As hunting is a big part of aboriginal lifestyle, I would like to know why the Liberals are the NDP want to ban guns.

I would like an honest response from all party members on what their party plans to do about lawfully owned rifles and handguns.

As an aboriginal person and as a gun owner, I feel our rights have been violated too much already over the years by the governments of this country and this must stop
I also have friends who legally target shoot with handguns. Why is it that gun owners have been picked on in this country for years now?

Phil Fontaine: You are correct Rob, the right of Aboriginal peoples to hunt is indeed fundamental to our cultures and economies. As you know, the Assembly of First Nations is a non-partisan political organization, so I can’t speak for the positions of any political parties, but my understanding is that some parties support possible bans on assault weapons and on hand-guns in urban areas, which aren’t used for hunting. Some also support registering long-guns, which also isn’t a ban. If any party were in favour of banning hunting rifles, the AFN would take a strong stand against that assault on First Nations rights.

In light of the William case "decision" in B.C. Supreme Court where the judge ruled that the Tsilhqot'in have sufficient evidence to prove in a future case that they hold Aboriginal Title, how can we convince the federal government that its priority (in the best interests of both aboriginal people in Canada as well as the rest of the Canadian public) should NOT be to dispute this finding by engaging in additional costly and disrespectful legal battles, but rather, by acknowledging the significance of the existence of Aboriginal Title and working collaboratively instead?

Phil Fontaine: Good question Aline. I am deeply concerned about the rules of evidence regarding Aboriginal Title and the AFN has been advocating for what you suggest. The AFN works very hard to convince the government to support Aboriginal Title and is making some progress in helping politicians and bureaucrats understand the fundamental issues and about the need to respect the law. Respectful and cooperative relations in this and all matters affecting First Nations rights are the only way that we can make progress. The idea of a renewed relationship between First Nations and the federal government is at the heart of reconciliation which all political leaders spoke about during the apology in the House of Commons on June 11th. The best way to convince the federal government to act in this way right now is to get involved in the current election and make your views known by voting. Get everyone you know involved and support whichever party you feel best reflects the most promising approach for change! This is an important part of our “Vote 08, Change Can’t Wait!” initiative. You can check out our website www.afn.ca for more information.

I would like to know what steps Mr. Fontaine has taken, in the past 10 years, to help deal with the aboriginal gang problems in the prairie provinces (please be very specific). Thank you.

Phil Fontaine: Well Ken, gang violence was a cause that I took on very early in my career and it continues to be very important to me. More recently, three years ago I enlisted the help of a former First Nations RCMP officer who, on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations, has been working on gang prevention. Additionally, I visit with communities and speak to youth and youth workers frequently about the need to act with respect for others, for the teachings of our Elders and for one’s self. I also advocate on behalf of First Nations with the federal government for youth programs, sports, cultural and community activities to give young people choices that keep them away from gangs and crime, and I speak to our community leaders about the need to make these a priority within their limited resources. At the very foundation of the issue is poverty so any gang prevention strategy means that the federal government must also step up to the plate. We need quality education, schools and recreational facilities, and we need economic development so that young people have hope for a better future. The safety, health, education and future of our children has been my top priority as National Chief.

Although this is not uniquely a First Nations problem,
What more can be done to combat the high rates of fetal alcohol effect and fetal alcohol syndrome in aboriginal communities?
Can solutions be crafted that respect the right to life of unborn children? What challenges are posed by the Sullivan V. Lemay case that prevented Winnipeg Child Services from preventing an addicted expectant mother from continuing to abuse substances?
Thank you,
AV

Phil Fontaine: Thank you for this very important question Alexander. This is a very difficult issue as you know. The cycle of abuse that leads to self-abuse through alcohol has to be broken. This is part of the healing that you often hear me and other leaders talk about. The residential school settlement, the apology to survivors and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are all part of that healing strategy. Like my answer to Ken above about youth and gangs, another part of the solution here is to provide choices and hope to people for a better future. For example, the Aboriginal Head Start programs initiative prepares young First Nations children, mothers and families. It is based on meeting the social, health, nutritional, psychological and emotional needs of children and their families. It also has a job skills training program. Also, the AFN has recently partnered with the Jane Goodall Institute and their Roots and Shoots program. This is a wonderful program for youth-driven programs which focuses on youth empowerment, leadership and making positive change happen in their communities, for animals and for the environment.

I can’t speak to the specific case you mention, but I can point to the human rights complaint that the AFN helped launch to ensure that child and family services on reserve are treated equally with provincial programs. That will enable better solutions to be made for these kinds of situations.

I once read an article that stated the federal government spends $80,000 per household for native peoples. If this statistic is correct, how can 40 per cent of native children be living in poverty?

Phil Fontaine: That statistic is simply wrong. In fact, the average Canadian individual receives approximately $16,000 annually in programs and services from federal, provincial and municipal governments, which for a family of four would be about $64,000. First Nations programs and services are provided by only one level of government, the federal government. The amount that reaches communities is less than $9,000 per person per year. For a family of four that is less than $36,000. This discrepancy explains much of the poverty that exists in our communities. For example, provincial governments fund education for their students $2,000 or more per student on average than the federal government provides for First Nations students’ education. Put another way, First Nations students on reserve receive about $2,000 less education each than non-First Nations students. Everyone knows that a good education offers opportunity and improves life chances. There is an obvious inequality in funding for First Nations students and I have been carrying this message across Canada so that the federal government closes the gap between First Nations children and their counterparts and commits to an effective plan aimed at eradicating First Nations poverty.

In addition, the destruction hunting and fishing habitats, which has led to the destruction of First Nations economies and trade also contributes to the situation of poverty. In addition, the fact that a lot of natural resource development like mining and forestry is done without respecting First Nations rights to participate in the benefits of those projects, even though they are done on our lands also confounds the problem.

The fact that First Nations do not have control over our own decision-making seriously impedes economic development. This is true of any community anywhere and experts in economic development agree with this such as the United Nations Development Program or professors involved in the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development who studied Aboriginal economies in the U.S. and Canada for 15 years. This is why you will often hear me and other First Nations leaders talking about the importance of local control over decision-making.

Mr. Fontaine,

Have you ever considered running in an election? I think you would make a great MP (and probably cabinet minister) in whatever party you were in.

Phil Fontaine: Thank you Tyson, I appreciate your support, but I am more than fully occupied with my current job as National Chief! The work as National Chief is personally fulfilling and I’m very fortunate to travel to communities across the country and advocate for the rights of First Nations nationally and internationally.

Because the Conservative want longer sentences for people who are charged with crimes and fewer conditional sentences, and first nations, they say, have a higher percentage of people that are charged, this should mean that more of your people will be in prison for more time. How will this help you improve your sector of Canadian society?

Phil Fontaine: Locking more of our people up in jail certainly won’t help improve First Nations communities, but I point to my answers to previous questions on gangs and on poverty as reflecting the way I see improvements being made on this issue. I would also point to other alternative forms of resolving disputes, like healing circles and diversion programs as solutions which focus on diverting First Nation individuals away from the penal system and towards rehabilitation and reintegration into society and the community. For example, a community might have the offender and victims come together to identify how to heal the rift in the community that is created by a crime and how the offender can take personal responsibility for that in a way satisfactory to the victim. This is often a more constructive way to deal with a crime than just abandoning people to the jail system. While it is too complex to get into it here, the issues of over-policing and inequality in sentencing have also been studied by criminologists and warrant further attention.

In keeping with a comment in Rick Anderson's post about the stifling nature of political correctness, I was wondering if the inability to have a full, frank discussion on the challenges that Native people face is preventing action? I feel that politicians (and some Native leaders) are being so careful in what they say that the general electorate does not grasp how serious the problems are. I would rather hear someone speak bluntly about how the suicide rate can affect a small community's future than quote carefully framed statistics designed to demonstrate knowledge without offending anyone. Do you think today's leaders are being effective when they discuss these issues?

Phil Fontaine: I agree with you that full and frank discussion is key to finding solutions, but I think that misinformation damages the quality of a debate more than whatever limits arise from trying to be respectful. I must say that the term ‘political correctness’ is often a label used to distract attention from substantive debates. However, if we look at the historical roots of this term, it is about the recognition of power differences between different groups. Political correctness has since been used as a scapegoat to condone disrespectful and demeaning dialogue when addressing the challenges First Nations people face. There are an awful lot of uninformed opinions that appear in the media and these are also repeated by politicians and others as though they represent the truth. We need good quality information and accurate statistics about suicide, or funding, or education or a host of other issues faced by First Nations people, and we need to listen to the voices of people with experience in the issues over those who have never set foot on a reserve in their lives. We need a lot more dialogue, and we need a lot better information reaching people. I don’t think it hurts to try to conduct the dialogue and provide information in a respectful and polite way, if all parties truly are interested in seeking a deeper understanding and reaching resolution.

Dear National Chief Fontaine,

How should governmental powers - and federal tax revenue - be devolved to First Nations governments? What framework or agreement(s) do you believe are required to facilitate this (are constitutional amendments required)?

Thank-you,

LM

Phil Fontaine: Great question, thank you for asking it. There are no constitutional amendments needed to facilitate the movement toward self-government or to establish more appropriate funding agreements, just political will to implement it.

There are over 630 First Nation communities in Canada and each is at a different level of development, each has different capacity to take on greater governing responsibilities right away and each has a different path that it wants to follow. So we need a variety or a continuum of responses to address a multiplicity of situations. The common thread is that the movement forward must be facilitated by the federal government, not impeded by them. Imposing solutions from Ottawa just does not work, especially one-size-fits-all solutions designed to address the political agenda of the federal government rather than the needs of communities. I think this is how we will see the eventual realization of self-government by First Nations.

Fiscal transfers should resemble the arrangements with the provinces, enabling decision-making that is tailored to the needs of their communities. Treating our governments like other governments when it comes to fiscal transfers was a recommendation of the Independent Blue Ribbon Panel on Grants and Contributions set up by the current federal government early in their mandate. But this was never implemented.

M. Fontaine,

Apparently, aboriginal claims and rights are misunderstood by average Canadians. In that situation, your battle will never be a main subject in a campaign.

What is the strategy of the assembly of first nation to fight that sad reality?

How can we expect leadership from the federal government if the majority of Canadians can't explain what a comprehensive claim is?

Phil Fontaine: You’re absolutely right, Simon, that Canadians need to understand our issues better and I believe that Canadians, being generally compassionate and reasonable people, would respond to the solutions we need once they do understand the reality of our history and in our communities today.

Public education is a slow process, especially when there are so many uninformed critics out there confusing people, but we keep plugging away. Of course, we need to start looking at the Canadian education system and how the history of First Nations is taught in schools, indeed if it is taught at all. There are many university and college programs offering Indigenous politics, law and history classes, many of them are taught by Indigenous peoples themselves and these courses would be a great way for students to learn more about First Nations issues. We have a number of strategies that we employ at any given time. Right now, we are trying to engage First Nations citizens in the election campaign and to raise awareness of our issues through efforts like this online dialogue.

I live on reserve and it is pretty much the same in every reserve I was in. No housing development, or lack of money for housing. It would be nice to see every family have proper housing on reserve. Look at all the trees that are cut down, or all the oil taken out of the ground, all the lumber that is in our country. My question is where is all that money being spent that goes to the reserves?

Phil Fontaine: A lot of the money that the federal government says it spends on “Aboriginal issues” does not go to reserves, more than a third in fact. Some goes to keep the federal bureaucracy running, some goes to other Aboriginal peoples like the Métis and Inuit or non-status Indians, and some goes to non-Aboriginal groups and companies that claim to be doing work with Aboriginal people.

Some of that money even goes to fighting against the legal rights of First Nations. Think about that. Canada spends money on lawyers to tie up cases in courts or keep claims from getting resolved, which drains First Nations fiscal resources as they must spend money to fight for their rights. This doubles their costs and the federal government claims this is money spent on behalf of First Nations. This is unbelievable!

As I answered above, less than $9,000 per person in programs and services goes to First Nations communities, under the direction of federal bureaucrats who do not spend it wisely. They build inferior homes that need repairs earlier than a well-built house and they have no more money for the repairs. This has contributed to the housing crisis.

Could you clarify which Aboriginal people you are representing and which Aboriginal people are in dire straits? I am always confused as to whether you mean on-reserve, off-reserve, status, non-status, Metis, Inuit, etc.

Phil Fontaine: The Assembly of First Nations represents all First Nations people on or off-reserve. First Nations are those people who the government called Indians in the Constitution and the Indian Act. Inuit and Métis are the other Aboriginal peoples identified in the Constitution. There is also a group of people with some Aboriginal heritage, either First Nations, Métis or Inuit who are not recognized by the government. Right now, the Government of Canada refuses to allow First Nations to identify who their members are; they insist on keeping that power. We are trying to change that fact in order to clarify things for people.

As to your question about which Aboriginal people are in dire straights, many of our citizens in First Nations communities are in dire straits, but I’m not suggesting that other Indigenous peoples such as the Métis or Inuit are having it easy. It would be useful to contact the national organizations representing the Métis and the Inuit to get useful information so you can also learn more about Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples.

I find the high poverty and low life expectancy rates of aboriginal people, in comparison to the rest of the Canadian population, totally unacceptable. In your opinion, what concretely should our federal government do in order to improve the health status of aboriginal people in Canada?

Phil Fontaine: The Kelowna Accord was aimed at addressing the factors which determine the health of First Nations people in a holistic manner such as addressing housing, health, education. We continue to advocate for that agreement as a first step in changing the deplorable conditions faced by so many of our people. The Kelowna Accord was also supported by all the Premiers – as recently as this July during the Council of the Federation meeting in Quebec City – and it is supported by four of the five parties running in the current federal election. Even the parties who opposed the Kelowna Accord said they support the Kelowna targets for closing the gap in quality of life that our people face. However, they haven’t presented a plan or funding for doing that.

I am a non-aboriginal First Nation Studies Program undergrad student at UBC, and I have been frustrated at the under-representation of aboriginal issues in this election campaign. Each party's information regarding aboriginal policy seems inadequately perfunctory. I feel that more education is needed to elucidate and demystify the impacts of identity legislation on Indigenous peoples in Canada. After speaking to each candidate, who do you think has the strongest commitment to working with Indigenous communities to create solutions for education and awareness?

Phil Fontaine: This is a good question Jamie and I wish I could answer you right now, but not all of the platforms have been released in this election. I am currently reading each of the platforms as they come out. Also, I have written to each of the five major parties recently asking for answers to specific questions on what they will do on First Nations policy and to date, only 1 of the 5 have returned their response. I also hope that there will be a question or segment in the leaders’ debates on these issues. I plan to provide an analysis of all of the parties’ positions in the days before October 14th to help people who want to support our issues better understand where each of the parties stand and I will put that on our website at www.afn.ca . I hope you don’t mind waiting just a while longer as we wait for the responses to our questionnaire to arrive and all platforms to be released.

Do you believe aboriginal people should have permanent representation in both of our parliamentary chambers or even just the senate and how would all of Canada's aborignal people have equal representation?

Phil Fontaine: Dennis, the issue of representation in the Canadian Parliamentary system is indeed an interesting and complex one. There are examples where this is done as is the case of Māori, who I believe have seven seats in the New Zealand Parliament and this was part of their Constitutional arrangement. However, our priority is with First Nations governments and we support First Nations people who want to seek election.

Dear National Chief Fontaine

What policies and issues are being discussed about the growing demographic of urban First Nations? Is it at all possible to extend aboriginal rights beyond the reserve system? What can be done to provide a more inclusive history, present and future for First Nations in urban environments?

Regards, J.L.

Phil Fontaine: I think you are talking about First Nations citizens off-reserve who live in urban settings rather than urban First Nations like Squamish or Membertou, so I will answer on that basis.

First, the statistics people have been using are wrong. These statistics lump the different groups of Aboriginal people together. So they talk about urban Aboriginal people or off-reserve Aboriginal people when the Inuit, the Métis and non-status Indians don’t have reserves. This is the fault of bad definitions and poor communications from Statistics Canada that played into the hands of those with an ideology to remove funding from reserves. The truth is, the on-reserve demographic is growing for First Nations and the urban demographic is growing for the other Aboriginal groups.

Beyond that though, you raise an important issue for our communities and that is how to maintain links with their citizens when they leave reserves, even temporarily. The first step is for our governments to wrestle the power back from the federal government to identify our own citizens, which would address a whole host of issues around identity and belonging that just get worse under the current system. The next is to engage in thoughtful discussions with communities about the level of responsibility that First Nations governments would maintain for their citizens who go elsewhere. You might compare this to the question of Canada’s responsibility for its citizens when they go to other countries for the sake of analogy. These are complicated matters, but I think they can be resolved with good will and constructive dialogue, once the department of Indian Affairs gets out of the way.

I read somewhere that South Africa's old apartheid system's use of townships to keep blacks segregated from mainstream society was modelled after the reserves for First Nations peoples as set up in Canada. Assuming for a moment that this was the case, would First Nations peoples be better off if the reserves were 'abolished', while still maintaining all their rights? In other words, are reserves simply glorified 'ghettos' (for lack of a better term)?

PS You'd make a fantastic Prime Minister.

Phil Fontaine: Thanks for the compliment! Turning to your question, the South African Apartheid system was formally put into law in 1948, but it only put into law the system of segregation, discrimination and inequality between the black and white population that was already in place. I understand that it was based on the system of reserves and reservations in Canada and the United States. However, while unfortunately I cannot expand on this here, there were differences between the regimes in Canada and South Africa. Nonetheless, the abolition of the Apartheid system in South Africa was such an important moment for democracy and justice for both South Africa and the entire world.

In Canada, there are many people calling for the abolition of reserves, but they do not necessarily understand the socio-cultural importance of reserves nor do they always have our best interests at heart. The fact is we didn’t create the reserve system as it was based on administrative efficiency for the federal government to have more firm control over our lives, but right now there is no other way to guarantee that any of our community rights would not be destroyed, especially in regard to traditional lands, governance, protection of the environment, our languages, and so on. So reserves are also an important part of our community, identity and culture. The people who advocate getting rid of reserves always focus solely on the individual rights that people could carry with them wherever they go, but they deny the importance of our communal rights. As I said, such a move would threaten the continued existence of our cultures, our languages, our way of life and the First Nations themselves. Imagine suggesting that we should be divorced from the lands that give us our very existence. I can’t.

Instead, let’s talk about maintaining our land base and restoring what has been wrongly taken from our land base and how to move toward self-government by First Nations over that land base. Let’s talk about ensuring that our communities are thriving and have the necessary infrastructure, education facilities, teachers, quality health care and so many other areas which are currently lacking and which contribute to First Nations poverty.

There seems to be a widespread desire among non-Aboriginals throughout Canada for a more just relationship with First Nations and other Aboriginal communities. But the constitutional approach is stalled, Aboriginal issues have little profile among the main parties, and we see more and more local conflicts over land and rights that are in dispute. Where do you see the momentum for reaching a better accommodation, and what is the role of non-Aboriginals in bringing that about?

Phil Fontaine: Thank you for the question Matthew. I agree that there is good will among the Canadian public to address these issues. We are counting on it to help us move forward. I think that momentum comes from the moral outrage many feel about the conditions that many First Nations face in a country as wealthy as Canada and from the interest of non-Aboriginal Canadians in supporting economic cooperation with First Nations whether that involves natural resource development or the role of First Nations in providing skilled trade workers and labour force replacement as just two examples.

With political will and the support of Canadians to insist that all the political parties support meaningful change in the relationship, we can all make a difference. A federal election campaign such as the one we are currently in is one of the best times to make that voice heard. Call up your candidates in your ridings and ask them what they will do or e-mail your questions to the national leaders. We are doing what we can to engage our citizens and to raise the profile of the issues and I hope that you can help do the same in your community.