COLUMN: Jessica Iron Joseph - July 12, 2013 Published on July 12, 2013
Jessica Iron Joseph Topics : Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations
,First Nations , Executive Council , Onion Lake ,Whitehorse , Manitoba
I'd read about the National Treaty Gathering in Onion Lake July 14-18, being
held at the same time as the AFN gathering in Whitehorse, and these seemingly
opposing groups. I wondered how bad it really was. Fortunately, one of the
chiefs, who will be attending both meetings, responded to my interview request.
Rather than taking excerpts of FSIN Chief Perry Bellegarde's quotes, I'm
leaving the interview intact for readers to draw their own conclusions.
JI: I understand you're attending both meetings. Do you expect there'll be a
lot of difference between the two?
CPB: I don't expect a lot of difference. The treaty gathering in Onion Lake is
an annual gathering. We've had the treaties 1-11 gathering for years now. It's
a movement. It's something that's just an annual gathering.
JI: Oh really? I thought it was something different?
CPB: No, no, no. The treaty 1-11 movement has been on for years. Last year it
was hosted in Manitoba in Treaty 2, the year before that it was in Treaty 7.
The year before that it was in Treaty 5. Treaty 6 in Onion Lake is hosting it
this year.
JI: I guess the media was really spinning it differently then .
CPB: Yes. Anytime leadership comes together with the grassroots people, the
men, the youth, the women and the Elders, there's ceremony because treaties are
ceremonies. That has to lead us. And that's a good thing. Every time we come
together, whether it's in Onion Lake or in Whitehorse, we focus on: How do we
strategize and present our strategy, to bring about transformational change in
this country and this land? Because treaty relationship was one of peaceful
coexistence and mutual respect between Indigenous peoples and the
non-Indigenous peoples. And we're supposed to jointly benefit from sharing the
lands and resource wealth. Unfortunately you don't see that happening in 2013.
What you see is one side benefiting, the non-Indigenous side, and on the
Indigenous side, you see poverty, and we see all the negative statistics;
children in poverty. A recent study came out -- those statistics are not
acceptable. The quality of life for Indigenous peoples is not the same as
everybody else. You know, of 30,000 kids in care, 15,000 of those are First
Nations kids. The gaps in education funding basically mean you can't have
proper teachers on the reserve, you can't have math and science, you can't have
books in the libraries, and you can't have access to sports and recreation.
Then people wonder why you don't have the same graduation rates on reserve?
It's because the resources aren't the same. And then the high suicide rates --
it's terrible.
So everybody's going to start talking about: how do we change that? How do we
bring about that transformational change? It's not the AFN or the FSIN that are
making these unilateral impositions of legislation. It's not the Indian
organizations that are cutting back on funding. It's not the Indian
organizations that aren't doing anything with the apology from the government.
It's the Harper government that's doing all these things. So energy should be
directed accordingly.
JI: Ok, but from what I read in the papers, these First Nations leaders seemed
so split. It seemed like this treaty gathering was born out of a
discontentment, because some leaders didn't like how the AFN meets with the
government, so those leaders were trying to initiate a different approach. What
do you think?
CPB: You're always going to have that, but AFN and FSIN are lobby
organizations. You have to meet with government in order to change their minds
and hopefully bring about change in policy and legislation. So you have to meet
to have those dialogues. And hopefully through that dialogue you bring about a
change of minds and hearts, so that changes can be looked at and implemented.
As First Nations leaders, we have so many challenges across this land. We must
keep using our Elders, traditions and teachings. We must encourage and support
things and processes that unite us, rather than divide us. We've got to be
resistant to being sources of divisiveness amongst ourselves, because
government will just use that and divide and conquer, even more than they are
now. But when we stand shoulder to shoulder, we're strengthening our
solidarity. And we're stronger united. That's why I'm attending both gatherings.
JI: Can you comment on the current chief systems? Do you think they're
effective when they're modelled after Canadian governments?
CPB: Well, with FSIN, that's why I wanted to change our name to Federation of
Sovereign Indigenous Nations. In our model of FSIN, we have Executive Council,
we have the Senate, and we have our Legislative Assembly. It's modelled after
the white man's government. We need to go back to our Indigenous laws,
Creator's laws and our lodges, to guide us. You've got to involve everyone.
There's a role and place for everyone. In most organizations, it's just the
chief that speaks because the chief is head of state. It's the highest office.
Like Little Black Bear, where I'm from, that office was so high he was able to
enter into a treaty with the Crown. So you have to respect that office. But at
every forum you've got to make space for the women's voice to be heard because
they are keepers of the land and the water. And it's important to have. You
know all of our ceremonies, half are male and half are female. We have to
respect that Creator's teaching; make room for the women's voice to be heard,
as well as the youth and the Elders. So every forum I go to, I try to encourage
that.
JI: What about Idle No More? Do First Nations leaders consider it when
strategizing and creating change?
CPB: Idle No More, I always say, was a spiritual movement because it really
opened everyone's eyes about Bill C-45. Those omnibus legislation have impacts
on the land and water and INM catapulted everybody to start looking at it and
working together, not only Indian people, but non-Indian people as well,
because the land and the water affect the whole world. So there are really key
strategic alliances that can be built -- utilizing Idle No More, there's always
room for that: educating awareness and uniting our people.
snazzyj...@hotmail.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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