By Keith Edmund White
Editor-in-Chief
First, there's The Hill Times interview-heavy article emphasizing the Harper government linking federal aboriginal funding to tribes supporting Conservative budget and resource development plans.
The problem? The First Nations oppose both the budget and Conservative resource development plans.
Some would call the tactic hardball politics. Others call it "blackmail" and "[u]nilaterally changing agreements." From today's article:
"Well, they’re blackmailing us into signing it. That’s what they’re doing.” [Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta.]
...
The question then comes for the government that if First Nations refuse to sign these agreements and the government refuses to give them money, who’s going to pick up the cost around income assistance, all of those things that are there, what’s going to happen? We’re going to end up with a crisis here. It’s not bargaining in good faith. Unilaterally changing agreements, there’s nothing good faith about that. It’s shocking.” [NDP MP Jean Crowder, Aboriginal Affairs Critic (Nanaimo-Cowichan, B.C.)]
And last week, rabble.ca published a predictably cutting Conservative aboriginal policy critique. But whatever their bias, rabble.ca sure seems justified in blasting the Conservative Party over First Nations educational support and reform:
Almost two years ago, the Auditor General put out a thorough and scathing analysis of the dysfunctional and inadequate funding arrangements for First Nations schools.
In response, the Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Michael Wernick, told the Commons Public Accounts Committee, in the fall of 2011, that he was sure we would see First Nations education legislation in 2012.
Well, 2012 has come and gone.
There were no commitments on First Nations education in the 2012 budget.
Instead that budget included massive, radical and unprecedented roll-backs of federal environmental oversight and protection and other measures that struck such fear in the hearts of First Nations communities that the Idle No More movement was born.
Why the stand still?
From the stand-point of this casual observer, a charitable view would be that the issues facing Canada's First Nations go beyond federal initiatives and funding. And Conservatives and First Nations aren't natural partners: the First Nations are a roadblock to Conservative energy development plans, plans considered critical to Canada's economic security.
Worse-case: As small group that has no constituency in the Harper government, what reason is there for Conservatives to 'own' Aboriginal issues--even if it's clear something must be done.
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