by Patrick Lejtenyi

Last Monday, Radio-Canada’s RDI announced that Stephen Harper’s federal Conservatives will table their budget March 20, a move that’s widely expected to be defeated and result in an immediate election call. Afghanistan, the environment and the “fiscal imbalance” are to be top priorities. Wonks, start your pontificating.

What may not be a major electoral issue is the situation regarding the country’s First Nations, even if many First Nations communities are unhappy with the current government. When the Conservatives took office a year ago, they were quick to announce that the Kelowna Accord—the agreement to spend $5.1-billion over five years hammered out in late 2005 by the Paul Martin Liberal government— would not be honoured. Federal Minister of Indian Affairs Jim Prentice confirmed as much late last year, when he announced $160-million would be cut from language preservation initiatives, to be replaced by a commitment to allocate $5-million a year over seven years. Native groups cried foul, but the government defended the decision, saying that since the money hadn’t been allocated, natives weren’t losing anything anyway. This hasn’t gone over well with some Montreal First Nations, who say the current government doesn’t respect native self-governance, and doesn’t care a whit about them anyway.

The Kelowna Accord was supposed to allocate money to three main areas—language and culture, housing and health care. For Steven Bonspille, Grand Chief of the Kanesatake Band Council near the Lake of Two Mountains, says the cuts Prentice announced are especially painful. “That’s the basis of who we are,” he says. “That’s our identity.”

In the South Shore reserve of Kahnawake, Chief Mike Bush says the Conservatives are “playing fast and loose with language.” By announcing the cuts, he says, the federal government—under whose jurisdiction all native affairs falls, in theory if not always in practice—failed Canada’s First Nations. “We were anticipating and expecting money from the government to deal with the issues we’ve been dealing with for the past three generations,” he says. “So, thanks a lot.” He describes Prentice’s justification of the cuts as “a bit of a con.”

But the chiefs’ dissatisfaction with the Conservatives in general runs deep. Both say the party is unresponsive to their demands, and tend to dictate terms to First Nations, rather than working in consultation. “The federal government’s approach is, ‘Get with the program or don’t bother us,’ this party in particular,” says Bush. “We’re not children here,” says Bonspille. “We know the situation, we know how to deal with it better than anyone else. We just don’t believe the Conservatives. The last time there was a Conservative government, tanks were rolling through our community.”

Kelowna, however, was not universally loved. Some community leaders complain that there wasn’t enough consultation in the leadup to the agreement’s signing, and not all of its principles were affordable or enforceable universally across the country. “It wasn’t the best agreement, but it wasn’t the worst either,” says Bonspille. “Fundamentally, it had some good initiatives and commitments from the Liberals. It was the first in a series of steps to be taken.”

In Quebec, the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador and Quebec Native Women (QNW), boycotted the talks over a lack of consultation. But even the Liberals, says QNW president Ellen Gabriel, were—and, under new party leader Stéphane Dion, seem to be—more responsive and flexible when it comes to meeting with First Nations representatives. Gabriel says she was “not surprised, but disappointed” that the Conservatives chose not to honour Kelowna. “One of the frustrating things about having an elected government is, you have a signed agreement with one, but then why in hell can it be undone by the next government?” she says. “We have to start all over again, sensitizing them all over again—but the Conservatives don’t even listen to the senior bureaucrats. They have a very hard line when it comes to aboriginals, like you have when you’re dealing with children.”

Bonspille, Bush and Gabriel all agree that relations have become muddier since the 1990 Oka crisis, and that the federal government has busily offloaded a number of responsibilities to the provinces. Some land claims, such as the Seigniory of Sault St-Louis, which the proposed extension of Highway 30 would cut through, are still outstanding, as are issues regarding policing, courts, health care and education. Also, the vast majority of aboriginals don’t vote, saying that by taking part in Canada’s electoral system, they’re effectively signing their own surrender. They also agree that relations with the province are generally much better than with Ottawa.