Grieving mothers whose children were killed by police issued an emotional response Thursday, urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take action as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went on the defensive during the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) annual winter meeting in Ottawa. appealed to.
After Prime Minister Trudeau took to the stage to deliver a speech accompanied by heads of state and a handful of ministers, Indigenous leaders criticized everything from racism in the crackdown to broken 2015 commitments to a lack of consultation. pressure on Prime Minister Trudeau.
“In 2015, I promised to change the federal government’s approach,” Trudeau said.
The response was muted, with some accusing the prime minister of breaking his promise by relying on the AFN to pass a flawed bill without consulting chiefs directly.
“Our consent cannot be manipulated to delegate legal consultation obligations to AFN,” said Chief Kelsey Jacko of Alberta’s Cold Lake First Nation, who was the first to speak afterward.
“We have to meet with the owners of these lands.”
Some Alberta chiefs this week called for the AFN to be disbanded, and several expressed their dissatisfaction directly to Prime Minister Trudeau. AFN is a national advocacy organization representing chiefs across the country.
Prime Minister Trudeau responded that it is not up to the federal government to decide who will represent Indigenous peoples.
“If you would like to consider something other than AFN as a way to organize yourself, we are willing to work with you on whatever you decide is right for you,” he said.
Perhaps the most powerful moment came when a group of grieving mothers who had lost their children during interactions with police took to the stage.
Edith Wells’ son John Wells, 42, died in September after an altercation with Calgary police. He is one of 10 Indigenous people killed by police in just a few months, from August to November 2024.
“I have to live with a broken heart and a broken soul. Every morning I wake up and ask: Please help me get through this day,” Wells told Trudeau.
“We have to do something.”
Parliament passed a resolution Tuesday calling for a national inquiry into systemic racism in policing to address what Canada calls an “interlinked epidemic” of violence and death.
The prime minister said, “As a government, we will do our best to resolve this issue.”
However, he did not directly address the call for an investigation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau listens to the emotional pleas of several mothers who have lost children at the hands of police at a special AFN meeting of chiefs.
Singh asked and Blanchett booed.
Earlier, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh supported calls for a national investigation, calling the situation “heartbreaking” and “wrong.”
“We need to get to the bottom of this. We need to clearly understand that there is systemic racism going on when it comes to police and Indigenous people,” he said.
However, Shin’s life was not all smooth sailing. The chiefs accused Mr. Singh of not answering their calls and ignoring their requests to meet.
Later, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet gave his first speech in parliament, which was met with boos at one point.
Cody Diabo, head of the Mohawk Council in Kahnawake, near Montreal, told Blanchett that the territory, which was never surrendered, “is still our land.”
“When your ancestors arrived by boat, my ancestors were there,” Diabo said.
He then invited Blanchett to have a broader conversation about “relationships and how your people can start packing up.”
“Everyone is well aware that we arrived here by boat hundreds of years ago. But I wasn’t there, and neither were you,” says Blanchett. There was a jeer from the room.
The only leader not present was Conservative leader Pierre Poièvre, who first addressed parliament when he gave a speech in July.
Discussion late Thursday focused on the future of the child welfare system after leaders in October rejected a 10-year, $47.8 billion federal child welfare reform plan.
Chiefs confirmed their position Wednesday by voting in favor of continuing to renegotiate the agreement, ending a 2007 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) suit over chronic underfunding of the reserved child welfare system. I will do it.
Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu told parliament she was disappointed with the outcome.
“Obviously we felt this was a very good step forward. It actually exceeded the requirements of CHRT,” Hajdu said.
National Secretary Cindy Woodhouse-Nepinak has urged Canada to return to the table with a new mandate, but it remains unclear when and if that will happen.
The meeting concludes Thursday afternoon.
