Ontario chiefs meet to pick new leader

Ontario chiefs meet to pick new leader
FIRST NATIONS
Sault Star, Ontario, CA
Source: www.saultstar.com

Ontario's chiefs can no longer accept a status quo of government developing paternalistic policies and implementing them unilaterally on First Nations, says Angus Toulouse, regional chief of the Chiefs of Ontario.

"The First Nation leaders have not had the real opportunity with the federal government to say 'Here's an agenda that we can collaborate on, here's an agenda that we know that we all could work towards,' and to foster this new relationship," said Toulouse.

The chief's of Ontario's First Nations gathered in Batchewana First Nation this week for a three-day annual conference, during which, among other things, the assembled chiefs will select a new regional chief.

Toulouse , whose leadership of the Chiefs of Ontario was to be at stake in an election this morning, spoke to the Sault Star Tuesday, before the election.

He said treaties signed by the ancestors of modern-day First Nations people talked about sharing in "the richness of the land, and certainly (the richness) of the province."

"What we're talking about in most of our deliberations is implementing our treaties, recognition of our rights, our jurisdictions and our need to change some of the policies the federal government and the provincial government have passed that administer some of those resources at the community level," said Toulouse.

Toulouse said those are the things that have to change in order to create the "new relationship," spoken of by Premier Dalton McGuinty following the Ipperwash Inquiry.

"If this relationship with First Nations is really entrenched in a positive, equilateral way, society in general will benefit and I think that's the course we're on here," said Batchewana Chief Dean Sayers, the assembly's host.

"We do have some grievances, we do have some issues, however we're looking forward and we're looking at a productive new relationship."

Sayers said he is excited by the moment of the chiefs gathering, which has as its stated goal: Taking Charge of Our Future by Asserting Our Rights and Responsibility.

Batchewana First Nation is involved in a legal fight with the province over two ongoing issues: Batchewana's issuing its own logging permits to band members, and the band's reopening last year of a road, through Lake Superior Provincial Park, to Gargantua Harbour, a traditional village site and a vital shelter, the band contends, for its commercial fishermen.

The chiefs gathering is "completely aligned with the actions that Batchewana have launched in the last couple of years in terms of a rights agenda, an action- based agenda," said Sayers.

"A lot of assertions of our rights have happened," he said. "It's good to see that there's some other appropriately aligned movements out there and the Chiefs of Ontario is a good vehicle to get a lot of those common messages out to all of the First Nations in Ontario.

"It's also a good vehicle to address lingering human rights concerns, said Sayers.

Batchewana, in partnership with the Whitefish Lake and Hiawatha First Nations, has put forward a resolution that each of the chiefs send an empty drinking glass to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The move would say to the federal government, "We all deserve quality water, we deserve clean water to drink, we need these glasses to be filled with clean water," said Sayers.

The same resolution will go to the Assembly of First Nations annual general assembly later this month in Calgary.

"Canada needs to be present. Canada needs to be part of our processes and they need to fulfill the carrying of their obligations within our agreements, and we're just a little concerned that we're not at that quality of life that we should be at par with mainstream Canadians," said Sayers.

Another Batchewana resolution will call for gilance, on the part of First Nations organizations, in the fight against HIV and AIDS on First Nations communities, which are affected at rates "three to five times higher than mainstream."

Sayers said Batchewana will also ask delegates to the Chiefs of Ontario gathering to endorse a recommendation to highlight the contributions of First Nations in the War of 1812, given the war's looming bicentennial.

"Canada forgets -this area we're in today might have been American territory if it wasn't for our sacrifices in the War of 1812," said Sayers."You look at Britain losing 6,000 soldiers, the United States losing 8,000 soldiers -we lost 15,000 warriors."

"We want to remind Canadians that we too participated in those struggles in 1812."
Article ID# 1646488