There was nothing wrong with Bill C-33, which Mr. Atleo and Ottawa championed. It would have gone a long way toward providing more stable and substantial funding for on-reserve schools, which could have brightened prospects for native youth. Nor was there anything wrong with Mr. Atleo himself. The 47-year-old, university-educated hereditary chief from Vancouver Island was exactly the kind of person the AFN needed. He is cool-headed, has his ear to the ground and, unlike some of his predecessors, was willing to work with both Ottawa and business to tackle some of the most intransigent problems plaguing his people: soaring high-school dropout rates, stubborn poverty and rampant unemployment. His resignation is a symptom of a deep and serious problem: the inherent dysfunction of the AFN itself. It is broken; its structure, modelled after the UN General Assembly, renders it irrelevant. The national chief is a lot like the UN’s secretary-general – he has a bully pulpit but power rests with the organization’s member states. More than new elections or a new leader, the AFN needs to ask itself tough questions about how it might better serve the interests of registered or status Indians.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 23:26:43 +0000
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