Aboriginals see Quebec nation as snub

Fri Dec 1 2006
By Martin Cash
Winnipeg Free Press

SOME aboriginal leaders in Manitoba wish Quebec good luck now that Ottawa has recognized the Québécois as a nation within a united Canada, but they also see it as another snub to the country's indigenous people.

Chris Henderson, grand chief of the Southern Chiefs Organization, called it a slap in the face to Canada's indigenous people.

"It once again perpetuates the historic and legal mythology that Canada was founded by two nations, the British and the French," he said. "When in fact, indigenous people have been here since time immemorial."

Henderson said it is even more galling the resolution should come the same week Canada voted in favour of killing a United Nations resolution to adopt the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Most legal and constitutional experts say the implications of the resolution about Quebec are unclear. But many aboriginal leaders are not impressed.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs took the unusual measure of rescinding a tough statement issued earlier in the week that said the resolution raised "serious concerns" for indigenous people.

In its new stance on the issue, articulated in a letter to the editor to the Free Press sent late Thursday, Ron Evans, grand chief of the AMC, was clearly displeased but a little more ironic.

"The government of Canada has proven again that it does not possess the political will or integrity, beyond symbolic gestures, to address the concerns of the people of Quebec any more than they possess the honour or will to recognize the rightful place of the indigenous peoples of this land," he wrote.

He goes on to echo the concern also expressed by the president of the Manitoba Métis Federation that indigenous people in Canada must continue to fight to receive their rightful respect, regardless of how Ottawa deals with Quebec.

The Métis across the country were strong supporters of the Liberal party in the last federal election and are suspicious of the Tory's stance on aboriginal people which they believe woefully neglects the Métis.

"We know we represent a nation in Canada," said Dave Chartrand president of the MMF. "The Métis negotiated the Manitoba Act in 1870 that brought this province into Confederation. But we are being snubbed (by the Harper government)."