{"id":293227,"date":"2021-07-07T21:01:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T18:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/outgoing-afn-national-chief-perry-bellegarde-on-a-decade-of-progress\/"},"modified":"2021-07-07T21:01:18","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T18:01:18","slug":"outgoing-afn-national-chief-perry-bellegarde-on-a-decade-of-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/outgoing-afn-national-chief-perry-bellegarde-on-a-decade-of-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"#Outgoing AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde on a decade of progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Outgoing AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde on a decade of progress<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n Perry Bellegarde has been involved in Indigenous politics since 1986. In July, that long run will come to an end: after seven years as national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the soft-spoken leader from Qu\u2019App<\/a>elle, Sask., will watch his successor be elected from among seven candidates.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s his state of mind as that transfer of responsibility approaches? \u201cI feel at peace,\u201d Bellegarde says one bright afternoon during an interview in the backyard of a mutual acquaintance. \u201cWe\u2019ve definitely moved the yardsticks down the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink back seven to 10 years ago, the discourse in Canada about First Nations issues wasn\u2019t there. The opportunities for investments and growth weren\u2019t there. Ten years ago, we didn\u2019t have an Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Nobody was talking about any of these Indigenous concerns in Canada, from MMIW to 40,000 children in foster care. So we moved things.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Bellegarde mentions significant legislation that\u2019s recently passed in Parliament. There\u2019s Bill C-5, which designates a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation each Sept. 30; Bill C-8, which amended the citizenship oath to include a promise to respect Aboriginal and treaty rights; and Bill C-15, which incorporates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Canadian law. Bellegarde\u2019s list included a few more new laws.<\/p>\n

As significant as the changing legal framework is a changing fiscal picture for Indigenous Canadians. In 2015, Justin Trudeau\u2019s new government lifted a two per cent cap on annual increases to funding for First Nations programs that had been in place for 19 years. Since then, \u201cwe\u2019ve got $40-plus billion over six fiscal years that has been announced. That\u2019s investments in housing and education and water and infrastructure, all the social<\/a> determinants of health.\u201d<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s measurable progress. \u201cBut progress doesn\u2019t mean parity,\u201d Bellegarde adds. It\u2019s one of his most often repeated sayings. \u201cI always say, you\u2019re not going to close those socio-economic gaps in three years or five years. I always talk about sixth versus 63rd. In the United Nations Human Development Index, Canada is rated sixth, but if the same indices are applied to our people, we\u2019re 63rd. That doesn\u2019t make sense for our people and it doesn\u2019t make sense for Canada. So therefore you have to make those continued investments in the fastest-growing segment of Canada\u2019s population: young First Nations men and women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bellegarde\u2019s first run for the top job at the AFN, which represents about 900,000 First Nations citizens in Canada, was in 2009. It was a race for the ages, running eight ballots. On six of them, Bellegarde was virtually tied with Shawn Atleo, the British Columbia regional chief. After the eighth ballot, Bellegarde withdrew, making Atleo the new national chief.<\/p>\n

As a practical matter, that meant Atleo spent his entire term in office dealing with the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. Bellegarde became national leader in 2014 and has spent most of his term dealing with Justin Trudeau\u2019s Liberals. Did that make a difference in outcomes?<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d Bellegarde says. \u201cOf course. When I became national chief, I did have some meetings with prime minister Harper and we met on a few issues. [But] you have to have a willing partner to bring about policy and legislative change. That\u2019s what we witnessed with this Liberal government.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a federal election likely this year, Bellegarde is careful not to sound too supportive of any party in particular. \u201cAs a national chief you have to build relationships with all parties, all party leaders.\u201d Partly because in a minority Parliament like the one Canada has had since 2019, more than one party must support any initiative if it is to pass a Commons vote. Partly because it can be hard to know who\u2019ll win. \u201cWhen I went to the NDP caucus that year\u201d\u2014in 2015, soon after he became national chief\u2014\u201cthey were a government in waiting.\u201d Tom Mulcair, then the NDP leader, \u201cwas just so excited you could feel the verve and the energy.\u201d The Liberals\u2019 tiny caucus, not so much. They were in third place in party standings, third place in the polls. A few months later, Justin Trudeau was the Prime Minister. It\u2019s a lesson Bellegarde hasn\u2019t forgotten.<\/p>\n

Trudeau is often criticized for missteps and missed opportunities on Indigenous files, such as his decision to oust Jody Wilson-Raybould from the Liberal caucus after her resignation from cabinet, or his missed deadline on eliminating long-term drinking-water advisories on reserves. Bellegarde says his successor must keep the pressure on the next government, but he insists Trudeau deserves considerable credit for delivering on several issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat prime minister ever went to the United Nations and delivered a speech the way Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did?\u201d he asks. The reference is to Trudeau\u2019s 2017 speech to the United Nations General<\/a> Assembly, an extended admission of failure and bad faith before the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor far too many Indigenous women,\u201d Trudeau said then, \u201clife in Canada includes threats of violence so frequent and severe that Amnesty International has called it \u2018a human rights crisis.\u2019 That is the legacy of colonialism in Canada\u2014of a paternalistic Indian Act, of the forced relocation of Inuit and First Nations communities, and a systematic denial of M\u00e9tis rights and history, of residential schools that separated children as young as five years old from their families, punished them for speaking their own language, and sought to extinguish Indigenous cultures entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like truth-telling,\u201d Bellegarde says now, \u201cacknowledging Canada\u2019s colonial history. How many prime ministers of Canada have done that?\u201d<\/p>\n

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But Bellegarde says there\u2019s been a shift in public opinion in Canada that no government can take credit for, and none would be wise to resist. \u201cIf the discourse with Canadians was not there, it would have been more difficult to do,\u201d he says. \u201cThe catalysts for this discourse, what were they?\u201d He lists several. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission\u2019s final report in 2015, with its 94 calls to action. The Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls with its 203 calls to justice. \u201cAnd then more recently, 215 little spirits, talking to everybody, waking up everybody\u201d\u2014the news<\/a> of 215 bodies detected in unmarked graves outside the Kamloops Indian Residential School. (A week after our conversation, hundreds more unmarked graves were found at a former residential school site in Saskatchewan. Bellegarde tweeted that it was \u201cabsolutely tragic, but not surprising. I urge all Canadians to stand with First Nations in this extremely difficult and emotional time.\u201d)<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadians are waking up and getting it, that this is just not acceptable. And as a First Nations leader, you need that support. You need Canadians pushing their members of Parliament, demanding that action be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for the AFN? That will be for Bellegarde\u2019s successor to answer, but Bellegarde has more than a few items he\u2019d put on that to-do list. His list starts with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission\u2019s call to action number 58, the demand for an apology from the Pope for the Catholic Church\u2019s role in running residential schools. He says there\u2019s still room for greater use of restorative justice as an alternative to criminal-code remedies, to reduce the huge over-representation of First Nations in Canadian prisons. And the increased spending of the first two Trudeau governments needs to continue, Bellegarde says, to ensure fragile progress isn\u2019t reversed.<\/p>\n

For Bellegarde himself, not yet 60? \u201cGetting some rest, to reset and rejuvenate. The rest is in the Creator\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

This article appears in print in the August 2021 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine with the headline, \u201c\u2018Canadians are waking up.\u2019\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here<\/a>.<\/em>
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