On the campaign trail, the Liberals set up some great expectations for aboriginals. Now the question is, will they deliver?
An inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women will likely be the first item to be checked off on the long list of First Nations campaign promises, said University of Saskatchewan public policy professor Ken Coates.
Aboriginal people will be keeping tabs on when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau launches an inquiry, but the way the Liberals go about it will also hold a lot of meaning, said Coates, who is also the director of a master’s program in northern governance.
To be effective, Coates says an inquiry needs to produce actual results and influence the new government’s policies going forward.
It’s time to see how the Liberals deliver on other expensive promises to aboriginal people – like lifting the funding cap for First Nations programs.
But some items won’t be quick to come. Coates points out that the promise of the Truth and Reconciliation recommendations alone are going to cost a lot, and Trudeau’s campaign promises covered a lot of ground beyond aboriginal people.
“It’s almost impossible to keep all of them (the promises) because you have to realize that the Liberal party has made promises on other files as well and if you add them up across the whole system it’s costing an awful lot of money,” he said.
Coates says delivering on those promises will take time, but he doesn’t think aboriginal people are looking for the Liberals to throw money at different problems.
“They want a different relationship. The relationship is not having Ottawa tell First Nations or Metis communities what they should do, the relationship they want is one that is based on trust and respect, and collaboration between aboriginal governments and the government of Canada,” he said.
As an example of a failed approach – Coates uses the Conservative funding of First Nations education – saying the feds wanted to impose their will
“Ottawa was insisting on keeping a lot of control over how the money was spent and how it was accounted for. And a lot of First Nation communities were really upset about that and they basically walked away from the deal because it was too Ottawa-centric
When Justin Trudeau’s Liberals won a majority, Trudeau repeated his commitment to First Nations people in his acceptance speech.
“You want a Prime Minister that knows that a renewed nation to nation relationship with Indigenous peoples, that respects rights and honours treaties, must be the basis for how we work to close the gap and walk forward together,” he said to a cheering crowd on Monday.
“You want a prime minister who knows that if Canadians are to trust their government, their government needs to trust Canadians.”
Coates says Trudeau’s new government will set the tone for its relationship with within the next few months.