Native leaders voice anger

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The collapsed talks on the constitutional amendment to entrench Aboriginal rights on self-government ignited the Native leaders, who voiced anger and embitterments during the concluding session of the First Ministers Conference on Constitutional Matters.

As the talks and negotiations crumbled behind closed doors, Native leaders recognized the political struggle to have their Aboriginal right to self-government enshrined in the Constitution, was over.

This sudden reality of events stunned the witnesses and delegates who gathered in the cavernous bedecked convention hall and the impact of this reality was evident by the stillness in the hall.

The Aboriginal leaders had visions of entrenchment of their right to self-government, no one expected the sudden collapse of the talks.

Despite the impassioned speech from Prime Minister Mulroney, and support from Hatfield, New Brunswick; Buchanan, Nova Scotia; Ghiz, Prince Edward Island; and Pawley, Manitoba; "to take the right road" and "go beyond the status quo", the constitution talks collapsed.

George Erasmus, Grand National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, eloquently told the astonished assembly that the federal draft "was not easy to accept" because it permitted provincial jurisdictional powers to legislate the statutes defining Aboriginal rights should be developed and implemented.

Erasmus, directing his address to the Prime Minister, referred to the Indian Treaties that exist within the Canadian confederation and how those Indian Treaties guarantee a 'bilateral process', and that the "was not accepting principles that would threaten the powers of those treaties."

The federal draft would have "diminished our inherent rights" and would have "expanded provincial powers" through "delegation of authority" to define Aboriginal rights. Those rights are not contingent, stressed Erasmus.

He told the Prime Minister that the federal draft is "creating a right for Native people, a right we never relinquished or were extinguished by treaties. It is a right that always existed," emphasized Erasmus.

He stated that the inherent rights of the Native people are " not a gift, not yours to give, they are our rights", and "I cannot live with this proposal", said Erasmus.

"We were here to amend the Constitution, not to expand the way in which provinces could interfere into our lives and force us under their thumbs.

"We proposed unequivocal drafts, realistic positions which were moderate and sincere", said Erasmus.

He chastised the Prime Minister for "not taking our advice" given by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) over the past three years.

"We failed, but there is one historic event that is evident today. There is a unified front among the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. This achievement of solidarity is historic because we were always divided and with this solidarity is historic because we were always divided and with this solidarity, we will succeed with our struggle. The amendment process is not finished, even if we failed today," commented Erasmus to a cheering audience.

"Thank you, for making it easy," said Erasmus.

Jim Sinclair, spokesman for the Metis National Council (MNC), described the constitutional amendment talks as "a failure" and "as one of the leaders, I take some responsibility for this failure."

Sinclair expressed his "disappointment" and seriously questioned the "political will" of some of the premiers and was irked by the premiers reasons to refuse entrenchment of Aboriginal rights to self-government.

"Your reasons are invalid," said Sinclair.

He expressed his annoyance and his disappointment with Quebec, for not supporting the entrenchment process that would have guaranteed an "inherent right" to self-government.

He reminded the Quebec representative, Gil Remillard, that the political resistance by the Metis also included the rights of French and the guarantee of those rights.

"Louis Riel was hanged for the protection of those rights," Sinclir said to Remillard, the Intergovernmental Affairs minister.

Turning to the British Columbia Premier, Sinclair bitterly criticized Vander Zalm, who earlier had made reference to the liberation of Holland by the Canadian soldiers and of those liberators that were buried in the Netherlands.

"It's a shame that you can come here and in a few years become the Premier of one of the largest provinces in Canada and you will not recognize the rights of our people."

"The Canadians you mentioned in the liberation and owed so much, some of those liberators were Native Canadians, who fought and died for your freedom.

"And for the ones that returned home, there was no recognization when they stepped out of the trains," said Sinclair.

In a stinging attack on the Saskatchewan Premier, Sinclair vehemently accused Devine of granting a "blank cheque for oppression" in Saskatchewan to a forest products company warehouser, who received more land than is contained in all the Indian reserves in Canada.

He grilled Devine because of his insolence towards the $1-million-a-day expenses for the Aboriginal peoples in Saskatchewan, saying Devine knows that the direct beneficiaries of those grants are not the Native but the civil servants of that province.

Sinclair condemned the priorizing of subsidies by the Premier who pays subsidies for liquor in northern Saskatchewan and, "not milk for Metis children", and the Metis people who need those subsidies to survive.

Arousing the assembly, Sinclair mentioned that the Saskatchewan Premier capitalized the plight of the western farmers, and allowed Mulroney to buy Devine's recent election with $1-billion aid package to western farmers. The assembly erupted with jeering remarks and applause that resounded through the convention hall.

Attacking the attitudes of Vander Zalm, Devine and Getty, he said, "Your attitude at this conference is not going to bring 5,000 members to the Ku Klux Klan meeting next July, in Calgary and Edmonton. It's going t bring 50,000 because there's an open market on racism and white supremacy," Sinclair said

The impact of Sinclair's embittered attack on the western premiers was stunning to the participants at the First Ministers Conference. Even Prime Minister Mulroney was speechless and can only utter a "Thank You" to Jim Sinclair.

Louis "Smokey" Bruyere, president of the Native Council of Canada (NCC), viewed the conference as "not a failure" and felt some "good will" at the negotiating table.

He stressed the urgency for "equity of access' for the non-status Indians of Canada and that NCC will continue to push toward equitable reinstatement of its members and towards the definition of Aboriginal rights pertinent to its Metis members.

Ruyere applauded the support of Premiers Ghiz, Buchanan, Pawley and Harfield and commended the Aboriginal groups for not breaking away from the unified front.

"For once in our history we have solidarity, even though we failed, we have a unified stance to take us over the next hurdle", said Bruyere.

Zebedee Nungak, co-chairman of the Inuit Committee on National Issues (ICNI), took a moderate approach expressed his frustration and disappointment with the manner the Prime Minister disregarded the last minute counter-proposal of the ICNI.

He informed the assembly that the Inuit had drafted an alternative but because of Mulroney's reluctance to pursue further negotiations it was tabled for future development.

Zebedee clited the FMC as "not a complete failure" but because of respective hidden agendas of some premiers, "we could not salvage the ash heap", said Nungak.

John Amagoalik, chairman of the ICNI, criticized some of the participants for having "no vision".

He briefly referred to the South African nation with its policy of apartheid and its parallelism in those "who are working hard to steal (the land) from us."

"The ICNI's tabled document will be pursued and there is hope for another conference," said Amagoalik.