Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Perry Bellegarde, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day in Ottawa on Wednesday, June 21, 2017.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Indigenous leaders say they are glad to be meeting this week with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the premiers, but the time allotted is too short to tackle the range of urgent issues affecting their people.
The morning of the first ministers' meeting in Ottawa on Tuesday will be given over to a couple hours of meetings with representatives of First Nations, Inuit and Métis organizations.
Perry Bellegarde, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said on Monday that his most important goal when sitting down with the Prime Minister and the premiers will be to secure the promise of another meeting dedicated to Indigenous issues.
Mr. Bellegarde said there are many matters that he wants to raise with Mr. Trudeau and the premiers, including the need to meet the terms of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to fulfill the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
"So, I want to have another meeting where we can properly plan the agenda, because this one is quite rushed," Mr. Bellegarde said in a telephone interview.
"We know it's focused on the economy but there are a lot of other things that we can get our heads around."
As for the economic issues themselves, Mr. Bellegarde said he will make the point that First Nations people could provide a solution for the problem of Canada's aging work force.
"Invest in human capital and you're going to have huge returns on investment in the future," he said.
"And the provinces have a big role to play."
Indigenous nations also need to have their own chapter in the North American free-trade agreement, the National Chief said.
And, he said, he will be telling the premiers that they should be asking private-sector companies to provide a plan for Indigenous engagement before they issue any licence or permit for resource development.
Natan Obed, the president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, said it is often difficult at meetings like this to turn the discussions to the serious issues of Inuit health and socioeconomic conditions.
"This government talks about growing the middle class but, for Inuit, there are still many systemic barriers to entering the middle class, so we have to talk about social equity, especially related to infrastructure, connectivity, health, housing and education," Mr. Obed said.