NEWS RELEASE

May 2, 1996 For Immediate Release

INDIANS ACCUSE LIBERALS OF CREATING FASCIST STATES DISGUISED AS SELF-GOVERNMENT

"So-called racist Reformers only MPs representing First Nations Coalition for Accountability."

Ottawa - Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, and John Duncan, Reform Aboriginal Affairs Critic and MP for North Island-Powell River, BC, attended a meeting of the First Nations Coalition for Accountability held in Saskatoon on Saturday, April 27th. The two Reformers were the only Members of Parliament who attended this most important meeting.

Garry Breitkreuz rose in the House of Commons and read the following statement:

"Mr. Speaker, in a democracy, the rules of governance must be controlled by the governed and not dictated by the governors. These fundamental principles, integral in the very foundations of a democratic society, are denied to the first peoples of this land.

The First Nations people are being down trodden, bankrupted and oppressed under elitist power structures sanctioned and financed by the Government of Canada. With the full knowledge of and condoned by Indian Affairs, irresponsible self-serving native leaders are diverting, mismanaging and misusing funds earmarked and allocated to fulfil treaty obligations. This unconscionable state of affairs has become epidemic in Indian country with honest accountable native leaders being notable exceptions instead of the rule.

The concerns and grievances of the general membership of the First Nations must be investigated thoroughly and resolved accordingly before discussions on native self-government proceed any further. To do otherwise would result in fascist states disguised as native self-government. This is from Leonard Iron, a Cree of the Canoe Lake Band and President of the First Nations Coalition for Accountability, whom I am pleased to represent."

"Liberal MPs seem to be more interested in being Jean Chretien's lap-dogs than they are representing grassroots Indian people alienated by the elitist, autocratic self-government process imposed on them by the Department of Indian Affairs," said Breitkreuz. When we meet with the grassroots, we find both the truth and a dose of good old common sense. It's a pity that these people are ignored both by their own leaders and the Liberal government that has a legal obligation to protect the interests of all Indian people and defend their individual Treaty rights and obligations."

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For more information please call: Garry Breitkreuz, M.P.

Yorkton: (306) 782-3309

Ottawa: (613) 992-4394