Aboriginal leaders not included in health-care conference

MIRIAM HILL

Jose Kusugak, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, says Aboriginal leaders should meet independently with premiers, since they weren’t able to meet with them as a group during the first ministers’ meeting on health care this week.

ITK, the Assembly of First Nations and the Métis National Council were not included in the meeting, held Tuesday and Wednesday in Ottawa, despite months of lobbying the Prime Minister for an invitation.

Kusugak said he “has no idea” what happened. The leaders sent out letters outlining the reasons they felt they should be at the conference. They received positive responses from many of the premiers, but nothing from the office of the prime minister.

Since the federal government has the sole responsibility for Aboriginal health care, and since there are such serious issues affecting Aboriginal people, from suicide, to substance abuse, to cancer, it only makes sense for their leaders to be present at a meeting where health-care reform will be discussed, Kusugak said.

“The prime minister talks about closing the gap, and partnerships,” Kusugak said. “This would certainly be one of them, when there’s such an imbalance of Arctic versus southern health care right now.”

He said if the prime minister and premiers have their way, eventually Aboriginal people will become patients of the provinces and territories. This is not necessarily a bad thing, he admitted, but the people being discussed should be at the table to have their say.

“There is nothing wrong with decentralizing those kinds of things, or getting provinces to run those kinds of things, but I think we need to be there right at the beginning,” he said.

Kusugak said the Aboriginal leaders were asking for a couple of hours to present their thoughts on health-care reform as it relates to their people, not to grandstand or dwell on issues from the past.

However, he said he doesn’t see the snub as a failure because the Aboriginal organizations were able to communicate many of their concerns to the country over the past few weeks.

“If anybody failed it’s the prime minister,” he said.

The Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.