First Nations education and health support included in Ontario government's Speech from the Throne
McGuinty gets credit for making native people a priority
Nov 30, 2007 - Ian Urquhart
There was one real surprise in yesterday's Speech from the Throne at Queen's Park: the section on the province's native peoples.
"The government seeks to forge a stronger, more positive relationship with Ontario's First Nations," said the speech.
"They do not constitute the largest group or the most powerful. They are, however ... the first people to call this place home."
The speech went on to promise that the government would work with the federal government "to accelerate the settlement of land claims" and "to improve the quality of life and expand economic opportunities for all aboriginal peoples in our province, both on- and off-reserve."
There are about 220,000 aboriginal people in Ontario, most of them living off-reserve.
Dalton McGuinty's Liberal regime is not the first Ontario government to target them in a throne speech and make them a priority; Bob Rae's NDP government did that back in the early 1990s.
But McGuinty is the first to appoint a full-time minister of aboriginal affairs – Michael Bryant, an activist politician who can be counted on to tackle the issue with enthusiasm and dexterity.
There is, to be sure, a sense of urgency around the "aboriginal problem" that may not have existed in the past. This is exemplified by the ongoing Caledonia dispute, where an aboriginal occupation is rubbing up against the local non-native population.
But Caledonia is just the tip of the iceberg. Not far below the surface are a wide range of disputes, from land claims across the province to proposed new hydro projects that would impinge on aboriginal land, and from cigarette smuggling to the distribution of casino profits.
And, of course, there is the abject poverty in which most aboriginal peoples in the province live, to our never-ending shame.
The problem is, as Bryant sees it, that past governments "legalized" aboriginal issues; indeed, the aboriginal affairs secretariat used to be housed in the attorney general's ministry. Nothing much ever got done because the lawyers were too worried about setting precedents.
Bryant knows whereof he speaks. He is both a lawyer and a former attorney general. But he is determined to bypass the lawyers and seek pragmatic solutions – such as financing off-reserve employment programs (one of which, 7th Generation Image Makers, was mentioned in the throne speech).
Another Bryant goal is the improvement of health and education programs on reserves.
The problem here, as the throne speech itself pointed out, is that "Ontario cannot do this alone." The province needs the co-operation of the federal government, which is constitutionally responsible for aboriginal peoples.
The province could, for example, take over responsibility for on-reserve schools from Ottawa, which does an abysmal job in this area.
But reserve schools now receive substantially less cash per student than schools in the rest of the province, so the province would want Ottawa to top up the funding before the transfer of responsibility took place. Unfortunately, the current Conservative regime in Ottawa has shown itself to be insensitive to both aboriginal concerns (see the scrapping of the Kelowna accord) and to Ontario's interests (see the current dispute over the allocation of seats in the Commons).
So the throne speech may be setting the provincial government up to fail. But the risk of failure ought not to deter the province from trying to make progress in this long-neglected area.
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Liberals focus on poverty, education and First Nations in Ont. throne speech
TORONTO, Nov 29 - Students, seniors, low-income families and Ontario's First Nations were all singled out for special attention Thursday as the Liberal government kicked off the fall session of the legislature with its first speech from the throne since winning re-election last month.
New Lt.-Gov. David Onley read the speech on behalf of the government, which promised to boost education spending to $15.5 billion by 2011 - an increase of $3.1 billion a year - and to give college and university students a $300 grant each year for books and technology.
The Liberal speech also outlined a plan to establish government targets for reducing poverty, including a dental plan for low income families.
"A new cabinet committee will begin work developing poverty indicators and targets and a focused strategy for making clear-cut progress on reducing child poverty," Onley said as he delivered the 13-page speech in a packed legislative chamber.
Two of those pages were devoted to aboriginal affairs, with the government vowing to forge a more positive relationship with Ontario's First Nations and to help create jobs for aboriginal youth.
"Your government, to be sure, is not the first government to seek a better relationship with our First Nations," Onley said.
"But it is, perhaps, the first to have in its possession such a positive road map for progress - the Ipperwash Inquiry report."
That inquiry, which probed the fatal 1995 police shooting aboriginal protester Dudley George, made a host of recommendations, including speeding up the land claims process and introducing a new Treaty Commission of Ontario. The Liberals have already acted on another recommendation to set up a stand-alone Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs.
The Liberals said they would expand their wait times strategy to include emergency room visits, children's surgery and general surgery, and will also introduce legislation to ban trans fats from all school cafeterias.
The government also promised to broaden home care services for seniors and introduce a caregiver grant for those caring for elderly family members.
There will be a new $165-million Ontario venture capital fund and a richer Northern Development fund - $100 million, up from $60 million.
The Liberals also promised to trim climate-change emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2014, legislation to reduce toxins in the environment and a ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides in cities and towns.
The throne speech also called on the federal government to be fair to Ontario in its fiscal policies, especially the Employment Insurance system, and to offer more federal support for Ontario manufacturers, forestry workers and farmers.
"Your government will continue to speak up - and stand up - for Ontario when basic fairness is undermined," said Onley.
The Liberals also vowed to keep pressing Ottawa to give municipalities one cent of the GST for infrastructure and public transit and to pay for an additional 1,000 police officers in Ontario.
Ontario also plans to continue demanding fair representation in the House of Commons by opposing what it considers a flawed federal plan to increase the number of seats in Parliament that represent ridings in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
Ontario complains it will get one new MP for every 200,000 new residents, while the other provinces will get one new MP for every 100,000 new arrivals.
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