The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples is traveling across Canada as part of a process of seeking feedback from its grassroots membership on a number of issues.
CAP Chief Betty Ann Lavallee and Vice-Chief Ron Swain were in Saskatoon Tuesday night as part of the series of meetings.
Topics discussed included the implications of the Daniels case, the importance of Aboriginal people voting in the next federal election and lack of affordable housing for people living off reserve.
Chief Lavallee says it is important to connect with the grassroots membership of the organization within an informal setting.
“It gives me the opportunity to get out and connect with the grassroots people themselves,” she says. “I hear – as I said through the meeting – I hear from the politicians all the time, the board of directors, I actually don’t really get a chance to get on to the ground and hear them tell me from their perspective.”
Aboriginal Affairs Coalition of Saskatchewan President Kim Beaudin has not always seen eye to eye with Lavallee or the national organization.
In fact, before Christmas he tried to get a motion passed removing the CAP chief from office.
Beaudin says he had hoped the meeting would have focused more on issues that are particularly pertinent to Saskatchewan, such as the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the judicial system.
With CAP no longer having regional offices in the other two Prairie provinces he also says the organization needs to listen to what this province has to say.
“In some ways we’re the voice of both Alberta and Manitoba and if you look at the Prairie provinces that encompasses a lot of off-reserve Aboriginal people and the numbers are quite significant,” he says.
One thing both Lavallee and Beaudin do agree on is the importance of Aboriginal people voting in the next federal election.
They say Indigenous people have the potential sway the outcome in a number of ridings if they choose to get out and cast ballots.
Lavallee and Swain are scheduled to make stops in Yellowknife, Whitehorse and Toronto before the end of the month.
The CAP meetings are due to wrap up sometime in March at which time the organization will file a report on the feedback it has received to the federal government.
About 30 people attended the Saskatoon meeting.