Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

It has been just one year since I was honoured to be elected as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. First, I wish to thank you for the strong support you have given me during this first year.

And to those who did not, or do not yet, or will not support the particular approach I am taking, I welcome you especially. Your principled participation, your probing questions, your respectful comments, your heartfelt concerns, and your good faith criticism will make us, the AFN, and our Nations stronger.

Fellow First Nations Leaders, we all have our most fundamental objectives in common. We share our respect for the Creator. We share our love of the Earth. We share our respect for all of Creation, for our fellow human beings of all races, and for all of the creatures with which we share this small planet.

We share our determination to survive, and thrive as Indigenous Peoples. We share our determination to maintain and strengthen our relationships with each other, with our lands and resources.

We share our rejection of ongoing violation of human rights. We share the anguish we feel when our children are hungry, or when our family members lose their limbs and eyesight to diabetes, or when our families must crowd into dilapidated or overcrowded shelters, or when our community members are jailed because social conditions turn them into prisoners.

We share our determination to ensure full and lasting respect for our Aboriginal, Treaty, Constitutional and other human rights – most of all our right to self-determination.

As National Chief, I have deliberately and strategically begun my term of office with a full year of “taking the pulse” in Indian Country from East to West and from North to South. I wish to repeat briefly on the activity that has been involved in this building of a strategic foundation for the future.

During the past year I have visited with you in your communities, assemblies, pow wows, meetings and gatherings. I have met with 460 Chiefs and I have visited dozens and dozens of First Nations Communities. I have met and worked intensively with 18 of 23 provincial/territorial organizations and numerous AFN committees and Chiefs meetings.

I have met with 12 federal Cabinet Ministers, some of them a number of times. I have met with all federal Deputy Ministers of all Departments. The Deputy Ministers, as you know, are the very top of the bureaucracy and are very influential in program and policy matters. I have met with 4 out of 10 Premiers of Provinces, including the Premiers of the two largest provinces. I have met with all Federal and Provincial Ministers of Aboriginal affairs. I have met with the Governor General, twice. I have met with numerous international leaders, ambassadors, U.N. officials and delegations.

This work has been critically important. It had provided a strong foundation on which to build future directions and bring about the liberation of First Nations Peoples in Canada .

The last year has had its predictable tragedies and challenges. The AFN was formally requested to provide strategic and technical assistance in such situations as Burnt Church , Pikangikum and others. We were honoured to be of service, and know that there is much, much more to be done.

I received many invitations and requests that I regret I could not accept. There are 633 First Nations spread across this vast country; if I were to visit one First Nation per day – which is impossible – it would take over 633 days – more than two years. It would also achieve little.

To those of you who extended me invitations, thank you, miigwetch. I will try to visit with as many communities as I possibly can over the next year, and the year after that. These visits to you and your communities are important, so that I can keep in touch with your issues, problems, and successes.

The Vice?Chiefs will report to you on some of the many other activities that have been undertaken. The Program Directors' Reports are also available in our printed Annual Report. There were 12 national meetings or workshops organized by the AFN for such fundamentally important matters as Health; Education; Housing; Fisheries; Trappers; Veterans; Youth; and Fiscal Relations.

We worked with national entities in the area of broadband connectivity (high speed internet), with the goal of broadband access to all First Nation communities by 2004. We cannot allow the information revolution to pass our people by.

The Assembly of First Nations is now increasingly recognized internationally as a leader in achieving the recognition of our fundamental status and rights by providing leadership along with indigenous peoples from around the world.

In July 2000, I participated at the United Nations Economic and Social Council in New York . I intervened and presented a joint statement on behalf of the International Caucus Indigenous Representative at the United Nations, on the passing of the resolution approving the creation, finally, of a Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues within the United Nations.

The AFN hosted the first ever Indigenous Peoples Summit of the Americas in Ottawa , from March 28 to 31, 2001. This historic summit brought together 69 indigenous leaders from 16 other countries. There were 255 participants from Canada . The official theme of the Indigenous Peoples Summit of the Americas was "Connecting to the New Economy", and highlighted the launch of the Aboriginal Internet Portal onto the World Wide Web, of which the AFN is a sponsor.

The real Summit Agenda was Indigenous Peoples Rights and Fundamental Human Rights: the right of self determination; our right to natural wealth and resources; the right not be be subjected to genocide, torture, wars against indigenous peoples, and killings in the Americas; the human rights implications of globalization and other economic development strategies; and the establishment of partnerships within the hemisphere to simulate economic activity and trade among indigenous peoples.

The Indigenous Peoples Summit discussed the comprehensive "Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the Americas ", and also enacted its own "Declaration of the Indigenous Peoples' Summit of the Americas " .

This Declaration was subsequently presented to the Leaders of the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City , on April 21 and 22, 2001. I addressed the leaders of the states governments of the Americas , to ensure that the non-indigenous elected leaders of the Americas were not indifferent to our issues.

I was put forward by indigenous leaders of the Americas to deliver the official statement on behalf of the indigenous peoples of the Americas at the same meeting in Quebec . I stressed that all indigenous peoples of the Americas must, after 500 years, now have their fundamental rights recognized and respected.

The AFN has taken an active part in the preparations for the U.N. Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, to be held in a few weeks in Durban , South Africa . We have developed a position with other Aboriginal Organizations in Canada for presentation to this U.N. Conference. We have worked hard to ensure that ongoing policy of extinguishment of our Aboriginal and Treaty rights by the Crown will be on the U.N. agenda.

As First Nations Leaders, we face crises in the areas of housing, fishing, policing, education, job training, infrastructure, water, veterans, residential schools. It is obvious to us, and to countless commissions, that these crises are the result of decades of marginalization and dispossession of our peoples, and of ongoing violations of our peoples’ human rights.

The fact is, the Government of Canada has the resources, the know-how, and the human and technical capacity to work with us to solve these issues, in a short time. This is not rocket science. Roads need to be paved, infrastructure needs to be built, housing needs to be replaced and greatly expanded. Training needs to be provided, and the funds made available for adequate numbers of people to run our communities.

Why? Simply because our communities are federal towns where large numbers of people are living, right now, and because these basic services are things to which they are entitled. And if these things started being done, there would be a great improvement in employment, well-being and health in our communities.

Well, we all know that from the time Pierre Trudeau was Minister of Indian Affairs through to the present Minister, these conditions have been tolerated because of racism. Canadians and their governments are sometimes uncomfortable with this situation, but it is still being tolerated. These deadly conditions are being tolerated because we are Indians.

Worse still, I have come to the conclusion that through recent decades in Canada , it has been federal policy ­to not provide for adequate sanitation, drinking water, housing, health care, infrastructure and services to our people. What is happening is the continuing implementation of policies of assimilation and extinguishment through infliction of conditions of social despair. These conditions are maintained, and one by one our people will be forced to give up the struggle for our cultural survival. They are forced to drift away from our nations and societies, and disappear into the Canadian “mainstream”.

This is a social catastrophe and a violation of our fundamental human rights. In the words of the U.N. Human Rights Committee, we are being pushed to the edge of social, economic and political extinction.

The main part of this catastrophe is the “external landscape”, the Canadian state, the federal and provincial governments, the courts, the press, the media, the private sector, and the public.

Many of these parts of the Canadian state – or some of them, for some of the time – support us. These people are outraged at the situation facing First Nations Peoples in Canada . They believe in sharing; in respect for our Aboriginal, Treaty and fundamental human rights; and in helping to change the status quo that is affecting and killing our peoples.

Sadly, others are a vocal minority who are mean-spirited, and have no respect for our status and rights. The work hard at undermining our rights, and some are even willing to go so far as burning our boats, dropping our people off to freeze to death on the outskirts of town, circulating hate propaganda about our women by email, and shooting or ordering the shooting of our people.

On the other hand, there is also the “internal landscape” that we face. This landscape includes our own people, who are physically split between reserves and the cities; our leaders, yourselves included; our institutions, including the AFN; our media; our private sector. This internal landscape is also not “mono-lithic”.

Our leaders, you and our other colleagues across the country, are all resourceful, courageous, and doing remarkable work under impossible circumstances. In particular, those of us charged with the daily challenge of running our institution of local and regional government are experts in the art of making do with too little and trying to survive to fight another day.

But I know that none of you will disagree when I say “There is much to be done”, and that “It took three hundred years to bring about the situation we face as First Nations Peoples, and if we are to make meaningful progress, we will have to be united in our vision, our strategy and our determination to survive and prevail.”

I know we are all in this work for the long haul. I have invested the last twelve months in getting to know first-hand the successes, difficulties and challenges of every region, and many communities, in this vast country. I have also invested the last twelve months in probing, analyzing and gaining a full strategic understanding of the external landscape we are now facing in Canada . These are the pre-requisites for us to effectively address the challenges we face in achieving self-determination for our peoples.

We must make the external landscape live up to their responsibilities and obligations to First Nations. We can do that by pointing out their successes, and also their failures, to them. We can do that by asserting our rights in more forceful ways. We cannot expect their institutions to start off each day and work on our behalf. We have to work effectively and strategically on our own behalf. We must make them live up to their obligations and responsibilities through discussion, dialogue, negotiations, persuasion in Canada and internationally, legal actions, and other strategies.

We must all recognize there is strength in numbers and unity of purpose. We must not let local or regional differences of opinions or approaches cloud our view of common issues and common positions. We must continue to work together as a strong, united body. When we let governments or other divide us, others can then take advantage of this weakened position. We must not fool ourselves into thinking that we can achieve our personal goals at the expense of our common goals.

Some among us have expressed doubts about the need for a strong national body. Some even have the view that their community or region can go it along and do not need a national body to represent them in anyway whatsoever. Such views are shortsighted and self?defeating when we come against strong forces in government that seek to diminish or destroy us as First Nations.

We can see an example of this happening now in relation to federal activities concerning the Governance Act. Most First Nations reject the so-called consultations and the Governance Act itself, but some First Nations, right or wrong, are participating in the consultations, allowing the Minister the opportunity to say his Act is based on consultations with First Nations.

There has always been room within the AFN for diversity and difference of opinion. Our peoples are diverse and distinct. But I believe this: We have reached an Historical Crossroads in our relations with the federal Crown and other parts of the external Canadian political landscape. Our Aboriginal, Treaty and other fundamental Human Rights are clear. And there are certain boundaries, certain lines of respect for these rights that I as National Chief, and most of you as my fellow First Nations leaders, cannot and must not cross.

We know what the Canadian game plan is. It is to use our social and economic position against us, to bring us one by one as individual First Nations, , and right by right, to surrender or give up our distinct staus and rights. Short term gains will be promised to us, however, it will be at great long-term cost.

However, we all know that our fundamental rights do not belong only to us, they belong to future generations. We are the custodians of these rights, the trustees of our peoples’ future survival as indigenous nations. This is truly a sacred trust.

There are forces that would like to see us, First Nations, eliminated from the face of the earth. If they cannot any longer do it through actual physical destruction, then it will be attempted in more subtle ways. It will be attempted through the continuous passing of laws that strip us, point by point, of our powers to govern ourselves as peoples. It will be attempted through the introductions of systems and institutions whose inappropriateness and ineffectiveness will leave us in a state of division and turmoil, and make us doubt our own existence as peoples.

That is why we must be strong and united, more strong and united than we have ever been. Every tactic will be used to divide us among ourselves, so First Nations can be picked off one by one. Community by community, region by region, until there are no meaningful remnants of us left as a people. Sadly, on the internal landscape there are some First Nations people who contemplate giving in to the termination and extinguishment of their rights as First Nations, for the sake of short-term money, position or sometimes even personal gain.

There are also a few among us who believe, often in good faith, that making deals at the cost of rights is in their people’s interest.

The latest federal Government throne speech, delivered by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, is a potentially historic development. It was clearly stated:

• "there are....too many Aboriginal Canadians living in poverty";
• there must be "increases to Aboriginal head start",

and that we must

• "significantly reduce the incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome",
• “reduce the number of Aboriginal people incarcerated or in conflict with the law"
• "do more on Aboriginal health",
• "be respectful of the special place of Aboriginal people";
• "work with Aboriginal people to help strengthen their entrepreneurial skills and business experience";
• "improve and expand the early childhood development programs and services"; and
• "reduce the incidence of preventable diabetes and tuberculosis".

In particular, the throne speech stated, and I quote:

"Nowhere is the creation and sharing of opportunity more important than for Aboriginal people. Too many continue to live in poverty, without the tools they need to build a better future for themselves or their communities. As a country, we must be direct about the magnitude of the challenge, and ambitious in our commitment to tackle the most pressing problems facing Aboriginal people. Reaching our objectives will take time, but we must not be deterred by the length of the journey or the obstacles that we encounter along the way".

It seems to me, this is an opening towards a long? term commitment to tackle the issues facing First Nations on many levels. The throne speech does not say how the government is going to do that. So far, we know that the Prime Minister is appointing a committee of Cabinet to look into these matters and make a Plan of Action.

But I hope that by now, Canadian governments have learned that they cannot succeed if they take action in isolation from First Nations people. We can, surely, expect that this new Cabinet committee will seek and welcome the involvement and active participation of First Nations people and First Nations leadership in devising a plan to tackle the poverty and exclusion of First Nations.

We know from sad experience that policies and programs formulated in government offices in isolation from us, do not work. The Cabinet Committee will need to meet with us, and formulate respectful and affective approaches that have a good chance of success. The price of failure is far too high.

In order for us to succeed in obtaining our share of the riches and resources or our land we must forge a united and determined stand. For example, we cannot and must never accept any government proposal that requires us to cede, surrender, extinguish, or terminate our lands and rights in any way at any time.

We must keep in mind, and in the minds of all of our people, that we endure poverty because we have been denied our rights to our lands and resources, and our rights to govern ourselves. We must restore those rights, not as gifts or handouts, but as human rights to which we know we are fully entitled.

Any other approach, any approach based on charitable efforts to “help” us, but not based on rights, will always be handouts. For this reason alone, it will only be of partial and temporary effect. Rights, on the other hand, are permanent. Rights apply to everybody, topresent generations and generation sunborn. Rights are not subject to discretion or budgetary appropriation. Rights are rights are rights.

The treaties reflect and validate our rights as nations. Aboriginal rights and Aboriginal title means that we are the original owners and occupiers of the land. Many fundamental Treaty obligations have not been fulfilled by the other party to our treaties. We need to settle the unfinished business and to obtain reparation where treaties have been violated. We must place even greater emphasis on the Treaties because they are the means by which we can come to terms with the Europeans and other newcomers about their place in our land. It was not the theory of discovery or the order of the British Crown that gave Europeans some rights to live in our land. It was the treaties.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee recently ruled that termination or extinguishment of inherent Aboriginal or treaty rights is a violation of our fundamental human rights. And yet new mutations of the extinguishment virus keep appearing out of the federal termination laboratories. The latest of these extinguishment mutations is called “non-assertion fallback release”. These extinguishment viruses then get tested on individual First Nations, at Treaty tables and in negotiations, to see if we will accept them and succumb to them.

In my meetings with federal Cabinet Ministers and officials over the last year, they have all informed me that they do not have a “taste” for an “Indian rights agenda”. They would prefer, they state, to stay away from rights issues simply work on First Nations day-to-day community needs.

This is a false approach. It is a dead end.

Last week, Canada lost its bid for the Olympic Games to China . The government of Canada and the Canadian Olympic organization stood in Moscow and trumpeted Canada ’s respect for human rights. The country’s leaders used a rights agenda as an export product to try to win the Olympic Games.

China's human rights record is definitely very poor. But China has never held itself out as a leader in respect for human rights. Canada does. The federal government should re-examine the recent rulings of the U.N. concerning Canada ’s own human rights record. The U.N. has found Canada in violation of its fundamental human rights obligations in respect of its treatment of our peoples.

Our social problems, our day-to-day community needs are at crisis levels. They have been for many years, since the days the present Prime Minister was Minister of Indian Affairs. We are told that the gap between First Nations’ life expectancy and that of Canadians has narrowed. However, as a result of the gross social disparities facing our peoples, perhaps 500 and perhaps more excess deaths occur among our people each year. In addition, there is a terrible cost in lost human potential and other misery. These are enormous numbers. Canada's social policies are killing and stunting large numbers of our people.

The problems are well known. The solutions are well known. Canada is fundamentally a rights?based country, and as stated by a prominent Canadian professor of constitutional law, “This is the era of Rights”. Canadians treasure their fundamental rights. For Canadians, war and killing is deemed justified, and even heroic, when people are defending their fundamental rights or when those rights or lands are under siege. The Second World War, we are told, was fought in the defence of democracy and freedom – the basic rights of people all over the world, including Canada , to decide how they are to govern themselves and to be free from dictatorships.

When Canadians feel their rights have been violated, even by governments, they take action, even going so far as taking governments themselves to court to seek redress and re-institution of their rights. And they often succeed. When they do succeed, governments are compelled to follow the law and change their practices, and even amend their laws, to recognize and respect the rights of citizens. We see this basic principle in many places.

However, we have a federal government that says it is not inclined to address a “rights agenda” of First Nations. Because, it says, it wants to address practical, and not rights issues. What is more practical than our rights as First Nations, and our Aboriginal and Treaty rights entrenched in the Constitution?

There is a reason that federal ministers and other officials are telling us they do not wish to address a rights agenda. It is because rights lead to entitlements. And entitlements lead to benefits. And they do not wish our peoples to obtain benefits, because it will cost money, and because they do not want our nations to survive and thrive..

Even when we take our case to the courts, the federal government opposes us. It is supposed to protect us and uphold our Constitutional rights. But the governments are the ones who oppose us. This is not only politically wrong, it is morally wrong, and constitutionally wrong. Nowhere is this more brutal than in the residential schools cases.

In some cases the courts have stated that Aboriginal and Treaty rights issues should not be brought to the courts but should rather be negotiated through the political process. Then when we try to negotiate our rights through the political process, we are told that matters of rights should be decided by the courts – and now we are being told the government will not discuss or deal with our rights at all. This puts us in an impossible position, a “Catch 22".

In 1993, the Liberal party "red Book" platform of 1993 stated that:

• "A Liberal government is committed to building a new partnership with Aboriginal peoples based on trust and mutual respect...”
• "A Liberal government is committed to a bilateral consultative process," because "consultations are [presently] undertaken with First Nations on an add hoc and selective basis."

Now fast-forward to 2001. The Minister of Indian Affairs is embarked on an ad-hoc, selective so-called consultation process that invites distrust, by?passes the First Nations elected leadership, and will go ahead and implement First Nations government and electoral structures whether First Nations agree or not.

So far, 71% of First Nations leaders have formally rejected the Minister's Governance Act by resolution. What we have seen of the consultations so far indicates the Minister and his officials consult with a small group of people in certain areas, and list beside their names the number of people in the region, as if these people were speaking for all people in the region. Then he will turn around and say he has consulted with First Nations people and totally ignore the majority who will not take part in his consultations. And many people in the consultations are saying they do not trust his process.

This Governance Act debate reminds us all of the White Paper of 1969, which threatened to terminate and extinguish our distinct status and rights. The government of the day had promised consultations on how to accomplish all that. The Indian people rejected the White Paper at the time, and refused to participate in any consultations.

After all these years, it is interesting to read from "Citizens Plus" (the red paper) which was the counterproposal to the White Paper. Remember these quotes:

• "We told the federal Minister of Indian affairs that we do not wish to discuss his White Paper with him until we reach a position where we can bring forth our alternatives...."
  
• "We felt that with the concept of consultation held by the Minister and his department, that if we met with him to discuss the contents of his White Paper without being fully prepared, that even if we just talked about the weather, he would turn around and tell Parliament and the Canadian public that we accepted his White Paper.”

The 2001 throne speech says this about governance: the Liberal government “will support First Nations communities in strengthening governance, including implementing more effective and transparent administrative practices".

It says, "support First Nations". To support means to help, to assist, to aid, to back?up. Support does not mean to impose, to inflict, to force. The Throne Speech does not mention anything about legislating a Governance Act, or unilaterally changing the Indian Act. Remember, the overwhelming majority of First Nations communities meet their audit requirements year after year.

The Minister is setting First Nations–federal Government relations back to the days when the Indian Agent was the great white father and knew what is best for us. Those days are long past and will never return.

The AFN Executive has drawn up a detailed proposal outline that First Nations can use to develop our own laws. Some First Nations have already developed their own laws or Constitutions that spell out how they are to govern themselves. The only legislation the federal government needs to pass are laws that recognize our rights to govern ourselves, and laws that spell out their fiduciary obligations and Constitutional responsibilities to First Nations and how Parliament will relate to First Nations governments. They have no need to legislate how we will govern ourselves unless they intend to continue dominating and ultimately suppressing our governments.

We can and must make our own laws on citizenship, how we account and report to our own people, how we administer our own programs, how we provide services for our own people on or off reserves, how we deal with personnel, how we relate to other governments, federal, provincial, or municipal. We can and must do all that ourselves.

Just a few years ago, Minister Jane Stewart issued lengthy apology to First Nations peoples on the occasion of the “Gathering Strength” initiative. In it, she apologised for centuries of Crown efforts to undermine First Nations governments, to “disaggregate” First Nations, to undermine First Nations economies, and to weaken the fabric of our societies. It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and the disaggregation, the undermining and the weakening continues.

In the last year, the Supreme Court has shown signs of beginning a retreat from a brief “golden era” of tentative recognition of our rights. It must be remembered that the Supreme Court of Canada has never held that the evil policy and practice of extinguishment is unconstitutional; even in the Delgamuukw case, the High Court allowed the doctrine to stand. While validating our aboriginal title, it left that title vulnerable to dispossession and did little else to strengthen the hands of our peoples.

In the Marshall case, the Supreme Court yielded to mob action against our people and beat a retreat from its initial judgement upholding our treaties and our right to our own means of subsistence. In the Mitchell case, the Supreme Court engaged in an exercise of denial of thousands of years of Mohawk history as traders in the area of the St Lawrence, to arrive at the result that trans-border trade is not an aboriginal right. A minority of the court held that the Mohawk Nation sovereignty had been “reconciled” with Crown sovereignty through the effect of history and Euro-Canadian law. And in the recent Shilling case, an off-reserve Six Nations worker is now being taxed because she "has entered the commercial mainstream".

The law may be the law in the eyes of those that make and impose it. It may have legality in terms of the Courts that are appointed to apply it. But as the history of decolonization shows, illegitimate laws and illegitimate rulings of the courts can never be of lasting effect. In the end, all oppressive, discriminatory, and unjust laws collapse in the face of the power of human rights and the fact that the Creator did not intend for any peoples of creation to be dispossessed.

Accordingly, we as First Nations leaders have an enormous task, in our “internal business”. Our dispossession is well underway. How many Canadians know that since 1867, our trustee the federal Crown, has lost, stolen, taken or destroyed over 75% of the 1867 reserve land base, and almost all of the reserve resources. No wonder our peoples are poor.

The process of dispossession continues, but by virtue of s. 35, our dispossession must now be with our “consent”. So at every table, at every negotiation, at every settlement discussion arissing out of a court action, at every treaty implementation process, we have to be vigilant that we are not being forced to exchange our peoples' long term rights for short term gains.

This means no extinguishments. No terminations. Substantive self-sufficiency and equitable sharing. Genuine consent. Good faith. Real accountability, not the imposed variety proposed by Minister Nault. A line beyond which it is not legitimate for governments to ask us to to go, because this involves violations of our human rights. The hard part will be for the federal Crown to meet this minimum standard.

We are going to have to find ways of doing our work that prevents the Minister and the Crown from succeeding in “divide and rule” tactics. And let us also ensure that we take care of our internal business so that there is simply no excuse for others to intervene. Where there are a few among us who abuse their power, or tolerate conflicts of interest, or mistreat their people, or act in self-interest, let us bring these practises to an early end. Not because we need to keep the Minister and the Reform Party at bay, but because it is the right thing to do.

During the next year I will be undertaking bold new strategic steps, built on the strong foundation of the last year’s work, to persuade the federal Crown and the Canadian people that the time is now for fundamental change. We will need to mobilize as never before in the history of this land. We will have to become a political force to be reckoned with. Our prescriptions for our inclusion into Canada must become irresistible.

We are already experiencing resistance. It is no secret that Minister Nault has attacked the AFN at its core through funding. This came as no surprise, I knew it would happen the day I was elected. We can survive this easily, although I will tackle this issue of discriminatory AFN funding cuts head-on, both in Canada and internationally. The government of South Africa never funded Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, it actually made it illegal for it to exist. It never stopped existing, and it prevailed. We will prevail.

I appreciate the many, many expressions and statements of support I have received from all of you since my election last July. I renew my vow that we can together build a strong, united, and powerful force for the advancement of our Aboriginal rights, Treaty rights, land and resource entitlement rights, and human rights. We will show Canada and the world that our Nations are strong, being rebuilt – and that given the necessary resources we are capable of governing ourselves to look after the best interests of our people to the benefit of all, including all Canadians.

Miigwetch. Merci. Thank you.