A native chief who went on a hunger strike to force talks with Canada’s prime minister in order to demand improvements to squalid living conditions on reserves on Wednesday backed out of the meeting.
Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence and other aboriginal leaders were to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday, to discuss treaty rights and ways to raise living standards on reserves.
Harper agreed to the talks after Spence’s hunger strike, which started on December 11, entered its fourth week.
But Spence now says she will not attend because Governor General David Johnston, representative of Queen Elizabeth II in this former British colony, declined an invitation to join in the talks.
She explained in a statement that the governor general’s attendance “is integral when discussing inherent and treaty rights.” Canada’s more than 600 indigenous reserves (reservations) were created by royal proclamation in 1763.
Spence’s spokesman Danny Metatawabin also accused the Harper government of “not taking indigenous peoples’ concerns seriously” in a “time of crisis.”
“Canada is not acting in good faith,” said the statement.
“If the state of Canada continues to undermine and destroy the treaty relationship, what rights does Canada have to exist within our territories?”
In addition to complaints of severe poverty on reserves, many natives also blasted changes last month to environmental and other laws that they say impact their hunting and fishing rights, and allow tribes to lease reserve lands to non-natives.
Though the government insists the latter was meant to help boost economic development on reserves, some fear it will result in a loss of native control of reserve lands and eventually lead to the end of aboriginal communities.
Johnston had declined to meet with Spence, saying it is a political matter that must be taken up with elected officials.
The prime minister’s office however told AFP his meeting with the delegation of aboriginal leaders will still go on.
Chief pulls out of talks with Canada's prime minister
