Noront Resources

http://www.thesudburystar.com/2016/09/10/chief-to-put-pressure-on-feds

Chief to put pressure on feds

By Brian Kelly, Sault Star

Saturday, September 10, 2016 1:55:13 EDT AM

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde attends a Robinson-Huron Treaty commemoration gathering at Sault Ste. Marie National Historic Canal.

Pressure is what Perry Bellegarde plans to apply to the federal government to make sure recommendations from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Indigenous Women and Girls are implemented.

The Assembly of First Nations National Chief, in Sault Ste. Marie on Friday to participate in a Robinson-Huron Treaty commemoration, doesn't want to see another Penner Report or Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The final report of the latter study, published in 1996 and running 4,000 pages, included several hundred "good" recommendations that weren't acted on, said Bellegarde.

"How many of them have been implemented?" he said at Sault Ste. Marie National Historic Canal.

"Our job is to keep the pressure on government," said Bellegarde of the national inquiry that began Sept. 1 and is expected to take two years, or more. "They have to be implemented in order to have impact, in order to have change on the ground."

AFN "pushed" the federal government to launch the inquiry.

"The issue is how do you end violence?" said Bellegarde. "You want to end violence and you want to stop the normalization of violence amongst First Nation people. We're trying to end the victimization of indigenous women and girls and how society views them as somehow less and they're expendable. All those things have to change."

Bellegarde, elected in December 2014, wants to see all three levels of government, and First Nations, act before the inquiry's findings to bring in supports, such as daycare, shelters and detox centres, that can help with concerns about violence against aboriginal women.

"These things can happen how," he said. "There's a strong component of involving the families that have lost loved ones. There's that healing aspect."

Bellegarde sees the inquiry accomplishing another goal - raising public awareness.

"If this didn't happen, nobody would be talking about it," he said. "If you want to change attitudes in society, how they view things, you have to have an education and awareness process. That'll hopefully lead to understanding and that will hopefully lead to change in terms of policy, legislation and programs, but even in terms of attitudes."

The gathering also drew Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day.

He plans to be at Queen's Park on Monday for a throne speech after the Liberal government prorogued the legislature on Thursday.

"We need to remain focused. We need to step it up," said Day. "We need to make clear benchmarks for relationships and the outcomes for First Nations."

Resource revenue sharing, not impact benefit agreements and employment, is how First Nations should be benefitting most for natural resource extraction, said the former Serpent River chief.

The provincial government has "raked in riches" over decades, said Day, but not First Nations.

"We clearly have not been able to gain any sort of benefit momentum from the wealth and resource extraction in Ontario," he said. "We definitely need to ensure that First Nations are part of the economy. How we're going to do that is resource revenue sharing."

Day also wants to see First Nations consulted on Crown lands within municipalities, including cottage lot developments in Elliot Lake. The land is being expropriated, he said, "without full engagement and participation of First Nations."

"I'm alarmed that we have not seen any movement on the issue of Crown land expropriation within municipal boundaries," said Day.

Expanded territories for municipalities such as Elliot Lake "were meant for mining," he said. "They weren't meant for other development."

He wants the issue addressed before the Liberal mandate ends in 2018.

"These Crown lands, from the perspective of treaties, these are treaty lands and those were to be lands of shared benefit and gain. That hasn't happened," said Day. "It's better if First Nations are partners with municipalities and industry. The provincial government, without resolving those types of issues, the government's words are just empty. We've made great headway on the cottage lot issue. However, it seems to have now fallen on deaf ears when the land transactions are occurring with the city."