The AFN needs strength in leadership, not mutiny

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Last week, the Assembly of First Nations voted to oust RoseAnne Archibald, its now-former national chief, due to an internal workplace investigation, an unprecedented move against the first woman to ever hold this position.

The AFN’s executive body in charge of governance recommended she be removed from office after the results of a human resources investigation. Two female chiefs put forward a motion for Ms. Archibald’s removal that was passed during a special virtual assembly of the AFN on June 28.

The former national chief is now trying to be reinstated and is seeking support for a motion to this effect next week at the AFN’s annual summer gathering in Halifax.

The AFN is an advocacy organization for the 600-plus First Nations in Canada. The national chief is elected by the Nations’ chiefs, and not by the Nations’ 900,000 individual citizens. The AFN is not a government – each Nation has its own chief, council and governance system. For instance, Fort William First Nation is my nation, and our elected chief is Michele Solomon.

The chief and council system comes from the Indian Act, a piece of legislation first introduced in 1876 that, to be frank, aimed to get rid of First Nations people. One of the ways it did that was to cause disarray among elected officials. For decades, the act enforced two-year term limits for chiefs and band councils. That did not change until new legislation introduced four-year terms in 2015. Imagine how difficult it was for a new council and national chief to get anything done in two years.

Some are suggesting that now is the time to get rid of the AFN, that it is an organization out of touch with the communities it represents. I’d argue that this is not the time, because the house is on fire – there are so many issues in dire need of attention. But it is clear the AFN has serious accountability issues. For example, the vote on removing Ms. Archibald as national chief could easily have been held a few weeks later in order to coincide with the AFN’s in-person assembly this month. Instead, it was held virtually and about one-third of those eligible to vote showed up. Ms. Archibald should have been given the respect of the full, in-person assembly to face this vote. To improve accountability, a forensic audit of the AFN’s governance structure must continue and be presented.

What is clear is that we need a visionary leader who is able to pull all the factions together and work to defend the treaty rights of every status Indian and member of a First Nation. That is the purpose of the AFN – to advocate, as a united front, for First Nations’ health care, education, language rights, social development, clean water, infrastructure, and our economies and the environments we call home. Too much is at stake for a leader to not follow this mandate. Our children and our communities deserve better.

We must pull together for our young people. The Indian Act’s lingering shadow, combined with corrosive public policies, continue to leave our children vulnerable by making life far more difficult for First Nations parents. Our people can’t access basic health and medical care – traditional or Western – without systemic barriers getting in the way. Addiction and opioid use have ravaged our communities, leaving grandparents struggling to raise the young. Meanwhile, our women continue to be preyed upon at far higher rates than other groups in Canada. Our people are overincarcerated by the justice system and at the same time ignored by police when our loved ones go missing.

Four years after the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls outlined its 231 Calls for Justice, they continue to be ignored. This cannot stand. The AFN needs to ensure our nations have the tools to be in control of our own health and that of our children. Cindy Blackstock is our role model in this regard. She has shown the way and has steadfastly refused to back down until every child matters.

Our children deserve strong, committed leadership. Indigenous children represent 53.8 per cent of kids in foster care, according to Statistics Canada. Groundbreaking child welfare legislation was introduced, but not funded properly. Our children are dying at higher rates by their own hands from coast to coast to coast. These matters of life and death are being ignored as the arguing among our leadership continues.

In the Anishinaabe Seven Grandfather teachings, the eagle represents love while the wolf teaches us humility and why we must do what is best for the pack to survive. The AFN needs to think like an eagle and fight like a wolf pack against any corporation or government trying to tear us apart or whittle away our inherent treaty rights.

We must look for unity and learn our lessons from this leadership fiasco, carving a new and better path forward.