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An August survey report from Leger Marketing completed for and funded by INAC reveals a high level of ignorance and prejudice among non-native residents of urban centres towards First Nation residents. The two stories below discuss the implementations of this survey with the Macleans' story making Aboriginal issues an election issue for 2007.

Click here to read the following CanWest News story online

Majority of non-aboriginals oppose new urban reserves: poll by Jack Aubry, CanWest News Service and published January 02, 2007

OTTAWA - The majority of Canadians who live near First Nations communities oppose creating new reserves in urban centres such as the one recently recommended for a troubled northern Ontario reserve, saying it would have a negative impact on the surrounding region, a newly released national poll reveals.

The survey of Canadians in eight cities across the country located near aboriginal communities found 51 per cent opposed to the prospect of the federal government creating new reserves in urban centres while 42 per cent were favourable to the idea. Among those opposed, 27 per cent said they are strongly against it while 24 per cent say they are somewhat opposed.

Meanwhile, only eight per cent are strongly in favour of relocating the reserves near urban centres while 34 per cent somewhat favour the idea.

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is making the poll public after an adviser to the federal government recommended that the troubled Kashechewan reserve in Northern Ontario be relocated near Timmins, 450 kilometres south of its current location on the shores of James Bay.

Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has said it will be up to the community and not the federal government whether they accept the move.

Part of a report prepared by Alan Pope, a former Ontario provincial politician, was a poll of the reserve, which showed a significant majority of residents believed it was in their best interests to move their community closer to an urban centre.

Kashechewan residents have been evacuated three times in the past two years: Twice due to flooding and once last fall due to water contamination.

Pope's report found a bleak existence at Kashechewan with inadequate housing, water supply, school and health system.

Leger Marketing conducted the poll among respondents from Sydney, N.S., Fredericton, N.B., Quebec City, Sarnia, Ont., Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary and Kamloops, B.C.

The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development hired the polling firm to conduct a study among non-aboriginal people living near reserves across Canada to better understand their attitudes towards First Nations and their position on creating new reserves.

The poll cost the federal government $67,410.

The poll also found that 46 per cent of the non-aboriginal respondents think the creation of an urban reserve would have a negative impact on the surrounding region, while 41 per cent believe the impact would be positive.

More revealing was the response to the possible benefits for the nearby cities where the reserves would be moved. Forty-four per cent said they believe creating aboriginal reserves will have "limited''benefits on their region while 35 per cent responded it would generate absolutely no benefits. Only 14 per cent said they believe such a move would create any "real'' benefits.

Other noted perceptions:

• 71 per cent believe aboriginals rely too much on governments;
• 61 per cent believe natives are taking measures to become more autonomous towards governments;
• 64 per cent think it is unfair to permit smoking in casinos located on reserves;
• 53 per cent judge that it's fair to allow aboriginal people to build casinos on reserves but unfair that they are allowed to sell products on reserves at cheaper prices;
• 48 per cent do not believe natives are victims of discrimination while 46 per cent believe they are.

The survey's final report, delivered in August to the department, noted one important point: ''Regional differences are the most important factor affecting the variation in responses on these issue areas across Canada.

'Indeed, we have observed that, in general, residents of Sydney and Fredericton have a better perception of aboriginal people, while respondents from Winnipeg and Saskatoon have a poorer perception of the First Nations situation.'

While the report denied that Quebecers had a negative perception of aboriginal people, it was found to be the region with the least amount of sympathy for their plight. ''When it comes to feelings of equity, they are more likely than Canadians in other regions to perceive that aboriginal people benefit from unfair advantages,''it said.

And when it comes to the impact of the creation of new reserves, Quebec and Sarnia residents were the most skeptical ones, with more than 80 per cent of those surveyed saying there would be limited or no benefit to their regional economies.

The report is based on 3,208 telephone interviews between June 26 and July 15 with non-aboriginal respondents aged 18 or older in eight cities from coast to coast. The margin of error for the national results is plus or minus 2.4 per cent, and plus or minus 4.9 per cent for each region, 19 times out of 20.

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Click here to read the following Macleans' story

Not going quietly - Resistance to the proposed move of the infamous Kashechewan reserve could put native issues in the national spotlight
Philippe Gohier, Macleans.ca - January 3, 2007

Their water was filthy. Their community was susceptible to flooding. Their housing was beyond decrepit. And so, for a brief period in the fall of 2005, the sickly, rash-ridden residents Kashechewan found a place in the public consciousness.

Soon, the northern Ontario reserve may return there. And in what might just be an election year, it threatens to bring other native issues with it.

A year after Kashechewan's woes came to light, Alan Pope, a former Ontario cabinet minister hired as a special adviser to the Minister of Indian Affairs, issued a report recommending the community be moved some 450 kilometres south to the outskirts of Timmins. Pope's report considered the alternatives, including leaving it where it is. But in the face of a crumbling infrastructure and a staggering 87% unemployment rate, the last best hope was apparently to shut the whole thing down and start anew.

"The benefits of such a relocation are clear," Pope said. "This will offer the greatest advantage of improved economic and individual opportunities."

But the relocation of native reserves to urban areas raises at least two delicate questions that have become the subject of debate. First, do the residents actually want to leave? And second, do their new neighbours want them?

When the federal government recently commissioned a poll on the latter question, it produced fairly disconcerting results.

The survey, conducted among non-aboriginals in eight Canadian cities located near native communities, found that 51% of respondents were opposed to the creation of urban reserves; only 42% were in favour.

What's more, Kashechewan's deputy chief, Philip Goodwin, told The Globe and Mail that many Kashechewan residents are reluctant to move closer to Timmins and prefer the option of simply moving to higher ground.

"Lately I've been hearing a lot of people [talk] about moving up the river," Goodwin said, contradicting Pope's analysis of local sentiment. "There's not too many people who are interested in going down south, but the answers will be at the end of February."

Those answers will come from the community-wide, door-to-door canvassing the council plans to undertake later this month - which, according to Goodwin, will dictate its formal response to Pope’s relocation proposal.

Should the council reject the proposal, Kashechewan would join two other high-profile native issues that remain unresolved. And combined, they could mark the rare occasion on which a federal government is put on the hot seat for its aboriginal policy.

First, there is the previous government's Kelowna Accord - the implementation of which was made one of the Liberals' top priorities at their recent leadership convention.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his government is committed to the "principles and objectives" of the Accord, which calls for $5.1-billion in targeted funding to reduce the gap in quality of life between aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities. But its absence from the Conservatives’ budget last February has left him open to criticism from its supporters.

Last spring, Canada's western and territorial leaders unanimously endorsed the deal. And this past October, former prime minister Paul Martin - who negotiated the Accord - presented a private member’s bill aimed at forcing the Conservatives to implement it. The vote passed handily - garnering the support of the Liberals, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, but not the Conservatives.

Then there are last year's clashes over disputed land in Caledonia, Ontario, which invoked memories of Oka and Ipperwash. With 1,000 land claims still outstanding, the possibility looms large that another of them could devolve as Caledonia has.

"Any one of them could trigger the same reaction," Ontario regional chief Angus Toulouse has said. "That's the unfortunate thing - we're going to see much more of that. There is a sense nationally and regionally that there is this frustration."

Native policies have rarely emerged as major election issues, and an expected campaign this year is more likely to focus on the environment, Afghanistan, and – at least inside Quebec - the fiscal imbalance. But the lingering confusion over Kashechewan, along with pressure to implement the Kelowna Accord and the simmering anger over the land claim in Caledonia, could finally push such issues into the political mainstream.