Where is the Indigenous leadership in defining a new relationship?
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was first elected, he began his term by pledging his undying love for and commitment to Indigenous people, saying his number one priority was to make the relationship work.
What a difference four years makes.
The signal the prime minister’s Monday cabinet shuffle sent clearly shows his attention has waned.
Not only did he shuffle Jane Philpott from Indigenous Services, a portfolio where the medical doctor has worked hard to gain the respect of Indigenous leaders, but he also demoted his most senior First Nations cabinet member, outgoing justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, who had been in a crucial position to help build a new relationship with Indigenous peoples.
And then he moved Seamus O’Regan, a seemingly unknown quantity in much of the Indigenous community, into Philpott’s job.
It is an odd choice, one that caused eyebrows across the country to lift.
Wilson-Raybould issued a statement on Monday, saying while she understands why folks are asking questions, she will “not be commenting.” It is the prerogative of the prime minister to make Cabinet decisions, she said.
But the minister, who has been openly criticized for being part of a government that continues to take residential school survivors to court, did make a plea to continue the work of reconciliation.
“The work that must be done is well known. We have the solutions. Indigenous peoples have advocated and brought forward what must be done for decades. Countless commissions, studies, reports and analyses have reiterated the work we must do together to reconcile,” her statement said.
O’Regan, who represents the riding of St. John’s South-Mount Pearl, is a non-Indigenous man and former TV personality who is now taking over the role of one of the most important Cabinet posts at a time when relations between Ottawa and Indigenous people could hardly be more fractured.
The New Year started off with the arrests of 14 people last week by heavily armed RCMP officers in Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia, prompting demonstrations across the country in support of the land defenders opposing the $6.2-billion pipeline on the unceded land of the Wet’suwet’en people.
On National Aboriginal Day, June 21, 2017, Trudeau reiterated a sentiment he has often expressed: “No relationship is more important to Canada than the relationship with Indigenous Peoples … [The government is] working together with Indigenous Peoples to build a nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown, government-to-government relationship – one based on respect, partnership, and recognition of rights.”
But since that time, Indigenous people have increasingly given such statements the side-eye.
Not only does the arrest of 14 fly in the face of Article 10 of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People – which states Indigenous people can’t be forcibly removed off their land. But it took decades for Canada to sign the declaration in the first place – Canada was one of the last countries to do so, even though veteran NDP MP Romeo Saganash, a residential school survivor and a Cree lawyer, had tirelessly worked for more than two decades on negotiating the declaration internationally.
The United Nations is also calling out Ottawa for failing to properly consult Indigenous people concerning construction of the Site C 1,100 megawatt hydroelectric dam that threatens to flood 128 km of the Peace River.
After the Monday morning shuffle, a journalist asked Trudeau a question that was on everyone’s minds — why did he pick a non-Indigenous white man for the job of Indigenous Services?
About two years ago, Trudeau split the former ministry of Indigenous and Northern Affairs into two entities – Indigenous Services and the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations. He said he did so with the express purpose of tearing the remnants of a colonial institution.
But why not have an Indigenous person lead that important effort?
There are a number of Indigenous Liberal Members of Parliament whom Trudeau could have chose. Just a few names here — Winnipeg-Centre’s Robert Falcon-Ouellette who hails from Red Pheasant First Nation in Saskatchewan; Michael McLeod, who is Métis and represents the North West Territories; and Labrador’s Yvonne Jones who is of Inuit descent.
With this shuffle, Trudeau can expect people to ask what the absence of Indigenous leadership in defining a promised new relationship signals.
Tanya Talaga is a Toronto-based columnist covering Indigenous issues. Follow her on Twitter: @tanyatalaga
