Why the Stephen Harper government flip-flopped on the UN declaration on indigenous rights

The Stephen Harper government has been no friend to aboriginal people in this country.

Soon after taking power in 2006, Harper cancelled the Kelowna Accord, which was a $5.1-billion plan to improve aboriginal health care, education, and housing.

This was despite an infant-mortality rate nearly 20 percent higher and a Type 2 diabetes rate three times higher among aboriginal people than the general population, according to a report in the Lancet.

Not long after the 2006 election, Harper also stated his opposition to a "race-based" fishery. It came in a letter to the editor of the Calgary Herald, which was a peculiar way for a prime minister to communicate his views on an important public policy.

The letter suggested that he didn't fully comprehend the Supreme Court of Canada's Sparrow decision in 1990, which allowed aboriginal people to fish for food and ceremonial purposes ahead of all other user groups.

One of the most glaring examples of the Harper government's disinterest in the concerns of aboriginal people came in its vote against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Canada was one of only four countries that refused to support the measure, which came before the UN general assembly in 2007.

Yesterday (November 12), the federal government abruptly reversed itself and announced that it would finally endorse the declaration.

Indian and Northern Affairs Minister John Duncan said the decision was made to "strengthen our relationship with aboriginal peoples in Canada”.

Indigenous people are probably wondering what took the Conservatives so long.

The answer is electoral politics. Harper has done his math and knows that aboriginal voters could make a significant difference in the next federal election.

The 2006 census reported that Saskatchewan, where the Conservatives hold 13 of 14 seats, 14.9 percent of the population is of aboriginal descent.

In Manitoba, it is even higher—15.5 percent. Here, the Conservatives hold nine of 14 seats.

Harper's party hopes to take a seat in the Yukon, where aboriginal people make up 25.1 percent of the population.

In B.C., aboriginal people can also make a difference in certain ridings. NDP MP Nathan Cullen, for instance, told the Straight earlier this year that 32 percent of his Skeena riding residents are of aboriginal descent.

In Duncan's riding of Vancouver Island North, which the Conservatives won by less than 2,500 votes in 2008, there were 10,065 residents of aboriginal descent. This is according to a page compiled by Statistics Canada.

If aboriginal voters don't rise up against Duncan in his swing riding, he has a better chance of defeating the NDP, which narrowly took the seat in 2006.

There are more than 196,000 people of aboriginal descent across B.C., where the Conservatives hold 22 of 36 seats. The party will lose some support to the NDP as a result of the imposition of the harmonized sales tax, which makes those aboriginal voters even more important to Harper.

In Ontario, there are 242,500 people of aboriginal descent.

Even though the Conservatives never liked the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and its support for aboriginal self-government, they weren't going to let this issue fester and possibly poison Harper's chance of winning reelection.

Comments

20 Comments

Jesse Ferreras

Nov 13, 2010 at 3:59pm

"The Harper government has been no friend to aboriginal people in this country."

Really. Then what say you to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which the Harper gov't implemented? It started the Common Experience Payment for survivors of residential schools; mandated a Truth and Reconciliation Commission; and set up a land claims tribunal where bands could settle claims instead of going through the courts. Extraneous to that, the Harper government gave a well-received apology for the legacy of residential schools that went well beyond the Liberals' statement of regret.

And then, of course

Jesse Ferreras

Nov 13, 2010 at 4:01pm

They're not perfect, but surely they deserve a more holistic analysis than you are willing to give them.

Kenneth Deer

Nov 13, 2010 at 8:21pm

Jesse, the Harper government did not apologize because they necessarily wanted to, they had to. The apology was a condition of an out of court settlement of the residential schools court case. Just as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was part of that deal which was made before the Conservatives came to power. Harper had no choice but to give the apology.

jmw

Nov 14, 2010 at 12:08am

Jesse, I find it amusing that you blame Harper (and thus the potential loss of Conservative support) on the HST, that the B.C. Liberal gov't initiated 3 days after being elected. It was the federal Liberal gov't that initiated the HST in Atlantic Canada in the late 1990's. Any province is free to join or NOT. Do some research --sounds like you've been drinking too much of that lefty koolaid. Our Aboriginal people have been a much greater presence with the Conservative gov't. There is a cabinet member in caucus. It is much more important to have a voice in our country, than continued handouts and keeping the status quo, in my opinion.
O/T By the way, neither the NDP nor the B.C. Liberals have committed to reversing the HST if they are elected. They are content to make political hay about it, without informing voters how they will deal with it. I find it interesting that no one in the MSM has even asked the question.

Petey J

Nov 14, 2010 at 1:00am

Harpo don't speak for the average Joe

Canada's Twin#1

Nov 14, 2010 at 3:26am

She is a senior, Aboriginial, Metis. known as the UNIVERSAL PATIENT.

They told her she didn't have cancer, they lied! When she found out she asked for the same kind of medical treatment all cancer patients should have. Instead they tortured her and spread the cancer well distroying her films and where-by accredation is the current issue in the Comox Valley..

He came the Prime Minister- she asked to speak to him in her own language on behalf of all women in Canada.

He replied, 'I APOLIGIZED FOR THE RESIDENTAL ABUSE?

From that moment on the moral consence became an issue. It's not alright to treat Aboriginal seniors as guiena pigs- cancer research for drug development, journals etc.and cover it up. Sorry Mr. Harper and Mr. Duncan signing the international document means nothing as it's what a coward does when refusing to correct a grevious wrong.

The Aboriginal seinor, Metis beat you to it when the
UNIVERSAL PATIENTS DECLARATION OF UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE-PREAMBLE was written .

Prime Minister Steven Harper you now have this senior and this community to apoligize too and I would make the rightfull choice from the heart and I would do it before any election.

Canada's Twin#1
P.S. She'll give you a copy of the Declaration for you to sign when you rectifiy the wrong.

John Kane

Nov 14, 2010 at 8:13am

The endorsement has a condition. The phrase "consistent with Canada's Constitution and laws", basically prevents this from being real support. If every Nation only "endorses" the Declaration to the extent it is consistent with their own laws then what is the point. Counties like the US and Canada have been "legally" oppressing Native people from their births. You are all being fooled if you really think this is a change. It is just word play.

Friends in high places

Nov 14, 2010 at 11:04am

I was reading the National Post and Harper is supposed to be the most trusted Federal Leader in Canada, it was in the polls as government moves towards majority government. What they really meant was oblivion.
It was riduclous as trust and Harper don't even belong in the same sentence.

Scott B.

Nov 14, 2010 at 12:55pm

I don't understand the calculus behind throwing billions and billions of dollars at native communities. Clearly no one benefits from this: natives continue to be relegated to near-impoverished existences while taxpayers and their children get to service debt payments for decades.

There has to be some sort of sustained and sustainable community development alternative that can be implemented in this country. If micro-financing to women can raise the GDP and standard of living to millions across Asia, why can't the same approach be applied to similar communities in Canada?