Opinion: ‘Staying under the Indian Act is not being sovereign’ says Chief McLeod

* Remarks from Chief Scott McLeod, Anishinabek Nation Lake Huron Regional Chief, at the Anishinabek Nation Governance Summit on January 14, 2020, on the Anishinabek Nation Governance Agreement.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I don’t just accept things that are handed to me. I’m critical of them. I question. And as Chief of my own community, I do that because if there’s anything that I’m going to be endorsing or promoting to my community, I have to be fully behind it before I do that. And it’s been a long road for myself with the Anishinabek Governance Agreement and I didn’t fully accept it until recently. And there was reasons for that because I had outstanding questions that I needed answers to. And I thought about all of the things that would impact us, and I listen to people— what they say— and I make up in my own mind how I feel about this and why I get behind it.

So over the next couple of days, we’re going to be talking about things, we’re going to be talking about our governance, we’re going to talk about sovereignty, we’re going to be talking about a few things that are out there that people are questioning. And that’s a good thing – I don’t shy away from criticism. To me, if you can’t defend the criticism, then you’re not fully behind it. And I encourage questions, critical questions, critical thinking about this stuff because it helps me reassure in my own mind that I’m making the right decision. That I’m standing behind something that is going to work.

Now, I think I have to talk a bit about sovereignty because a lot of people out there are saying, “Well you know, we shouldn’t get into this Governance Agreement because we need to maintain our sovereignty.” Well the one thing I’ve realized over the last little while is sovereignty doesn’t mean, first of all, staying under the Indian Act, that’s not being sovereign. We have to move away from the Indian Act. And the other thing I realized is there is no magic solution to reaching sovereignty. It takes work and it’s going to take more than one step to get there. But it starts by taking that first step and I truly believe that the Governance Agreement that we’re looking at here – and I’ve looked at this a hundred different ways— but I truly believe that it is a step towards sovereignty. It isn’t the end all, be all to get there, it’s far from it, but not doing anything is worse. Staying under the Indian Act, as much as it feels like a safe place because we know it so well, doesn’t make it better than moving forward.

So, when I look at the Governance Agreement, I look at it as a small step forward to where we want to go. And in my community, in Nipissing, we’re known for not waiting for agreements with governments and we move forward on our own and we have been in these four areas that the Governance Agreement addresses. We’re already doing that work. So then the question is, “Why would Nipissing want to get into this Agreement if you’re already doing that work?” Well the simple answer is that we’re doing it and we’re financing it ourselves. We’re moving out of the Indian Act ourselves. With this Governance Agreement, it makes a formal agreement with the government that allows those financial resources to flow to us. And people say, “Well, you’re just taking money from the government.” And I say absolutely not! We’re taking the money that is rightfully ours to do this. And when I say money that’s rightfully ours, I talk about the Canadian economy and the money that’s in this country. It’s all because of us. But we don’t get any of it. There’s no economy in the world that does not have a land base. In order to create an economy, you need a land base. So where did Canada’s land base come from? It came from us. That money belongs to us. And getting into these types of agreements is just transferring that money and making sure that we get our rightful share of that money. Those resources that came from our land base. Unless if they brought that money in from some other country, that money belongs to us.

This is not about empowering government to have more control over us; this is about empowering ourselves to make decisions on our own. A lot of misconceptions are out there and I hope over the next few days that we clear them up. Things like we’re giving all of the power to the Anishinabek/Union of Ontario Indians – that is not true. We’re empowering our own communities to be the drivers of our destiny. That’s what we’re trying to do here. And it’s only a small step. But it is a step forward. So you can ask yourself, “Do we want to stay under the Indian Act or do we want to start moving away from the Indian Act?”

You know, we did the same thing with the Anishinabek Education Agreement. And despite the fact that there are growing pains, there are issues that we’re working through with the Anishinabek Education Agreement, ask yourself this: Do you want to go back? Or do you want to keep working with this Anishinabek Education Agreement and keep going forward? And I’ve never heard anybody say, “We want to go back to the way it was.” I’ve heard a lot of people saying, “We need to improve things with the Education Agreement.” And I agree. And that’s going to be the same with the Governance. It’s not going to be perfect. There is no perfect silver bullet on this stuff. But we need to work through it as a collective group to make it work for us like we are doing with the Anishinabek Education Agreement. We have to start moving forward. As everybody knows, every journey starts with one step. And you can stay in the same place and feel safe, or you can get the courage and we can all walk together and move forward.