Harper to meet First Nations leaders next week
Posted January 4, 2013 8:57 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA (NEWS1130) – Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he and Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan will meet a delegation of First Nations leaders next Friday.
He says the talks will focus on treaty relationships and aboriginal rights and economic development.
The meeting will be coordinated by the Assembly of First Nations.
The announcement of the meeting comes after efforts to broker a solution to end a 24-day-old hunger strike by Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence foundered over timing.
NDP MP Charlie Angus says Harper has to treat the meeting seriously. “I don’t think anybody in this country thinks for a minute that the days when the prime minister comes in, puts out a press release, and walks out the back door are going to continue.”
Aboriginal leaders had sought a Jan. 24 meeting with Harper, but Spence said her failing health required that the prime minister meet with First Nations leaders within 72 hours.
Spence has been subsisting mainly on fish broth since Dec. 11, living in a tent on frigid Victoria Island on the Ottawa River, just upstream from Parliament Hill.
