Trust. Integrity. Reputation. Top News - December - 2004 Volume 22 - Number 9 Cat's meow of a panel denounces ADR process New rebellion promised by Métis leader Okanagan chiefs declare war on drugs A ray of hope - Editorial Linguistic comfort in Canada's North a must have - Guest Column Check out Ontario Birchbark The entire contents of Windspeaker's December issue is available online in the AMMSA Archives. Access is restricted to subscribers only. CLICK HERE FOR ONLINE SUBSCRIPTION INFO. Cat's meow of a panel denounces ADR process Paul Barnsley, Windspeaker Staff Writer, Ottawa The Assembly of First Nations' report on Canada's dispute resolution plan to compensate for abuses in Indian residential schools was released on Nov. 17 and presented a scathing indictment of the federal government's alternative dispute resolution (DR or ADR) process. The report was commissioned and released by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), but more than half of the members of the expert panel that prepared it are non-Native people who hold law degrees. Many are eminent law professors and two are judges. In page after page of the report, the various tactics and strategies employed by the government of Canada to minimize financial liability arising out of the residential school system are laid bare by the 18-member blue ribbon panel. Then the report presents an extensive list of recommendations that, if followed, would dramatically change the direction of ADR. The wheels were set in motion for the report in March at the University of Calgary's National Residential Schools Legacy conference. All parties in the legal and political disputes arising out of residential schools issues were in attendance, including Mario Dion, the deputy minister in charge of the Office of Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada. Dion agreed to let the AFN put together a report on the ADR process at that time. National Chief Phil Fontaine said Dion has admitted there are problems and has committed himself to respond to the report after three months. "We're confident that our proposition will receive a favorable response from the federal government," Fontaine said. "If we continue with the current system, it's going to take 53 years to settle all of the claims. It's going to cost at the minimum $2.3 billion. And we're saying there's a better way of doing this. Something that's more fair and more cost efficient. Something's that geared to healing and reconciliation. This current process can't achieve that." The panel emphasized that the present approach worsens the divide between Native and non-Native Canadians and urged a kinder, gentler approach based on reconciliation. They urged the government to initiate a public education process with this aim in mind. "The churches are a large part of this process and they're particularly interested in the truth and reconciliation. We hope that the federal government will accept the offer that we made that there be truth and reconciliation as part of it," Fontaine said. "It's worked in Ireland; it's worked in other jurisdictions very well. And the churches are on board and we're proceeding with work to establish the truth and reconciliation body." That includes the Catholic Church, the lone church that has refused to sign an agreement with the government to pay its share of judgements to residential school survivors, Fontaine said. During a recent chiefs' confederacy, the national chief was directed to lobby the government for an apology for the residential school system from Prime Minister Paul Martin. He said he will push the federal government to make a more sincere gesture of regret than the 1998 statement of reconciliation which included an apology from the Indian Affairs minister for physical and sexual abuse suffered in the schools. "In Ireland, the compensation package is by statute. The Japanese Canadian agreement is in fact an agreement that was introduced and ratified by Parliament. But we're dependent on the goodwill of the government and we need to address that issue. It may be we'll continue to press for a further expression by way of an apology from the prime minister in Parliament. It's something that's before the government," Fontaine said. Darcy Merkur, who is one of many lawyers working on the Baxter case, a national class action suit that is awaiting certification in an Ontario court, praised the report. "The thing that's not getting the play that it deserves is that it was [written] by a dozen of the most prestigious law professors in the country. Nobody's really absorbed the fact that this isn't just a report by lawyers or survivors. This is by objective professors. This is the cat's meow when it comes to the authors. These people are very well respected. These are colleagues of the Justice minister who was a law professor at McGill University," Merkur said. But he doesn't see all his clients settling quickly with the government even if the report was adopted immediately. "The reality is that the AFN recommendations are just that and the problem with them is that they're just recommendations. They're asking the government to make certain changes but the government doesn't have to do anything," he said. "The only person that can force the government to do anything is the court. We bring the sword. We say 'We don't care what the bully says. We're going to the principal.'" The report will be a useful piece of evidence in current and future court cases, he said. "At least we have an objective party saying the government's ADR is unfair. It doesn't look like we're greedy lawyers saying it's unfair because we want more money. We think it's unfair because it's not giving our clients what they deserve." Vaughn Marshall is a Calgary lawyer who until recently represented members of the Blood Tribe. "The AFN has come out with it and I think its having come out with it is going to go a long way towards solidifying the position of the Aboriginal peoples' claims," he said. Marshall said the ADR process as it now exists is "a compensation program for bureaucrats, not residential school survivors." "The report also highlights the amount of waste and red tape in the government's existing approach to settlement," he added. "Ottawa spends more than three times as much on overhead as it does on compensation." And while the expert report shied away from making accusations, Marshall stated bluntly that he sees all of the points raised in the report as indications that the government created a process that is "intentionally and shamelessly unfair." The task force's report is broken down into three parts-compensation for residential school abuses; truth-sharing, healing and reconciliation; and feasibility and costs. Part I is a 24-page analysis of government tactics and policies that makes 30 recommendations. Part II makes five more recommendations on how to get the full story of the residential school legacy into the public record and before the general Canadian population to, in part, "ensure that another state committed atrocity does not take place." Part III chides the government for trying to cut corners on paying for the harm it caused. The very last paragraph of the 42-page report sets out a challenge for Canada. "If implemented, we believe our proposed reforms to the DR model will make it one for which Canada and Canadians can be proud. It will enhance Canada's reputation as a leader in the world for the respect of human rights at the same time increasing the stature and respect for First Peoples at home and abroad. It would also set an international standard and methodology for dealing with mass violations of human rights and will finally put behind us, in an honorable way, the most disgraceful, harmful, racist experiment ever conducted in our history." Top New rebellion promised by Métis leader Stephen LaRose,Windspeaker Contributor, Regina At the very least, Dwayne Roth will be in shape for the promised upcoming battles. At the end of a 250-kilometre march from Saskatoon to Regina to challenge the provincial government's refusal to recognize the results of a controversial election that made Roth president of the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MNS), he declared the coming of a second Saskatchewan Métis rebellion. Planned protests, he said, include occuption of lands Métis claim as their own, and disruption of official ceremonies planned for Saskatchewan's centennial celebrations. "We will continue to fight. We are a nation of fighters," he said. Roth launched his march Nov. 7 and ended it with a meeting with government officials, hoping to persuade the province to release funds for Métis people frozen since the election in May. Roth was escorted into the city on Nov. 16, Louis Riel Day, by a small contingent of supporters on horseback, in cars and in campers and met a small group at the legislature gathered to commemorate the end of his trek. Some picketed the building's front doors; others ate soup and bannock on the legislature steps while Roth saw Saskatchewan's deputy minister of First Nations and Métis Relations. Roth said the discussion was fruitless. "We talked with someone who had no ears," he said. The new rebellion is a battle of wills between a provincial government hoping for another Métis organization to spring from the wreckage of the MNS, and Roth, who is seeking to unite, under his leadership, a badly divided Métis organziation. "This is not about the money issue," Roth said. "This is about respect, our right of self determination." But the money's no small thing. After the MNS election, the provincial government suspended $410,000 of annual funding to the organization, withdrawing official recognition. The federal government halted its tri-partite funding in response. Saskatchewan's former chief electoral officer, Keith Lampard, was commissioned to review the MNS election and issued a scathing report on it in November, citing dozens of irregularities that Lampard believes should put in doubt election results. Roth said the provincial government has no choice but to accept the election results because the MNS senate ratified them. "We're not going to stand for provincial government interference in our electoral process," he persisted. Roth called for the resignation of First Nations and Métis Relations Minister Maynard Sonntag for his handling of the situation. "The Saskatchewan government isn't dictating who should lead the MNS," Sonntag said, "but I have a responsibility as the minister who oversees $410,000 of taxpayers' money that it's administered properly. I also have a responsibility to the Métis people of Saskatchewan." Roth said the money the province is withholding doesn't go to fund MNS core operations, but to youth, urban, women's and northern councils. "It's really hurting Métis people at the grassroots level." Roth said that 2005 will be a year of protest for the province's Métis people and no MNS election will be held until 2008. Top Okanagan chiefs declare war on drugs Paul Barnsley, Windspeaker Staff Writer, Penticton, B.C. The seven chiefs of the Okanagan Nation are not willing to watch more of their young citizens die tragically. A week after three young men were killed and three others injured on the Penticton Indian Band's reserve in a dispute over drugs, the chiefs of the seven southern British Columbia Interior communities met in Kelowna to discuss the tragedy. On Nov. 10, they issued a public statement titled, "Confronting the problems of drug use and trafficking in our communities." The chiefs are taking action on a number of fronts to crack down on criminal activity in their communities. More and better policing and public education about the dangers of using or selling drugs top their list of priorities. Criminal activity on reserves is a matter that has been the subject of a lot of whispering in recent years. The Nov. 10 announcement was the first major public acknowledgement of what many chiefs across the country agree is becoming a major problem. Drug use on reserves is growing dramatically and crime organizations are increasingly seeing reserves as safe places to do business. A number of sources told this publication that the Hell's Angels biker gang is active in the Kelowna area and on the surrounding reserves. In its 2004 annual report on organized crime, Criminal Intelligence Service Canada said the "Hell's Angels remains the largest and most powerful outlaw motorcycle gang in Canada." The report also states that "Aboriginal-based street gangs and criminal groups typically support and facilitate other organized crime groups, such as the Hell's Angels and Asian-based networks." Sources say investigations into the ownership of two helicopters seized after landing on the Penticton reserve after the shootings are pointing to organized criminal elements. Penticton Chief Stewart Phillip told Windspeaker that low levels of funding for fully functioning tribal police services have led to a situation where First Nation communities, including his own, have become havens for criminal activities. And with cutbacks to RCMP funding, the Mounties are stretched very thin. More than a dozen Penticton citizens received police training, but Phillip said that when they were hired by the RCMP they ended up being used in areas off reserve. His community has a volunteer tribal police force with one marked police car that was donated by the RCMP. "Because of the universal situation of poverty in all First Nation communities and the fact that the government of Canada and the provinces are unwilling to allocate the necessary resources to establish a national tribal police force, we have to endure the circumstances of having improperly policed communities," Phillip said. "First Nation communities have become attractive venues for organized crime to use as drug distribution networks." Phillip said his council has authorized raids on three sophisticated marijuana grow operations on Penticton Indian Band territory in recent months. But he said the fact that First Nation communities are tightly knit and inter-related makes it hard to get the evidence required to obtain search warrants. Provincial government cutbacks in services under Premier Gordon Campbell's government have stretched things to the point where Crown prosecutors will not approve prosecutions unless there is a very strong possibility of a conviction. And since First Nations are difficult places to police, they have fallen lower down on the list of priorities, Phillip said. "We're being told by law enforcement that the drug trade is so pervasive throughout the Interior at large that they don't have the resources to address the problems within our reserve communities," he said. "The RCMP drug section has a limited budget and they identify high priority targets that reflect large volumes, I presume. And we're being told that our community drug trade doesn't measure up. We can no longer accept that." Phillip said that all the leaders of the Okanagan Nations admitted on Nov. 10 that the shooting "could have happened in any one of our communities. These leaders are on public record making these statements. During the course of the meeting, they openly admitted that the drug problem was completely pervasive and was a huge concern in all of our communities. I think it's right across this country." Phillip said that he sees the drug trade as an underground economy. "And you find underground economies in, generally speaking, areas where there's economic depression," he said. Sources in Penticton say family based politics are making it difficult for chief and council to bring the drug situation under control. Phillip admitted that it's difficult and even traumatic to take hard-nosed enforcement action in small communities where most people are related either by blood or by marriage. But he would not discuss details. First Nations Summit task force member Grand Chief Edward John commended the Okanagan chiefs for committing to take on this difficult problem. "In B.C., it's a difficult problem and a very serious one as you can see from what happened. I don't think that Penticton is isolated. I think it's really the tip of the iceberg. I'm glad to see that they're taking a stance, saying that these matters need to be dealt with," he said. He also pointed to the problem of family relationships getting in the way of enforcement. "These communities aren't all that big so everybody's related to somebody else. The fact that the council stepped forward and said no-it's an important position that they've taken," he said. It's an increasingly important point. One chief, who wouldn't comment on the record, said that the biggest danger created when council members protect or choose not go after relatives who are involved in criminal activity is that eventually those people will run for and get elected to council. Once the criminal element infiltrates First Nation governments, the real challenge for law enforcement will begin and more grassroots people will be at risk of violence and intimidation. John said it was a tragedy that three young men lost their lives, but the chiefs were wise to use the shock and outrage of the moment as a tool to make their community members take a close look at the problem and decide to do something. "When that teachable moment occurs, and it's unfortunate that a number of people lost their lives, but you make sure you drive home the point and start putting into place the kind of strategies that are needed to combat these drug problems. They are serious," he said. John also believes that poor economic factors have made First Nations vulnerable to criminal activity. "The first step is to recognize there's a problem. The second thing is to say no to drugs. The third thing is to make sure that you can provide your community members with an alternative to this. If you have economic activity and people with jobs and a good degree of self-esteem, you've won the battle," he said. Top