The chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations says changes need to be made before treaty talks can be re-started between the federal government and First Nations leaders.
Perry Bellegarde says the government committee assigned to oversee the process needs to include more officials with real power.
He notes no officials from the Department of Justice, the Auditor General’s office or the Governor General’s office currently sit on the committee and this is one of the reasons he has chosen to ignore it.
Bellegarde adds the government also needs to recognize that each treaty must be dealt with separately and a blanket approach won’t work.
“We want to take these treaty dialogues out to the people, out to the communities, so that involves out elders, the councillors, the youth, to make sure we get this right,” he says. “But that’s just one side of it. On the other side of work we’ve got to get done is the Crown has to be willing to engage.”
Aboriginal Affairs minister Bernard Valcourt recently issued a press release applauding the progress that’s been made on First Nations issues but Bellegarde doesn’t agree with the Harper government’s claims.
“There’s not a lot of progress being made,” he says. “You know I see the minister’s comments about two pieces of legislation, the Matrimonial Real Property Act he talks about and the transparency piece of legislation and we’ve always stated that as First Nations people we’ve got to start developing our own acts.”
He adds the new government legislation isn’t having any real impact either way.