Inaction fuels commissioner's resignation

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The release of the second report by the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples has prompted one of the commission's members to resign.

Allan Blakeney resigned April 2, the day of the report's release, because he disagreed with the commission's methodology.

The former Premier of Saskatchewan said the seven-member commission was pursuing its mandate to listen to Native problems but was not dealing with solutions.

"I had a growing difference of view with the majority of the commission on the direction the commission was taking," he said. "We really have to start the problem- solving part."

The report, prepared after commissioners heard from 1,400 Aboriginals in public hearings held in 72 communities across Canada, outlined possible strategies to mend the rift between Natives and non-Natives.

The paper recommended that four Touchstones of Change - self-government, economic self-sufficiency, cultural healing and a new relationship between Natives and non-Natives - are necessary to realize Native rights in Canada.

Both co-chairs of the commission said in a public statement released the same day that they were sorry to lose Blakeney.

"We are very disappointed by the decision of Allan Blakeney to resign as a member of the commission," the statement by former Assembly of First Nations national chief George Erasmus and Quebec Justice Dene Dussault said.

"We remain convinced, however, that the commission has taken the only effective approach. We must take a holistic approach. We must paint the big picture and show governments how all areas of our mandate are inter-related."

Blakeney was not the only one to criticize the commission's methodology. Grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Ovide Mercredi, said the commission appears to be taking too long to reach "concrete and substantive solutions."

Native leaders have feared that the commission would be used by the government to avoid taking any action with Native issues.

"This report confirms our worst fears," Mercredi said.

The Native Women's Association of Canada also criticized the commission for failing to address women's issues during the public hearings.

"A list of participants at Round Tables and lists of presenters at various centres will show that women are outnumbered 10 to 1, and sometimes 40 to 1, in representation even though we are 52 per cent of the Aboriginal population.

The commission is currently in Ottawa to hear the testimony of the Arctic Exiles, a group of 50 Inuit families relocated to the far north by the federal government in the 1950s.