Running for AFN National Chief July 25, 2018

..diabo is the 1st story

Nation to Nation

Mohawk policy analyst Russ Diabo says he’s running to accomplish a few things: Take out incumbent Perry Bellegarde, who is running for reelection, go after Trudeau and fix the AFN.

“It’s lost its legitimacy to many of our people,” Diabo said of the AFN, adding he has many ideas to change it that he’ll announce in the future.

Assembly of First Nations 2018 election is a battle for sovereignty

The Assembly of First Nations will hold its election for national chief on July 25 in Vancouver. Only the chiefs of the 634-plus First Nations are eligible to vote but most chiefs' assemblies see less than half of those attend, and of those, many are proxies and not actual chiefs. 

While elections for prime minister, premier and even mayors attract nightly political commentary, analysis and predictions in the months and weeks prior to their elections, there is generally very little commentary about the AFN election outside of Indigenous media like APTN, Windspeaker or smaller Indigenous political blogs. Yet, what is at stake in this election for First Nations should be of great concern to Canadians.

This election feels more like a boiling point -- a critical juncture spurred by the growing discontent of the AFN that was apparent in the last three AFN elections for National Chief. The outcome of this election could change everything for the better or the worse and Canadians will be impacted either way....

..txs meg

Assembly of First Nations is out of touch and needs an overhaul, says ex-national chief

quote:

Some want voting changes

​Patrick Madahbee, a former Anishinabek Grand Council chief, retired this year after more than four decades in First Nations politics. 

Madahbee, who was a 27-year-old grand council chief at the 1980 Skyline Hotel meeting, said it's time for the AFN to modernize and change the way the leadership is selected.

"All our citizens should be choosing their leadership at every level in order to empower our people," he said. "Whether that will happen in the near future is the question. I don't think it will happen that quickly."

Rolland Pangowish, who worked as a senior official at AFN for about 15 years under four different national chiefs, said he joined the organization to make a difference. But over time, Pangowish said he has seen the AFN become a prisoner of the federal government's funding and policy priorities.

"It is very skewed in the government's favour," Pangowish said. "They manage the negotiations and set the rules."

He said that during his time at the AFN, internal work to chart new paths and models often fell victim to backroom deals between the national chief and Ottawa, which reflected the priorities of whoever occupied 24 Sussex at the time.

The AFN is no longer an advocacy organization, he said. Instead, it is "stagnating" as a "policy consultation mechanism" for Ottawa.

Pangowish left the AFN in 2003, having been the director of the treaty and lands unit. When he returned home to Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve in Ontario, he was surprised people no longer viewed the organization as their champion.

"There was more fear of what the AFN was going to do than a feeling it was representing the people," he said. "The organization should be folded and start again, building from the ground up."