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Top News - August - 2002
Half-mile o' hell
Chuckwagon driver Floyd Bradshaw from Lacombe, Alta. tried his best, but Lady Luck kept him out of the top four in the prestigious Calgary Stampede's Rangeland Derby, worth $50,000 in the Dash-for-Cash final on July 14. Bradshaw took 21st out of 36 wagons following a fourth-place finish in the aggregate at the recent wagon races at the Ponoka Stampede. He managed to pocket more than $10,000 at Calgary and promises to return in 2003.
Former national chief leads court challenge
Ballot burning sparks celebration at SongheesReferendum result gets varied reaction
Missing artifacts lead to auditor general's scrutiny
Meaningless political buzzword of the month-Reconciliation - Editorial
Peace in the land of Kanaan - Guest ColumnCheck out Ontario Birchbark
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Former national chief leads court challenge
Paul Barnsley, Windspeaker Staff Writer, Kahnawake Mohawk Territory Quebec
Editors note:
Coarse language contained in this report. Reader discretion is advised.A statement of claim challenging the legitimacy of the First Nations governance act was filed in Federal Court on July 15 by former national chief David Ahenakew on his own behalf and on behalf of the senate and chiefs of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN).
The Crown in right of Canada, Prime Minister Jean Chretien and Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault are named as defendants.
The legal action claims the defendants breached the Crown's fiduciary duty by increasing "federal government control over Indian governments on reserve" and that Bill C-61 "expands the power of the minister of Indian Affairs and increases the minister's intrusion into the affairs and government of the Indian Nations."
The court is asked to grant an injunction prohibiting the passage into law of C-61, a declaration that the Bill will have no application to treaty Indians in Saskatchewan, a declaration that Canada has breached its fiduciary duty and a declaration that the Crown must observe its fiduciary duty and uphold treaty rights whenever it seeks to put forward any future legislation. Unspecified damage payments from Nault and Chretien are also requested.
Ahenakew is a tough talking, no nonsense man who told Windspeaker on July 17 that a lawsuit like this should have been launched a long time ago. He is the chairman of the executive council of the FSIN senate, a 26-person body made up of former chiefs and leaders in the province. The senate advises the current leadership and has a well-defined place and role within the Indian government in the provincial organization.
Ahenakew said they are not Elders, but former politicians who provide guidance for the younger generation of chiefs.
"The leaders are not leading. We decided we would lead. We are former leaders. We have experience. So we did it," he said. "We made this decision. We considered it very seriously. We discussed it at length and depth and we decided that there is no leadership here that has the guts to launch something like this.
"You're prepared to sit down and negotiate? How the hell do you negotiate with people that don't want to negotiate with you? They just want to sit down and give you money-spend all kinds of money-and get nowhere and then turn around and beat the shit out of you for mismanagement in the press. We're not going to do that."
He went to the Saskatchewan chiefs and told them the senate was going to do it, with or without them, he said. Asked if he was directing his criticism at [FSIN] Chief Perry Bellegarde and his fellow Saskatchewan chiefs, he didn't mince words.
"That's what it sounds like, doesn't it," he answered. "I'm a former leader of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians. I was there 10 years. We never had things like this because we kicked ass... There was none of this damned diplomatic type of negotiations where you had to follow certain rules and so forth. We had certain rules. And we didn't stop until we had something done.
"Today? Well, we've been negotiating for 10 years on this governance and other things and not getting anywhere. We're spending lots of money but we're not getting anywhere. That is a clear reflection on the part of the leaders that they're not doing their job.
"We felt obligated and duty bound to do this because nobody else was doing it. We're still leaders. We're still the advisors. We can still veto the decisions that are made by our leaders in Saskatchewan. Analyze, monitor and so on, that's the role of the senate."
He should know. He created the Senate in 1969 and 1970. He was national chief from 1980 to 1982.
AFN vice-chief for Saskatchewan and Grand Chief of the FSIN, Perry Bellegarde, gave his support to the legal action. But Ahenakew refused to give control of the lawsuit to the chiefs. His Senate will stay at the controls.
"We're going to do it," he said.
After letting the Saskatchewan chiefs know how he felt, he castigated the chiefs from outside Saskatchewan on Day 1 of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) annual general meeting held in Kahnawake, Que. the day after the lawsuit was launched.
"These guys have been pussy-footing around all over the place and they're sucking up to one flunky minister-the weakest of the weak in Cabinet. And he's got control of us. I said 'That's not going to happen with us anymore.' All these arrangements that have been made, fiscal, taxation, lands, governance and so forth, that's what we're challenging. It's unconstitutional. It's a breach of treaty, breach of inherent right, breach of fiduciary, breach of land rights."
Ahenakew was asked if he felt the chiefs had not launched a direct challenge of the government's actions previously because they were afraid a loss would mean the end of basic Aboriginal rights.
"Certainly. They say, 'Our Elders used to tell us never to go to court.' I said, 'Not me.' I've always said if you can't move the government, the courts will move them. That's what's been happening. Look at the decisions we've got that are favorable to the Indians that we've lost because we didn't do anything," he said.
Windspeaker asked: So when the government loses in court and then does nothing to change its behavior after the decision, it's the First Nations leaders that are to blame for allowing it happen?
"You're god-damned right," he replied. "We didn't replace in law what the courts struck down and that's what we keep doing in all these Supreme Court decisions. We pat ourselves on the back and we say, 'We beat 'em.' I say we didn't. We lost because we didn't do a damned thing about it."
He expected a resolution from the AFN assembly later that day in support.
"They're afraid to lose in court. I told them, 'You're losing now. You're dying a slow death. If you're going to lose, lose now so we've got some time to fight back, instead of entrenching this thing in the minds and souls of our leaders," he said.
He said National Chief Matthew Coon Come came into office with an attitude similar to his, but the AFN executive wouldn't let him follow through.
"In South Africa at the human rights conference, he said the right things. He quoted the human rights tribunal decisions that were made. Well, the federal government, especially the minister, said the words that he used and the way he approached it have put back federal-Indian relations in Canada by 20 years. And these sons of bitches believed him. They went after him and told him to apologize and told him to never do that again. I remember sitting down with the executive and the national chief. I attended a meeting with them with Nault. Nault was telling them exactly what to do," he said.
After that meeting he tore into the executive members for not standing up to the minister. He said some chiefs and vice-chiefs won't fight the government, because they're afraid they'll lose funding.
"I'll trade my rights for this money because the people need the money. Money's no future. The future is what you have. If the treaties are lived up to . . . that's one thing we used [in the lawsuit], a gross breach of treaty rights through cut-backs, through not funding the things they're supposed to fund. It's a breach of everything. That's what we're using." Ahenakew said it doesn't matter if the Bill is passed into law before the case is decided because if he and his co-plaintiffs win, the law will be struck down by the courts. But he doesn't think it will get that far. He believes that if the minister realizes the First Nation leaders are not going to back down, he'll withdraw the act rather than take a chance on discrediting the government with a loss in court. Ahenakew said the FSIN senate has decided that won't happen.
"No deal. Because if we made that deal, they'd turn around and put another one in there. Where are we then? Do we go back to court?"
Ballot burning sparks celebration at SongheesDavid Wiwchar, Windspeaker Contributor, Victoria
A fireball blasted hundreds of referendum ballots into the air July 3 at a burning of referendum ballots ceremony at the Songhees reserve.
"Today is a sad day for the B.C. treaty process," said Hupacasath Chief Councillor Judy Sayers, before shooting a flaming arrow into a cardboard canoe crammed with protest ballots and messages of disdain for Gordon Campbell and his provincial Liberal government.
"They want to stop us from being self-governing as we have been since time immemorial. Our right to self-government is enshrined in the Constitution and no referendum can take that away from us," she said before a crowd of more than 200 cheering supporters outside the Songhees bighouse.
The protest coincided with the province's announcement of the referendum results, and their pronouncement of the benefits of a reduced mandate.
"This government has created even more uncertainty in the province as they continue with their agenda to assimilate our people and deny us our rights," said Songhees chief negotiator Robert Sam.
"There hasn't been many negotiations happening over the past year as the provincial government kept claiming they needed the referendum results to guide them. Now that they have their results, I think there will be more constitutional challenges in the courts," he said.
During a press conference at the legislature, Campbell and Attorney General Geoff Plant argued that the referendum will reinvigorate the stalled treaty process, and be a benefit to First Nations.
Sayers cautioned that all is not as it seems.
"They're trying to make it sound like they're our friends, when they're the worst possible friends you could have," said Sayers. Sam agreed.
"Plant and Campbell must be living in a different world if they think they're our friends."
The referendum, which cost $4.5 million to conduct, was reviled by Native and non-Native British Columbians alike as a waste of time and money, as well as an insult to the First Nations people of the province.
In total, 763,480 referendum ballots were sent in to Elections BC, or 36 per cent of the 2.1 million ballots mailed out by the government this past May. More than 55,000 spoiled or otherwise rejected ballots were recorded by Elections BC-a non-partisan office of the provincial government mandated to organize and conduct elections and referendums. Another 40,000 British Columbians sent their ballots to various First Nations offices around the province, and almost 1.3 million British Columbians (61 per cent) didn't vote at all, many saying the questions were leading, amateurish, and racist.
"This is all part of their strategic plan. As we saw in their ill-fated court challenge against the Nisga'a, Gordon Campbell and his friends don't want treaties in this province," said Sayers.
"Now, through this referendum and the subsequent weakened mandate and their pulling of various issues off the table, it's obvious that they want us to walk away from the treaty table so they can paint us as the quitters, and blame the failure of treaty negotiations on us," she said.Missing artifacts lead to auditor general's scrutiny
Cheryl Petten, Windspeaker Staff Writer, Winnipeg
Following a recent furor surrounding the mishandling of a number of First Nations artifacts that were in its collection, the Anthropology Museum of the University of Winnipeg is giving consideration as to whether such artifacts should be in the museum's collection at all.
The controversy began when it was discovered that a number of Aboriginal artifacts had been removed from the museum without proper approval and without following policy.
An audit done by the provincial auditor general discovered a total of 89 artifacts were missing from the museum's ethnological collection. The main focus of the audit, however, were five missing items-two water drums originally from the Pauingassi First Nation, two birchbark scrolls from the Jackhead First Nation, and a raven headdress collected from the Little Grand Rapids area.
At least four of those items-the drums and scrolls-were removed from the collection and given to the Three Fires Society, a Midewiwin society in Wisconsin, in 1998.
In his report issued in June, the auditor general found that the decision to repatriate the items was made by museum staff without consultation with the individuals who provided the artifacts to the museum, or without consultation with the communities from which the artifacts originated. And, although the museum's policy manual required the department or department chair to be advised or consulted regarding plans for repatriation, and for repatriations to be authorized by senior university administration, these requirements were not met before the items were repatriated.
The auditor general concluded that the museum's policies regarding repatriation were weak when compared to those of other museums, and that the policy manual had never been reviewed by higher levels of university administration, or by the university senate or board of regents. The inquiry also concluded that proper records were not being kept regarding the repatriation of items.
Patrick Dean is vice-president, academic with the University of Winnipeg. He believes the situation that arose at the museum was less a problem with policy, and more a problem with those policies not being followed.
"What the auditor general said about this was that the museum policy manual was in fact quite a good manual. The policies that they had in place, though they hadn't ever been approved by the university's board of regents or by senior management, were never the less reasonably good as laid out in the manual. The auditor's report said the policies were a little thin on the question of repatriation. Never-the-less, there were policies in place.
"I think what happened here, what is of greatest concern for the university, is that the policies weren't followed such as they were. They were on the books and I think had the individuals involved in the museum followed the policies they had laid out there, there would have been a kind of minimal level of accountability, and I think these difficulties wouldn't have arisen."
As far as Dean is aware, the Three Fires Society, which received the water drums and scrolls from the collection, has no cultural link to the First Nations communities from which the objects were originally collected.
" I don't think there is a cultural connection there. Which has in fact been at the source of some of the difficulties," he said.
"I think one of the great difficulties in this whole debate, and it's been a terrible debate internally here at the university, is that it's been hard to say, is it one community from which these items came, or are there a number of different families and different communities with equal or sort of competing stakes in the material? I've been in correspondence with one family in Pauingassi who in fact are very closely connected to the artifacts that went to the States. And they have not been happy about what happened. And I think they are relieved with the outcome of the auditor's report, and I think they're relieved that the university's taken a supportive position with regard to them. But it's been, I think, a difficult process for them over the last couple of years."
According to Dean, six items that had gone to the Three Fires Society were returned to Pauingassi just a few days before the auditor general's report was released, including the two drums.
"So to some extent, some of that damage has been undone. And I know the family to whom the stuff was returned were pleased to have it back."
The university is currently conducting an internal investigation regarding the missing artifacts and the circumstances surrounding their removal, which Dean hopes will give the university a better idea of where the remaining items went. However, he believes any efforts to retrieve the objects should be First Nations led.
"What the university said in it's response to the auditor's report was that we have always taken the view that the people who really ought to be deciding about the appropriate location of these items are members of the Aboriginal communities themselves. I think it's a First Nations issue, rather than a university issue. And so we do not want to place ourselves in the position of being the final arbiters on this. But we have said in our response to the report that we will make ourselves available to facilitate any discussions that are necessary to accomplish the return of these to the appropriate place, if they're not in the appropriate place right now."
What the university is planning to concentrate on is efforts to ensure something like this won't happen again.
"The first thing we did was to ensure the security of the collection. So it is now under enhanced security provisions, and access to the room in which these ethnographic materials are kept is controlled and watched over by security and by the relevant dean," Dean said.
"In the longer term, we have to think about the status of the remaining material, whether we should embark on a process of repatriating all of it, or to perhaps confer with other museums in Manitoba to talk about this," he said.
"And then in terms of the longer term issues, we are in the process now of a radical overhaul of the organizational structure which surrounds the museum. Because one of the problems with this, as you'll know from the auditor's report, is that the university administration was not aware of what was going on. When you think about it, over a period of several years, this is very problematic. This involved the disposal of items, which were held in trust, if not owned by the university. So we're going to reorganize the kind of governance structure around the museum so that this kind of thing can't happen. And serious decisions of that sort have to be properly discussed with the senior administration. And then there's the personnel matters too, involving people who had a role in this, and that's a private human resources matter with the university, but we're working through that."
When asked if there was any evidence that any of the missing artifacts had in fact been sold rather than repatriated, Dean said he didn't believe that was the case, but wasn't prepared to completely rule out the possibility.
"All I can say is that I have no evidence that money changed hands at any point in this process. So I'm not aware that any of these items were sold. But that's not to say of course that this isn't the case.
"One of the problems with this whole episode is that it has taken so long for the university to actually find out the basic facts. We had been investigating this independently at about the same time the auditor general came to the university and wanted to look at it. So we actually co-operated throughout the process with the auditor general to find out what had actually gone on. So it's taken a long time to find out. But I think, so far as I can say, to the best of my knowledge right now, money didn't change hands."
