberta. Lloyd Axworthy intervened with the United States Attorney General and with the governor of Texas, saying you shouldn't do this, you broke the law, you didn't follow the treaty and advise us at the time of the trial, so he shouldn't be executed. If you do that in that case, here we have a case where the Americans put phony affidavits before our courts. Surely you can criticize them here."
Since the federal government has no interest in pursuing this case, Allmand is looking at other options.
"We've got to try and build up public opinion in favor of doing something because if it's just two or three of us saying something's wrong here, we know the politicians won't move," he said. "Also, we're still examining ways of taking this before UN human rights bodies. It happened in the Lovelace case. That certainly changed . . . when the UN committee on human rights said there was discrimination against Canadian Aboriginal women in the Indian Act, you know, they never budged before but they amended the act within months. You have to prove that you've exhausted every remedy in Canada, and the Americans haven't ratified the optional protocol for the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, so an American cannot go to the human rights committee. It would have to be a Canadian. How are we going to connect a Canadian having an interest? In other words, Peltier himself couldn't do it. Could somebody go to the committee saying they have a grievance when the grievance is really Peltier's? It's a technical thing. There may be some way of doing it but it's not obvious to me right now. If the Americans had ratified it, Peltier could go because he's exhausted every remedy there, but the Americans don't want anyone going to a body outside the United States."
National Chief Phil Fontaine told Windspeaker his organization also intends to pursue the matter beyond the federal announcement that it would not take further action.
"We passed a resolution, as did the National Congress of American Indians, in Vancouver in July that speaks to the issue of the Leonard Peltier case. There are a number of other cases where our people were wrongfully incarcerated. When we were in Washington [D.C.] last week," he said on Nov. 18, "I spoke to the senior counsel of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, as well as one of his long-time supporters. We agreed that AFN would be a part of the defense committee and, in fact, we'll be part of the delegation that will go and meet with Mr. Peltier anytime now between November to January. We have to set our date and we will assign one individual within our office to co-ordinate the Peltier case. I will be going between now and January."
Vets threaten to end association with foundation
By Len Kruzenga
Windspeaker Contributor
WINNIPEGThe president of the National Aboriginal Veterans Association (NAVA) says the group is poised to publicly sever all association with the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards Foundation (NAAF) after repeated attempts by the group to actively participate in the Aboriginal Veterans Scholarship Trust Fund were rebuffed by foundation founder and chairman John Kim Bell.
"He trots us out at the annual awards ceremonies, but that's the extent of our participation. It's all show and we're tired of being dictated to by him," said veterans' group president, Claude Petit.
The dispute, he said, has been ongoing since the veterans scholarship was established in 1997 and the foundation was selected by the federal government to administer the scholarship program
"Our organization was never consulted in a meaningful way about how the veterans wanted to see this thing done. We've been trying ever since to have someone from the NAVA executive sit on the board or even be part of the scholarship awards' selection committee but we've been denied a place at the table."
The foundation oversees the selection of recipients and disbursement of more than $100,000 in scholarships each year from interest received on the original $1.1 million endowment fund provided for the veterans' scholarship fund by the government of Canada.
The foundation and its president are not strangers to controversy, having been publicly rebuked by Aboriginal artist and political activist Buffy Sainte-Marie in the past for staging what she deemed to be a Hollywood portrayal of Aboriginal culture, as well as by several members of the Aboriginal media for playing exclusively to mainstream audiences while neglecting the grassroots Aboriginal constituency.
And like in those past public skirmishes, Bell dismisses the complaints as misinformed and misguided.
"I think they're [NAVA] manufacturing difficulties and that's unfortunate," he said. "We were selected based on our merit. We agreed to take several Aboriginal veterans on the board of directors, which we did, and those veterans serve on a rotation basis on the national jury."
However, none of those veterans are members of NAVA said Petit, who adds that his group's concerns over the foundation's administration of the fund run far deeper.
"They charge the scholarship fund a 15 per cent administration fee that goes directly into the coffers of the NAAF and they treat our group as if we haven't any right to be a part of something set up as a legacy for the Aboriginal veterans.
"Our voice is treated as if it were irrelevant and it's a slap in the face to our members who have faced this type of disrespect and discrimination when they returned from the service and were denied their rights or had their rights stripped away from them. This fund was set up by the government to make partial amends for the way Aboriginal veterans were treated and yet now we're being treated in the same high-handed fashion, but this time by another Aboriginal group - our own people for Christ's sakes."
Petit particularly bristles when discussing NAAF head John Kim Bell.
"He talks to me as if I don't know anything."
Proof of that, said Petit, occurred during last spring's annual awards ceremony when Bell demanded that Petit's remarks in announcing the scholarship award winners follow a pre-written script.
"That was it. It became clear to me then, finally, that he wants to use us whenever the publicity can be used to legitimize their work and the ego of Bell, but that's the extent of the involvement he wants from our group. He didn't even want me to make any of my own remarks. It's a sham.
We're tired of it and will be looking to publicly disassociate ourselves from the NAAF Veterans Scholarship Trust Fund."
But Bell says the veterans group's desire to claw back control of the scholarship fund ignores the reality that NAVA lacks the expertise to administer it.
"We are the experts at delivering that. We have professional educators and we do a lot of research. We do an incredible job. We've been in discussions constantly with the federal government who have evaluated that we do a very first rate job.
"The interest earned by the Aboriginal Veterans' Scholarship Trust was enhanced. In the first year out of $1.1 million, we earned about $130,000, but we actually gave out $263,000 in the name of Aboriginal veterans. And it's because we are a fundraising organization and no other organization including the National Veterans organization would be able to do that because we have the private support going for it."
Bell is clearly perplexed by Petit's complaints.
"There is no legitimate basis or reason that they should complain. We offered Mr. Claude Petit to be on our board and he refused. Instead they sort of made an interesting power play to go to the federal government to say 'take the fund away'."
Bell said it is doubtful any group could match his organizations level of success, citing the foundation's track record of fund raising $6 million a year and disbursing nearly $2 million in scholarships through the various funds it administers.
"We are perhaps the most successful Aboriginal organization in the country. I mean, we are raising $6 million a year. We are giving out almost $2 million a year in scholarships with a staff of only about 12," he said. "And we have about 300 regular corporate supporters. They [NAVA] simply want the fund to do with it as they please. When they realized that they gave it away they had a problem with it.
"Mr. Petit tried this last year and went to Indian Affairs, he made complaints and they investigated us and everything turned out that we were administering the fund properly."
The president of the Manitoba chapter of NAVA says it will support any move by their national office to disassociate themselves from the foundation.
"We don't have a real voice on the board that administers a veterans scholarship fund so why should we just go along with it all. If they don't want us to be part of it then fine. We just want everyone else to know it then, that we aren't involved or affiliated with the fund in any way," said chapter president, Dale Lamoreaux.
Petit says he will be making a formal motion to end all association with the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation at the group's next executive meeting slated for the end of this year.
"It could potentially hurt the foundation's image among the public and would take away from the tremendously important and vital work that the foundation does. We're willing to sit down and meet with them (NAVA) to try and address their concerns," said Bell.
Public relations consultant, Blake Donner, said a highly public row could erode some mainstream corporate sponsorship of the foundation.
"Let's face it, corporate Canada wants to be involved in things that don't have any negative whiplash so if this public split happens they won't want their company names associated with something the public might identify as negative," he said. "And if the NAAF sees that corporate support for them is either slipping or becoming more hesitant, they may decide to give up administering the Veterans Scholarship Trust Fund and turn it back over to the government because it becomes more trouble than it's worth."Women chiefs focus of academic study
By Joan Black
Windspeaker Writer
CALGARYDr. Cora J. Voyageur, a member of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., is undertaking a unique sociology research project at the University of Calgary.
Her study, First Nation Women and the Traditional Leadership Role, will involve interviewing female chiefs across Canada to find out how they think they're doing in what she says has been viewed as a male role since the Department of Indian Affairs instituted elections on reserves.
The three-year project, slated to be in full swing in January 2000, will involve as many current and former female chiefs as are willing to participate. She will conduct interviews in person and via the telephone, with the help of a research assistant. Her subjects will be located from Indian Affairs records, the Assembly of First Nations and provincial organizations. Voyageur says she will monitor election records to ensure no chiefs are overlooked.
She will ask First Nations organizations to help assemble focus groups of women chiefs in several regions of the country, "to talk about issues they have to deal with in their role as chief.
"I guess what I'm particularly interested in is knowing whether they think that gender makes a difference," Voyageur explains. "Also, I'm interested in knowing what's changing in the communities. Until fairly recently women have been in, and some cases still are in, relegated positions in the Aboriginal community and this is an opportunity to let others know that there are leaders out there and that these leaders are women," she said. Voyageur poses the question, "What is it about a community that causes them to take a chance on a woman?"
Voyaguer notes that since the first woman chief, Elsie Knott, was elected in Ontario in 1954, First Nations women have been increasingly seen in leadership positions. In 1990, there were only 40 women chiefs; now 87, or about 14 per cent, of the 633 First Nations chiefs are women. Despite the high rate of increase, Voyageur's preliminary research reveals "a definite male bias." It indicates women are still seen as an anomaly in leadership positions. Not only that, but when the leaders are male, so-called "women's issues" such as daycare and family violence often have a low priority.
She'll ask her subjects if their lives have changed since they became chiefs. And she'll examine whether they do the job differently than men or if others relate to them in the role of chief differently than if they were men. Voyageur wants to know if being female influences their ability to do the job or if it affects their ability to implement community changes.
"For instance, how are they treated by business, by Elders or by government? Do people expect different things of women leaders - how do they manage their domestic duties?" Voyageur asks.
She'll also examine the circumstances of women who were chiefs at the outset of the project but who leave office for any reason before it is completed. Finally, she wants to compare experiences of women chiefs who previously held other leadership roles in their communities, to find out how or if that experience prepared them for their current role.
"I don't necessarily want to get into a comparison between men and women, because I'd have to interview men. So I'm not necessarily testing[women chiefs'] experiences against a model or anything like that, because I don't really feel that it's up to me to validate or legitimate or de-legitimate their experience. In a lot of cases we're dealing with their opinions and their experience, and why do they think it happened."
Voyageur expanded on her reasons for undertaking the project.
"As sociologists, we study society, and this is governance, women's issues, Aboriginal issues, politics, self-government. I'm going to give women an opportunity to find their own voice and to speak their experiences," she said.
Voyageur presented her research proposal at two information sessions at the AFN's annual general assembly last July and obtained its support. She's also backed by her own First Nation, by the Athabasca Tribal Council and by Treaty 8 Chiefs of Alberta.
"There is a particular need for a comprehensive study of women chiefs in Canada and I expect this important undertaking will further the work in related fields of study and be well received in both academic and non-academic communities," said National Chief Phil Fontaine.
Voyageur so far has received enough money to do phase one of the study - the current women chiefs. She applied for a University of Calgary research grant and one from the Canadian Research Council for the Advancement of Women. She's also approached Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for financial support.
Voyageur's prior research into Canadian Aboriginal issues has covered topics such as education, economic development, justice and media as well as women's issues.
