Prime Minister Stephen Harper raised expectations among Canada’s chiefs when he agreed to a federal-First Nations summit.
But that’s to be expected when 400 politicians are invited to the first meeting with the prime minister in almost six years.
A variety of agendas landed on the table on Tuesday, but hopes for monumental change were dashed.
Harper cautioned in his opening address on Tuesday that the Indian Act cannot be scrapped with a stroke of a pen, as some chiefs desire.
Harper then left to prepare for a meeting for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. That caused some chiefs to grumble about his commitment to move on First Nations issues.
The antiquated, paternalistic Indian Act treats chiefs and councils as wards of the state — every bylaw, every agreement they write needs the signature of the Aboriginal Affairs minister.
But it is the legal framework that guides the bands’ working relationship with the federal government, and which defines bands’ governing powers.
Harper is right to proceed slowly.
His government’s intent is to pick off jurisdictional areas for modernization, gradually giving First Nations control over their own affairs, overriding the Indian Act and dismantling its barriers to progress.
To date, the Harper government has enacted recognition of matrimonial property rights on reserve, and is empowering band members who want access to their bands’ financial documents.
An education act, in the making, is expected to see the adoption of educational standards across Canadian bands.
This is a painfully slow but deliberate approach to giving life to First Nations’ self-government aspirations.
It will not meet all the demands of native leaders impatient for the fulfilment of treaties.
Part of that lies in interpretation: the chiefs insist that the treaties agreed to share, rather than cede, control over the natural resources in traditional territories.
Successive high court decisions have asserted their right to use and profit from those resources.
Beyond that, provincial governments have only an obligation to consult First Nations on resource development.
The discussions between Harper and Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo, however, indicate they agree on a to-do list that can be addressed now.
This is a hopeful sign.
Atleo should stay the course and continue to work with Ottawa on the piecemeal dismantling of the Indian Act’s stranglehold over First Nations people, their rights as Canadians and their livelihoods.
An editorial from the Winnipeg Free Press.