Atleo allies speak up to salvage First Nations meeting with Harper

The relationship between Canada’s First Nations and the federal government remained up in the air Friday, with a vocal faction of chiefs refusing to support National Chief Shawn Atleo and attend a scheduled meeting with Stephen Harper.

Other chiefs insisted the meeting with the prime minister must — and will — go ahead.

Top strategists from First Nations and the government were meeting frantically behind the scenes all morning in an attempt to define an agenda and a meeting venue that would serve to cool flaring tempers on all sides.

To add to the pressure, Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence said she will persist with the month-long no-solid-food protest that became a catalyst for many chiefs, as well as Idle No More activists, who were taking to the streets to show their support.

One First Nations leader — Gordon Peters of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians — renewed a threat of widespread disruption next week unless Harper and Gov.-Gen. David Johnston come to a downtown Ottawa hotel to meet the chiefs on their own terms.

First Nations would move to “stop roads, rails, transportation of goods,” Peters said. “We just have to walk out on our land and stop it.”

But more moderate voices are also beginning to speak up, publicly exposing their discomfort with the threatened boycott and expressing support for Atleo’s plan to meet with Harper in his office later in the day.

“I’m really troubled by what looks to be a breakdown in discipline,” said staunch Atleo ally Grand Chief Doug Kelly of the First Nations Summit in British Columbia.

He said the appearance of division is being spurred by a “handful” of chiefs from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Ontario and does not reflect the negotiating mandate that chiefs have granted Atleo to speak on their behalf to the prime minister.

“We didn’t vote for Theresa Spence as national chief,” Kelly said.

Chiefs from Quebec and the East Coast say they want to go with the national chief to meet the prime minister, if only to tell him they have little confidence in his government.

Nova Scotia’s regional chief, Morley Googoo, says it’s Spence who should resign, along with her ally — and Atleo rival — Pam Palmater, for creating chaos and division within the Assembly of First Nations by imposing irrational demands on the AFN leaders.

And one leader known for his hard-line approach in the past spoke up in favour of the Harper meeting, urging First Nations unity and backing Atleo’s methods of handling the talks. Cree Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come — a former national chief who still has a circle of support — said he didn’t come to Ottawa just to join a protest.

“If we are going to solve and deal with the First Nations issues in this country, we need to have a table, where we can iron out and put our demand to the prime minister. We are prepared to go to a meeting and put our demands on the table,” Coon Come told reporters.

The Prime Minister’s Office reiterated that they are still ready to meet, on terms earlier agreed to by the AFN.

“The Prime Minister remains available to meet on the basis previously agreed to,” said spokeswoman Julie Vaux.

The renewed push for a meeting comes after a night of tumult, with chief after chief calling for a boycott and speaking out against Harper.

“The Assembly of (First Nations) as a great organization hangs in the balance. More critically, lives are at stake,” one northern Ontario chief, Isadore Day, wrote in an emotional letter to Atleo this morning.

“I implore you to stop this meeting with the PM.”

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