JUSTICE NEEDED FOR CANADA’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
by Maura Hanrahan
As 2005 drew to a close, Canadian leaders signed a historic document. The Kelowna Accord was the result of many months of talks, arguments, negotiations, and pure devotion and slogging. Every single premier in this country and the federal government and heads of five national Aboriginal organizations put their names on the Accord. (The organizations were: The Métis National Council, the Inuit Tapiirit Kanatami, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the Assembly of First Nations, and the Native Women’s Association of Canada.) How often does that happen?
Kelowna represented a plan to improve the lives of Indigenous people by bringing about justice in housing, education, and the relationships between Canadian and Indigenous governments.
Then there was a federal election and the Conservative Party took power, in a minority position. One of the first things they did was trash the Kelowna Accord.
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