Treaty 8 chiefs criticize UCP Indigenous Platform
Edmonton, Alberta – April 2, 2019 – With the election in Alberta looming, the parties have released and are promoting the various policies they plan to implement if they get the go ahead from voters in Alberta. Chiefs, Elders and First Nations are in for quite a surprise when they go and look at the Policy Declaration from the United Conservative Party regarding Indigenous policy. Not only is it brief, coming it at 3 statements, but those statements aren’t exactly hitting the right note with First Nations.
“Not only is it unbelievably short, but the very first statement seems geared to draw anger out of First Nations within Treaty 8 [Alberta],” states Arthur Noskey, Grand Chief of Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta.
The statement the Grand Chief is referring to is directly from the UCP Policy Declaration which states “the UCP is committed to the ultimate goal of treating and recognizing all Albertans as equal under law.”
“This is completely insulting to First Nations and brings to my mind all those people who ask how come those Indians get government programs and that they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This is a strange policy statement from the former federal Minister for dealing with Multiculturalism and one that ignores all the uniqueness that we have as the First Peoples of this land, the Treaty relationship with the Crown, and the statistically proven disadvantage our people face in Canada.” states the Grand Chief.
“Quite frankly, what makes this even worse is that we sat down with Jason Kenney and some UCP members and outlined our issues, I guess we didn’t even make a dent in their thinking.”