Mulcair and Trudeau raise hopes of better Ottawa/native relations: Editorial – Toronto Star
By meeting with First Nations leaders and putting promises on the table, the two opposition leaders have pushed native issues higher on the political agenda.
If Canada’s First Nations are going to overcome a tragic burden of racism, political neglect and poverty, they’ll need a willing partner in the federal government.
That’s something they have not had in 10 years of bad relations with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. Its first act was to kill Paul Martin’s $5-billion Kelowna Accord that aimed to raise living standards on reserves, setting the stage for a decade of mistrust and worse. Things got so sour that aboriginal chiefs rejected a Harper proposal to invest $1.9 billion in native education, because of the strings attached to it.
