Sudbury NDP candidate Jamie West was joined by Timmins-James Bay MP Charlie Angus and Beausoleil First Nation Chief Mary King at Laurentian University on May 17 to discuss the party's Indigenous platform.
The NDP's Fair Deal for First Nations is one of the planks of the party's platform, and fittingly Thursday's meeting was held at the Apology Cairn, the site of the first official apology made by the United Church of Canada to First Peoples in 1986.
"When (Ontario NDP Leader) Andrea Horwath was here in the winter, I asked if we could meet with some of the volunteers and Indigienous community leaders and learn from them," said West. "We just wanted to talk about their concerns and gather information and I'm very pleased that the information we gathered has become a leg of our northern platform, called the Fair Deal for First Nations."
Included in the deal are commitments from the NDP to establish a true government-to-government relationship with Ontario's First Nations, to work with First Nations leaders to sign a co-operative government-to-government accord.
There is also plan to guarantee access to clean, safe drinking water and to implement the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
"Reconciliation demands a lot more of the provincial and federal governments that ceremonies, symbolic gestures, sound bites and photo ops," said West. "It demands good faith, and it demands action."
Angus says that Ontario and Canada are far from done with the reconciliation process and was proud that the Fair Deal for First Nations was being unveiled at a sacred location like the Apology Cairn.
"It's about us coming together in partnership and respect, and this is why I'm so pleased to be supporting Andrea Horwath's campaign because she gets it," said Angus. "What I think is really important about this campaign is that nation-to-nation relationship. If we're going to have development in this work, it's going to be done in partnership. If we're going to see riches come from these lands, they're going to include the First People who belong here and who will always be here, and they will benefit."
The NDP's Fair Deal includes implementing resource revenue sharing with First Nations, and immediately investing $209 million in the First Nations Health Action Plan. The party is also saying they will invest $28 million for urgent repairs to capital upgrades at Friendship Centres.
In the Fair Deal for First Naitions, all First Nations communities will be exempt from electricity delivery charges, and remote First Nations will be connected to the grid through the Wataynikaneyap Power Grid Connection Project.
"When we look at the choice in this province right now between the vision of Andrea Horwath and the vision of (PC Leader) Doug Ford, we're not going back to Doug Ford's dinosaur vision," said Angus. "His comments about being on a bulldozer to push through the Ring of Fire just shows someone who doesn't get it and doesn't understand that the only way we move forward in the North is by being in partnership.
"His comments to me represent the ugly old days of the 1980s and '90s and the Mike Harris attitude, and we're not going back there — we're going forward."
Beausoleil First Nation Chief Mary King took the opportunity to attend Thursday's meet up and says she hopes Horwath will be true to her word if elected next month.
"I thought today was a great opportunity to talk with Charlie and Jamie and listen to what they have to say. I'm a strong supporter of the NDP and Andrea Horwath, so I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of this," said King.
"There's a lot of talk about Truth and Reconciliation and commitments to work on a nation to nation basis and you hear about it all the time but you don't see any real action. You hear it from every level of government, but nothing seems to materialize, so I'm hoping that everything they're saying in their campaign, that they'll do good on it."
