The 2003 AFN Election

Critical turning point or just another exercise in futility?

By Len Kruzenga

With the AFN leadership race now formally underway, the three confirmed candidates; Phil Fontaine, Matthew Coon Come and Roberta Jamieson, are all busy crisscrossing the country attempting to generate good press, good will and, assemble the support of influential chiefs and large regional political organizations for the July 15 vote to be held in Edmonton.

While a recent poll published by The First Perspective (see story below) indicates that the chiefs are almost equally split in their support for Fontaine and Coon Come, 28 and 25 per cent respectively, over a quarter of the chiefs polled, 28 percent, either refused to participate in the poll or said they were undecided at this point. Roberta Jamieson showed 12 per cent support among chiefs and may, if the levels of support for Coon Come and Fontaine remain close, potentially hold the political fate of either man in her hands.

Coon Come faces uphill battle

Of the trio, Matthew Coon Come, the incumbent, faces the greatest political challenge-trying to spin electoral victory from the threadbare fabric of three years of near paralysis, delay, indolent obstruction and organizational infighting.

And there is little disagreement, except among his most loyal supporters that his pre-2000 election reputation as a combative yet effective politician-forged during his fight with the Quebec provincial government over the Great Whale Hydro Electric Project-lies in ruins.

Outmanoeuvred on the First Nations Governance Act by Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault from the get-go when the AFN after several false starts categorically refused to participate in the government's proposed consultation process, Coon Come and the AFN were forced instead to try and disrupt and block the process. To make matters worse Coon Come and some of the more vocal chiefs dismissed and underestimated both Nault's political acumen and his personal determination to institute dramatic changes during his watch as minister.

The Nault factor

Relations with former INAC minister Ron Irwin were fairly easy for most first nation's chiefs. In fact, Irwin was easily mollified by a request from a chief, or anyone nearby, to squeeze out a couple of beer hall polkas on an always-mysteriously-handy accordion.

While his relationship with AFN leader of the day Ovide Mercredi was often strained, Irwin still appeared regularly at regional and local first nations events and ceremonies and was particularly careful not to export any rancour.

Irwin's successor, Jane Stewart, could always be counted upon to be decoyed by a strategically situated child offering her a braid of sweetgrass tied in a red ribbon or freshly cooked fry-bread. During her tenure as minister, at which time Phil Fontaine was national chief, Stewart usually appeared more concerned to appear as the kindly well-meaning kindergarten teacher intent on winning over her charges with a smile and an always earnest "talk to me my door is always open. The relationship between Stewart and the AFN was so tranquil, in fact, that many of the chiefs were unsettled by the apparent calm between the government and first nations in general. But by July 2000 both Fontaine and Stewart were gone and a new Indian Affairs minister by the name of Robert (Just call me "Bob") Nault, who immediately served notice that he was a minister with a "brass tacks" sensibility.

Right from the onset Nault brought an almost urgent-"the clock is ticking ladies and gentlemen"-middle class work ethic to the table.

Ottawa insiders say Nault spent the first couple of months pouring over his portfolio and getting a grip on the overall state of affairs in Indian Country. He emerged from his offices in late August of 2000 with a plan in mind: to drastically overhaul the Indian Act.

Not one to engage in out power-dressing other cabinet ministers or attempting to camouflage his-or the government's agenda with ostentatious touchy-feelly cultural-political jargon, the Rainy River MP instead brought a "dirt under the finger nails" approach to the task at hand that essentially said, "you want to talk? Let's talk. You want to stomp you're feet, pout, hold your breath or stick your head in the sand, then out of my way because I'll find someone who really wants to get things done.

For some mysterious reason, Coon Come decided to adopt the Ovide Mercredi model of leadership-a variation of the blame game-which Mercredi had managed to use to draw Irwin to an essential stalemate Mercredi had managed to stall a scaled down version (in comparison to Nault's Bill C-7) of Indian Act amendments, but Nault was not to be so easily put off.

Aware that the AFN and Coon Come had failed to recognize the growing evidence of grassroots discontent and embarrassment over the well-publicized excesses of many chiefs and leaders, Nault proceeded to give the once marginalized and ignored dissidents his department's ear.

In fact, Nault proceeded instead to pour his ministerial affections upon the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and its new leader, Dwight Dorey, as well as upon several regional urban organizations, whose leaders sensed an opportunity to make both political and financial gains long blocked by the once politically dominant AFN and by its member regional political organizations such as the AMC, SCO, MKO, FSIN and Treaty 3.

Each time the AFN would insist accountability, transparency, and democratic freedom were the rule, and not the exception among its member nations, Nault would assist those first nations citizens who had finally given up on appealing to their own leaders and organizations to at least hear their complaints.

>From Dakota Tipi, to Eskasoni, from SIGA to Samson, from Peguis, Nelson House, Garden Hill, Fort Albany and dozens of other communities across the country the cat was out of the bag and the Canadian public could see for themselves that this was a situation of first nations citizens protesting against the exclusionary and oppressive practices practiced by their own chiefs and councils.

And when Coon Come, SCO Grand Chief Margaret Swan and AMC leader Dennis Whitebird tried desperately to ridicule Nault's consultation process as a sham, a façade and an outright lie, they ended up in exposing their own historical and unremitting failure to consult with their own constituents.

Even if one were to eliminate 75 per cent of the 10,000 first nations people INAC purports to have consulted on the FNGA, the remaining 2,500 persons would still exceed by 2,499 the number of grassroots first nations people the AFN or any of Bill C-7's major critics had consulted. Nault, in fact, was correct when he claimed that the consultation process on Bill C-7 was the largest of it's kind in Canadian history.

The people power factor.

Less than 5 years ago the AFN as well as its member chiefs and regional political organizations were able to routinely dismiss allegations and revelations of band corruption as the outrageous invention of Leona Freed's First Nations Accountability Coalition or some vague mainstream media conspiracy to perpetuate anti-Indian sentiment among Canadians.

But opposition to the excesses employed by many Indian leaders and many of the Indian elite has a new faces, or more correctly many new faces.

Dakota Tipi First Nation member William Hall-whose family has been waging a decades long fight to participate in the life and governance of their reserve-is one of those faces.

Isolated and shut out from participating in the life of his own reserve for decades his complaints of rampant corruption, nepotism, despotism, economic, political and social repression were once openly scorned and dismissed.

"We tried all our own leaders and organizations, They wouldn't even hear us out. In fact, in some cases like the AMC they did anything they could to obstruct us."

But after launching his own court action against the then chief and council, his example emboldened others on the reserve to take on the fight and forced both the federal government and the media to take notice.

What once had been a situation of isolated and marginalized dissent quickly grew into a widespread clamour for participation in the administration and governance of their communities.

Nault willingly received the complaints and began serving notice that he would support their efforts. After all, such demonstrations of internal resistance were pure gold in convincing the Canadian public and politicians that the massive overhaul proposed in the FNGA was necessary and supported by ordinary first nations men and women.

In Manitoba alone at least 20 first nations, or nearly one-third of the entire number of reserves, have seen the birth of small groups of first nations citizens who fed up with the status-quo have educated themselves on the Indian Act and on organizing effective opposition to totalitarian and authoritarian rule by their leaders.

In Nelson House the dissent has demonstrated itself at impromptu community meetings where one-third of adults on the reserve-some 300 or more-attend to demand a say in decisions affecting their lives and the future of their children.

Those legitimate aspirations and concerns originally rebuffed by their own local, regional and national political bodies have finally reared their heads to rightfully call into question both the relevance of the AFN and call it to public account over its repeated contention that it is the legitimate voice of first nations citizens.

Nault cuts off the gravy train

While Nault's most strident critics, Roberta Jamieson, Margaret Swan, Leon Jourdain and Matthew Coon Come attempted to paint the moves by CAP and Nault to claim legitimacy as blatant opportunism, many of their fellow chiefs in regions across Canada commenced or continued with their own self-government negotiations, so that even at the depths of the worst relationship between the AFN and the minister, some 80 such negotiations are currently underway.

Chiefs who claim at AFN assemblies and confederacy meetings that Nault is the personification of colonial-minded evil continue to meet with the minister, request additional funding and enter into a staggering array of agreements.

As one Alberta chief admitted in a recent conversation, " It's not possible to stand up at an AFN meeting and give the department or Nault his due on some very real progress made in various self-government agreements that have been hammered out during the last three years.

"They'd boo you down and paint you as some sort of traitor or collaborator. They chastise Nault and the government for arrogance but many of them are hypocrites because they won't walk the walk of their convictions. In the meetings they blow a lot of hot air and back home they roll out the red carpet because the reality is the government funds everything in our communities."

Indeed in several discussions with Nault it's apparent that it's not a question of personal ego that drives him but rather the need to produce concrete results and the absolute rejection of any position that fails to recognize the need to do something that even offers the slightest glimmer for substantive change and improvement for Canada's first nations before the opportunity slips away yet again.

Long on frank talk and short on procedural ceremony Nault rolled up his sleeves very early to get to the bottom of some very stagnant and costly experiments including the former crown jewel of self-government negotiations , the Manitoba's Framework Agreement Initiative-a much ballyhooed self-government model once lauded to be the template for the future of self-government agreements across the country. After 7 years however the initiative had been reduced to a $35 million dollar farce in which any significant and concrete result was at best still 10 years and $50 million away.

Nault cut off funding to the failed experiment angering chiefs in the province especially Southern Organization of Chiefs leader Margaret Swan, whose dislike for Nault transcends the political. Shortly after Nault cancelled funding for the FAI Swan began to publicly refer him as "cowboy" and repeatedly forecast that the chiefs would be able to drive Nault from his post or that the Rainy River MP would not survive a cabinet shuffle.

In every case those swaggering predictions were roundly proved wrong.

Rather than retool and rethink an obviously ineffective strategy of personal attack against Nault, Coon Come aped Swan's act, calling the minister intransigent, inflexible and inaccessible.

Treaty 3 Grand Chief Leon Jourdain-whose group's own self-government initiative also descended into a multi-million dollar administrative paper-shuffling exercise went as far as to issue a press release saying his organization had ,"fired" Nault as Indian Affairs minister-after Nault cut off funding to the process

"He's irrelevant to first nations," said Jourdain, in a demonstration of idiotic bluster that only served to offer Nault more evidence to provide the Canadian public of the urgency for his proposed suite of legislation.