Why does Chief Phil Fontaine seem so determined to frustrate the process of healing for residential school survivors and keep at bay reconciliation with non-aboriginal Canadians and our government?
It’s a question worth considering, as Fontaine and the organization he leads, the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), seem to be emerging as key players in the recent implosion of the Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Last week, commission chairman Justice Harry LaForme abruptly resigned. LaForme was eminently qualified to get the job done (a graduate of Osgoode Hall law school, a former member of two Indian commissions relating to land claims and a native Indian) so his resignation was an immediate red flag that the process had been derailed.
At first, it appeared LaForme resigned because the two other commissioners didn’t share his vision for the commission and refused to acknowledge his authority as its chairman. In other words, it was a simple difference of opinion on bureaucratic governance. Ho hum.
But then came the bombshell allegations that the two commissioners were being openly influenced by the AFN and deliberately planned to outvote LaForme to carry out the AFN’s wishes. As such, their “different vision” was actually a plan to change the commission’s agreed-upon mandate of telling the truth and encouraging reconciliation to one that emphasized the telling of survivor stories and ignored attempts at reconciliation.
Beyond the obvious negative implications for the commission’s future, these events make it abundantly clear Fontaine and his fellow leaders at the AFN are not serious about reconciliation or moving ahead in a positive relationship with other Canadians or Ottawa. Even worse, it suggests he’s willing to extend the suffering of his own people to further the AFN’s political purposes.
He’ll put them on a public stage to tell the world the most intimate and embarrassing details of their experiences — and then deny them an opportunity for healing. By diminishing or eliminating the process of reconciliation at the commission, the exercise will be just enough to keep the wounds of these political pawns rubbed raw, in a perpetual cycle of victimhood.
Perhaps that’s why Ontario’s Anishinabek Nation, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and — most importantly — the National Residential School Survivor Society have all signalled their lack of confidence in the AFN and Fontaine’s actions by calling on the two commissioners to resign. They want a legitimate commission dedicated to fulfilling its full mandate of both truth and reconciliation.
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised by these revelations. Fontaine signalled his intentions to ignore reconciliation in a September speech in which he repeatedly referred to the commission as the “truth commission,” deliberately excluding the term “reconciliation.”
Nor is this the first time Fontaine has stood in the way of helping his people to gain healing and kept the process of reconciliation from ever reaching an endpoint.
In 1998, Fontaine accepted the government’s Statement of Reconciliation (and $350 million for a healing fund) that expressed “profound regret for past actions” and said “we are deeply sorry.”
Fontaine accepted that apology by saying, “it took the government some courage . . . to break with the past and to apologize for the historic wrongs and injustices against our people. It is therefore a great honour for me . . . to accept the apology of the government and the people of Canada.”
But apparently “honour” only lasts so long. Fast-forward to 2006 and 2007 when the government and the natives finalized a $2-billion compensation package that would compensate every student — not just those who were abused. Fontaine again accepted the package, but this time he was furious it wasn’t accompanied by another government apology, claiming this to be akin to “holocaust denial.”
In June 2008, the federal government gave in to the demands and offered another official apology on the floor of the Commons. First Nations leaders accepted the apology and it was expected that all parties would move forward in trust, with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission being the final step in the healing process.
But Fontaine appears to have broken that trust by deliberately interfering with and working against the good-faith efforts for reconciliation. In doing so, he is actively abusing the residential school survivors. For this, he should be held accountable.
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