****January 2012 Focus - Focus Magazine

National Chief Ah-in-chut Atleo was speaking at a philanthropy
conference in Toronto last October when stark images of
families in Attawapiskat, Ontario, living in uninsulated tents
without power or running water, started flashing across Canadian
television screens.
As Canadians learned that dozens of reserves across the country
share Attawapiskat’s Third World conditions, Atleo told conference
delegates that Canada is at a moment of reckoning in its relations
with First Nations. “Since contact between European settlers and
indigenous peoples in Canada,” said Atleo, “there has been a constant
and aggressive erosion of First Nations economies, laws and ways of
life. Statistics tell a tragic tale of communities with the highest youth
suicide rate in the world, a rate of TB infection 30 times the national
average, an education gap that will take over two decades to close
and the reality that our children are more likely to end up in jail than
to graduate from high school. This is completely wrong,” raged Atleo.
Three months earlier, now-retired federal Auditor General Sheila
Fraser had unleashed a scathing report on the state of First Nations
communities in Canada, lashing out at the federal government for
the appalling conditions on many Indian reserves. Canada had failed
to implement numerous recommendations she had made over the
years on ways to improve the lives and well-being of people living in
First Nations communities in any way that had led to significant
change. If anything, reported Fraser, conditions were worse.
Unless the federal government works with First Nations to rise
to this challenge, concluded Fraser sombrely, “living conditions may
continue to be poorer on First Nations reserves than elsewhere in
Canada for generations to come.”
Atleo agrees wholeheartedly. He believes it’s time for bold action:
“We’re at a tipping point. We have to unlock the full potential of First
Nations, and sever the shackles of the Indian Act. The current system
is failing,” he says unequivocally. “It’s time to smash the status quo.”
Fighting for the children
On a blustery west coast day in December, I spoke to Atleo by telephone
from Ottawa. Atleo, 47, is from Ahousaht in Nuu-chah-nuulth
territory on Vancouver Island. He sighed wistfully when I described
the slashing rain and wind outside. Moving to Ottawa in July 2009 to
undertake his three-year term as National Chief meant leaving behind
his beloved West Coast. Except for fleeting visits with his wife Nancy
to see their two children, Tara, 23, who will graduate from Vancouver
Island University next month, and Tyson, 25, the youngest councillor
ever elected to Ahousaht Council, Atleo is rarely home these days.
But Atleo couldn’t turn the opportunity down. He was also tailormade
for the position. Atleo had already served two terms as the
AFN’s Regional Chief in BC. With an M.Ed in Adult Learning and Global
Change from Sydney’s University of Technology in Australia, accounting
and financial qualifications from California’s Stanford University, and
extensive experience in treaty negotiations and human resource issues
in Canada, Atleo is also no slouch on First Nations policy issues. An articulate,
pleasant and diplomatic man, he is universally well-regarded in
non-First Nations circles, and was invited to be Vancouver Island University’s
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www.focusonline.ca • January 2012
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