Natives left scraps from meeting says nation's top Native leader

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The setting was the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec, across the river from Ottawa's Parliament Buildings.

It seemed a fitting venue for one of the most intense brainstorming sessions in Canadian history, which was destined to have major implications for the country's aboriginal people.

But the ironic twist came when the 11 first ministers emerged from the week-long meetings held to pound out the constitutional deadlock without crediting the country's founding first nations.

The first ministers made significant headway toward having the Meech Lake constitutional accord ratified by all 10 provinces by the June 23 deadline, but the political position of Native people remains in doubt.

A week of closed-door discussions offer the future of the hotly-contested accord brought the first minister closer to recognizing Quebecers as a distinct society within Canada. But they are as far as ever from admitting the unique contributions to Canada of the country's indigenous population.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and his political cohorts agreed to a formula - some with reservation - to resolve the eight-year-old struggle to make Quebec a willing signatory of the Constitution and provide Quebec with inexhaustible powers over its own political freedom.

With the exception of Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells, they all walked away from the spot summit with an agenda of initiatives they hope will shape the future of the country.

Besides recognizing Quebec as a distinct society outside of the Charter of Rights, they've agreed to hold continued talks on the "companion accord" which addresses a wide range of issues including Senate reform, minority-language rights, sexual-equality rights and aboriginal rights.

But George Erasmus, Canada's top Native leader, still believes the country's aboriginal people are being left table scraps from a dinner they weren't even invited to.

At the next first ministers' meeting later this year, special parliamentary committees will listen to issues concerning the constitutional sidebars. But to Erasmus it's a sellout to Quebec and an insult to the Assembly of First Nations which is not being treated as, at least, an equal partner.

"We have not been guaranteed any kind of constitutional standing in the next round," he fumes. "The Quebec government has taken the approach that even if we were at these meetings the kind of recognition they're proposing is really not at the same level they received in the Constitution."

Wells, who had his own doubts about the Meech Lake accord, returned to the Newfoundland legislature with an open mind and a June 20 deadline to hold an in-house vote to ratify the deal.

The last hold-out vote to a "watered-down" agreement is of little consequence to Enoch Chief Jerome Morin, who has called an all-chiefs' summit for next month in Edmonton to discuss political concerns like Meech Lake.

Now Quebec is content, Morin is not so sure Native people will ever gain special status in the Constitution as long as they're kept away from the table. And he's petrified the next generation of Natives will be forced to accept that without question.

"The thing that scared me is they recognize Quebec as a distinct society and they mention it will not affect the Charter of Rights. But where do our people come into (the Constitution) as the founding nations? Where are our special rights? How do my children fit into the greater Canadian mosaic?

"They (Canadian politicians) just think we'll disappear and go away." Since that first round of closed-door meetings three years ago in the scenic Quebec hideaway of Meech Lake, the plot to put rights of French Canada above the indigenous population began to thicken.

Canada's leaders, who inherited the tedious task of building a nation from a divisive society, met to create an amendment to the 1982 Constitutional Act. It was an agreement Quebec refused to endorse until certain conditions were followed including the adoption of a distinctsociety clause for Quebec and a veto for Quebec over all future constitutional change. That stalemate led to the June 23 deadline for ratification of the Meech Lake agreement.

No provisions for aboriginal distinction within Canada were ever discussed. But according to University of Alberta political science professor Gurston Dacks, aboriginal and treaty rights are already intrinsic features of the Canadian Charter of Rights and the Meech Lake accord wouldn't have any real effect on Native people.

The rights of French-speaking Quebec are entrenched in the Constitution but the new amendment will give Quebec the power to make political decisions above and beyond the Charter of Rights.

In contrast to the vastly different set of aboriginal issues, Dacks argues the addition of a clause to the Meech Lake accord recognizing the distinctiveness of Natives wouldn't change their political stature in Canada.

"It would have done honor to the aboriginal view of themselves to acknowledge that (they are also a distinct society). But given aboriginal rights are already recognized in the Constitution, it would have been saying the same thing, only in slightly different words," he says.

For Native leaders the long awaited decision to recognize aboriginal people as full partners in the Canadian Constitution couldn't have come at a more opportune time when all eyes are focused on the country's policy makers.

Erasmus, who must wait in the wings while the future of First Nations is drawn out on the Canadian agenda, isn't so sure Native people to be recognized by the first ministers.

"What we're concerned about is Quebec might, in the end, not decide to pass any companion accord even after Meech is passed," he says.

"That's totally unacceptable for Native people."

(Jeff Morrow is a Windspeaker Staff Writer)