Five candidates competing for the role of national chief for the Assembly of First Nations will be make their final pitch to voters on Tuesday.
More than 2,000 First Nations leaders, elders and youth are expected in Vancouver this week for the assembly’s annual general assembly. When it comes to the vote for national chief on Wednesday, only the chiefs of the 635 member communities or their proxies will get a vote.
As of Monday evening, a spokesperson for the AFN said roughly 400 voting delegates had registered to attend the general assembly. He also said that number could change as registration will remain open until the vote.
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The AFN is a national lobby group tasked with advocating for First Nations according to direction from its members. Most often this involves lobbying the federal government on policy areas like health care, infrastructure, land and education.
The AFN is not a government and is separate from the nation-to-nation relationship between Ottawa and individual First Nations.
Five candidates in the running
Before the vote gets underway on Wednesday, those vying for the role of national chief will take part in an all-candidates forum on Tuesday afternoon.
Perry Bellegarde from the Little Black Bear First Nation in Saskatchewan is running for re-election as national chief. Bellegarde says he wants to continue the work he began since first being elected to the role in 2014.
Bellegarde acknowledges that people accuse him of being too close to the prime minister and the federal government.
“We have to have a relationship with policy and legislative decision-makers,” he said in an interview last month.
“It’s all about the implementation of Aboriginal rights and title and treaty rights and getting investments, long-term sustainable investments, to close this gap. That’s what it’s all about.”
The four others competing for the AFN top position are:
Russ Diabo, a Mohawk policy analyst from Kahnawake in Quebec, who is an outspoken critic of the Trudeau government. He has the support of prominent grassroots advocates like Sylvia McAdam, co-founder of the Idle No More movement.
“The one thing that has always struck me about Russ is his message has been consistent, unwavering and his passion to defend the lands and the waters has remained constant. That has been unchanging about him,” she said.
Assembly of First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde will seek re-election Wednesday at the organization’s annual general assembly in Vancouver. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
Sheila North is grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak which represents 30 First Nation communities in northern Manitoba. A member of the Bunibonibee Cree Nation, she has also been critical of the Trudeau government and its relationship with the AFN.
“The federal government needs to stop pretending that the AFN is a government,” she said in an interview with CBC when announcing her intention to run for national chief.
“Governments of all levels must work with our First Nations governments to make sure that we are truly partners in all decisions affecting us — nothing about us without us,” she said.
Miles Richardson, former president of the Council of the Haida Nation, is the only candidate from B.C. running for the position of national chief. He is also an officer of the Order of Canada.
Richardson said in a previous interview with CBC that he sees the AFN as an important institution, one that “needs to understand what its role is.”
His platform is largely based on closing the socio-economic gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and strengthening the nation-to-nation relationship between Ottawa and individual nations.
Mohawk policy analyst Russ Diabo is running for Assembly of First Nations national chief. (Submitted)
Katherine Whitecloud is a former Manitoba regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations and former executive director of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.
Whitecloud said she’s heard from First Nations leaders across the country that it’s time for the AFN to take a new direction.
“The feeling of the leadership is that the AFN is becoming and behaving like a government representative,” said Whitecloud at a forum in Manitoba last week.
“The original intent of the AFN was to be an advocacy, lobby group, to open the doors, to create the field to create the space for our leaders to be able to do what they need to do with the Queen’s representatives.”