Indigenous leaders, for the second year in a row, will not attend the Premier’s meeting that gets underway tomorrow in Saint Andrew’s New Brunswick.
“We are not just another special interest group”
“An effective process for intergovernmental participation must reflect our status under the Constitution and international law as peoples and nations with inherent rights, title and jurisdiction,” Perry Bellegarde, Chief of the Assembly of First Nations said in a media statement last year.
“We are not just another special interest group,” he said then.
And again this year, the leaders are passing on the gathering where they have status only as “organizations” not as leaders in their own right.
They want to participate as full members of the Council of the Federation with province-like powers to be at the table for all talks.
Indigenous leaders were present with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his provincial counterparts for the closing news conference at the First Ministers’ Meeting in Ottawa on Dec. 9, 2016. (Adrian Wyld/CP)
In an interview with CBC News last week Clement Chartier said the premiers “don’t respect the fact that the inherent right of self-government is alive and well in this country.”
He said when the organizers of the event refer to him and the other leaders as simply leaders of a “national Indigenous organization,” they are not recognizing his status as the leader of the national government of the Métis nation, he said.
“We’re not invited as representatives of governments,” Chartier said.
The ITK is also unable to attend as the 13th general assembly of the Inuit Circumpolar Council is now underway in Utqiagvik, Alaska.
This meeting, from today until Thursday, the 19th, is held once every four years, and includes elections for the Council.
ITK’s president, Natan Obed, is leading Canada’s delegation in Alaska.
(With files from CBC)
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