By Josh Giesbrecht.
With the House of Commons rising for the summer there is no doubt that the 2015 federal election is now in full swing. Many policy issues regarding the economy and national security will come to dominate this election.
However, will Aboriginal policy issues take root at all this election? This question must be asked, not because they ever really have, but because of all the major events that have taken place since the last federal election in 2011. There was Idle No More – the grassroots Aboriginal protests that took place over a seemingly mundane policy issue of the government’s omnibus bill. The First Nations Education Act that proposed significant reforms and funding was agreed too, and then rapidly stalled with opposition that resulted in the Assembly of First Nations National Chief at the time, Shawn Atleo, suddenly resigning. The Truth and Reconciliation Commissions findings were released marking the end of the historic formal process of the federal government addressing its dark past of Residential Schools. Yet, the long process of reconciliation in Canada taking place has just started and that new relationship is complicated.
This is just to mention a few significant events that have taken place since the last election. It begs the question if this election will be any different – will Aboriginal policy take a significant part of this election or will it be just background noise at best like in the past? Interestingly enough, the first time Aboriginal issues ever came onto the political scene was in the 1957 election when John Diefenbaker made a point of putting it into his election platform. As one can imagine in the late 1950s in Canada, Aboriginal policy matters were not a point of major political points in an election. Yet he made it apart of his platform and set a new political convention in Canada. This became part of the expected practice by all political parties.
Despite all of these major events, conventional wisdom of past federal elections points to there being no major role for Aboriginal policy to play in the campaign to come. Aboriginal policy in all likelihood will take the backseat for the three major parties as they vye for power. However, just as Idle No More came out of nowhere and a seemingly done deal on real Education reform quickly unravelled, conventional wisdom in both cases was proven to be wrong.
One thing is crystal clear: these are not ordinary times for Aboriginal policy in the country. It can be argued that ever since Elijah Harpers stand against the Meech Lake Accord 25 years ago, things have changed, and they have given a real voice for Aboriginals politically. In other words, the overarching conventions that have governed this country since its confederation has been overturned.
With that being said, maybe this election we will be different. Conventions in this country have been completely changed at the most unexpected times. 2015 may be the unconventional year where big changes happen in the election cycle – changes from normal topics to one that includes a fulsome discussion of Aboriginal policy in this country in real terms. One thing is for certain, if it does take place this fall, it is about time.
