{"id":89358,"date":"2017-09-02T10:37:07","date_gmt":"2017-09-02T10:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/paul-martin-feels-better-about-where-were-going-after-indigenous-affairs-split.html"},"modified":"2017-09-02T10:37:07","modified_gmt":"2017-09-02T10:37:07","slug":"paul-martin-feels-better-about-where-were-going-after-indigenous-affairs-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/paul-martin-feels-better-about-where-were-going-after-indigenous-affairs-split.html","title":{"rendered":"Paul Martin feels &#8216;better about where we&#8217;re going&#8217; after Indigenous Affairs split"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>For the first time in a long time former prime minister Paul Martin, architect of the Kelowna Accord, says he&#8217;s happy with where the government is steering its relationship with Canada&#8217;s\u00a0Indigenous peoples. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;I feel better about where we&#8217;re going now than I have in a long time,&#8221; Martin told CBC Radio&#8217;s\u00a0<em>The House<\/em>\u00a0in an interview airing Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;We&#8217;ve been living with the consequences of not living up to these issues now for the last 150, more, years. Look, you can&#8217;t avoid doing the right thing forever.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Jane\u00a0Philpott\u00a0will now lead Indigenous Services, a department that will oversee programs for status Indians, including welfare, education, child and family services, housing, long-term water advisories and health care.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"><strong><span>Northern leaders applaud splitting Indigenous Affairs ministry<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong><span><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">Move to dissolve Indigenous Affairs Department prompts concern<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"><strong>Paul Martin says Ottawa has &#8216;no understanding&#8217; of native issues<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>During this week&#8217;s cabinet shuffle, the federal government announced it would split Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) into two separate departments \u2014\u00a0more than 20 years after the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended such a division.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Carolyn Bennett is overseeing Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. The former INAC minister\u00a0is tasked with settling outstanding comprehensive land claims, clearing a backlog of grievances at the Specific Claims Tribunal and generally fostering a new era of self-governance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Bennett will also lead the government&#8217;s continued push to dismantle the Indian Act.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;It\u00a0is racist and it was racist when it was created. The Indian Act controls, or seeks to control, the lives of all Indigenous people in a way that you and I would never accept,&#8221; Martin said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;I think what you&#8217;ll find, once you&#8217;ve really given teeth to the inherent right of self government and you&#8217;ve given teeth to investing in the kinds of things that are going to give young Aboriginals a chance and a future, I think what you&#8217;re going to see is they are going to function the same way everybody else in this country is. They&#8217;re going to look to the future and they&#8217;re going to build.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Measuring the starting line<\/h2>\n<p><span>Naiomi<\/span>\u00a0Metallic, the chancellor&#8217;s chair in Aboriginal law and policy at Dalhousie University, said the recommendation to dissolve the\u00a0<span>Indigenous Affairs department was just one of many\u00a0<\/span>recommendations from the\u00a0Royal Commission. Others included\u00a0proposals on self-governance, treaties, health, housing, economic development and\u00a0education that need to be\u00a0<span>addressed<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>Metallic said implementing the rest of the 1996 report is key to moving away from the Indian Act.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If we&#8217;re going to use the analogy perhaps of a race and a starting line, you need to actually be starting at the starting line, not 50 feet behind it,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.3685029.1489685858!\/cpImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_620\/white-judiciary-20160718.jpg\" alt=\"White Judiciary 20160718\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Naiomi W. Metallic, an associate lawyer at Burchells LLP, would like to see Canada implement recommendations of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. (Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some of our communities we have, in terms of socioeconomic indicators, [are] below on everything,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p><span>As prime\u00a0minister, Martin oversaw the signing of the 2005 Kelowna Accord, which envisioned the investment of $5 billion over 10 years for education and social welfare programs for Aboriginal Canadians. Stephen Harper, who took over that year as prime minister, didn&#8217;t continue with the accord.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Martin said he\u00a0hoped\u00a0splitting Indigenous and Northern Affairs would have grown out of the accord\u00a0\u2014\u00a0if it had lived on.\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"javascript:void(0)\"><strong>20 years since Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, still waiting for change<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When it comes to the practical terms of what a Canada without the Indian Act would look like, Martin said the roadmap towards a\u00a0nation-to-nation relationship should be in the hands of Indigenous communities.<\/p>\n<h2>How to structure nation-to-nation relationship?<\/h2>\n<p><span>&#8220;One of the first things that the First Nations are going to have to decide is, is it going to 640 communities or is it in fact going to be some 50 to 60 nations,&#8221; he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;All of the decisions that have to be made in this area are theirs to make.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Not everyone is heaping praise on the decision.<\/p>\n<p>Christopher Alcantara, an expert on Indigenous-settler relations at Western University, <a href=\"javascript:void(0)\">said splitting the departments could have a negative effect.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you really want to have a nation-to-nation relationship \u2014\u00a0if you want to have a reconciled relationship \u2014\u00a0then dividing a little department into two even littler departments is not the answer,&#8221; he told CBC.<\/p>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.cbc.ca\/1.4266036.1503962966!\/cpImage\/httpImage\/image.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/original_620\/cabinet-shuffle-20170828.jpg\" alt=\"Cabinet Shuffle 20170828\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure-caption\">Carolyn Bennett, left, minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs looks on as Indigenous Services Minister Jane Philpott speaks to media. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced major changes to Indigenous governance Monday. (Sean Kilpatrick\/Canadian Press)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The answer is to transform this department into a premier department within the federal government, one that has equal clout to finance and justice. They should have made it\u00a0into a super ministry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Hayden King, a professor of Indigenous governance at Ryerson University, echoed that, saying the last thing Indigenous peoples want is &#8220;another layer of bureaucracy and twice as much obfuscation. We want to see less of the paternalism that already exists, not see it multiply.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Since leaving politics, Martin has continued his work with Aboriginal communities with the Martin Aboriginal\u00a0Education Initiative (MAEI) and the Capital for Aboriginal Prosperity and Entrepreneurship (CAPE) fund.<\/p><\/p>\n<p>Article source: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/paul-martin-indigenous-affairs-indian-act-1.4270230?cmp=rss<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time in a long time former prime minister Paul Martin, architect of the Kelowna Accord, says he&#8217;s happy with where the government is steering its relationship with Canada&#8217;s\u00a0Indigenous peoples. &#8220;I feel better about where we&#8217;re going now than I have in a long time,&#8221; Martin told CBC Radio&#8217;s\u00a0The House\u00a0in an interview airing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-89358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}