Chippewas of Rama Community Forum

By Doug Cuthand, Special to The StarPheonix March 11, 2011

For the past month or two we have been watching the ongoing phenomenon of the relentless march of democracy.We are currently watching the change occur in the Middle East. We have witnessed earlier South America and parts of Africa move from army strongmen to the legitimacy of elected leaders. While the march toward democracy is becoming a worldwide movement, in Canada we are now pathetically out of step. Our House of Commons has been reduced to a shouting match, and the Prime Minister's Office is turning Canada toward one-man rule. First Nations governments in Canada actually are no better. They, too, have power concentrated in the hands of a few who meddle and micro-manage every aspect of reserve life. The time has come to move from the vague concept of self-government to a more tightly defined First Nations democracy. Up to now, First Nations elites have pushed for self-government. The Department of Indian Affairs, a.k.a. the Colonial Office, has been happy to oblige by transferring to the First Nations governments its problems and underfunded programs. This is not self-government. It's self-administration. This form of neo-colonialism is so obvious that it jumps out at you. It's a colonial regime's way of ditching a problem and blaming the victim. Technically Africa has self-government. The colonial powers left, and dumped all the problems on the local governments. Today, they wash their hands of responsibility and smugly blame the victims. First Nations governments in Canada fell victim to the same strategy. Indian Affairs dumped self-administration on First Nations, and transformed Indian governments into Indian agents. This is not true democracy. Band councils control reserves, appoint school boards, and run and micro-manage business development. Every aspect of life on a reserve has the band council's fingerprints all over it. The same holds for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. Operational boards run by chiefs should be turned over to experts; meanwhile, chiefs should sit on policy boards, which is closer to their role. Historically it was necessary to stress the role of the chief and council. Following the troubles of 1885, many of the bands that allegedly were involved weren't allowed to have a chief. In the case of the Beardy's band, it was without a chief until the 1930s. Indian Affairs ran the show, and the chiefs and councils had virtually no legitimacy. Part of the political organizing process included the strengthening of the office of the chief and council. As a result, all the political leadership on a reserve comes from the chief and council. In spite of this perceived power and self-government, the Colonial Office still wields power through administrative blackmail and third-party management. The chiefs must bow to accountability to Indian Affairs, at the expense of accountability to their people. Using underfunded budgets and stretched resources, band councils find themselves doing INAC's dirty work. Virtually nothing is developed on a reserve today without the blessing or direct control of the band council. Councils decide the makeup of the school board, appoint and fire trustees, and micro-manage all the band's businesses and activities.
I remember going to a hockey tournament once and finding three band councillors coaching the team. I asked if there wasn't anything they didn't manage. It was a joke, but you get the point. Because band councils have taken on so much responsibility, we end up with a low success rate. Micro-managed businesses tend to fail. Politics mixed in with the education system is a recipe for disaster, and independent bodies such as boards of trustees are viewed with suspicion. The time has come to put the band councils in their place. They can't be all things to all band members. A line has to be drawn, and it's doubtful that it will be done voluntarily. The responsibility to run things must be spread around with independent school boards, health boards and independent business development. The role of government in the economy is to create a positive climate for business to succeed, not to run businesses into the ground. First Nations can get involved in business the same way other governments in Canada do -by creating a "Crown corporation" to implement public policy. When a project or opportunity is too big for an individual company, then the band council should get involved and make the project work. But it has to stay away from day-to-day decision making. In Saskatchewan, the government owns the electric utility, the telephone system and an insurance company, but it keeps an armslength distance from their daily operations. The government provides overall direction, but that's it. Our future success depends on an attitudinal shift by our leaders, including local chiefs and councils, tribal councils and the FSIN. So far the current approach has almost cost us the loss of the First Nations University of Canada. What will be the next crisis? It's time that we looked beyond self-government to First Nations democracy.



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