When First Nations leaders, Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premiers meet in Ottawa on Monday, it will be the first gathering of its kind since the Kelowna Accord talks of 2005. That date matters, because Kelowna was the last time premiers and a prime minister sat with Indigenous leaders with the explicit goal of closing the socioeconomic gaps in their communities, and the gaps are still there.
In 2005, then prime minister Paul Martin met with premiers and Indigenous leaders to discuss ways to close gaps in health, housing, education and economic opportunity. The accord that followed became a reference point for every subsequent discussion of the relationship, and also a reminder of how slowly reference points become results.
Twenty one years later
Monday’s meeting will be represented on the First Nations side largely by regional chiefs from the Assembly of First Nations. The Privy Council Office has not said which premiers will attend, although Quebec Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have both said they will be absent. Sunday’s ceremony in Ottawa, with knowledge keepers, elders, First Nations leaders and community members, precedes the closed door talks.
National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said it was important to start the meeting with ceremony, to ensure all participants enter with the right frame of mind, grounded in First Nations spirituality. The ceremony is not decoration. It is a recognition that the relationship being discussed is older than any government at the table, and that it cannot be reset by a single meeting.
What Kelowna teaches
As The Canadian Press reported, Monday’s meeting is the first such gathering since Kelowna, and its significance lies in that gap: 21 years without a table of this form, during which the gaps Kelowna named have persisted through many governments and many promises.
The lesson of Kelowna is not that meetings fail. It is that meetings without dates, funding and accountability fade into history as reference points rather than turning points. Monday’s test is whether this gathering, 21 years later, produces commitments that can be measured, or whether it too becomes a date future reports cite as the last time everyone sat down together. The ceremony on Sunday opens the door. Monday must decide what walks through it.
