Blacksmith running for grand chief of Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs

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This article was published 11/07/2017 (3034 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Running a campaign centred on abolishing the Indian Act, Dakota Plains Wahpeton Oyate member Craig Blacksmith is running for grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.

Blacksmith is the only Westman-area candidate seeking the position in next week’s election, with the other four candidates members of northern Manitoban First Nations.

Also referred to as Dakota Plains First Nation, Blacksmith’s home community is located southwest of Portage la Prairie.

He called Sioux Valley Dakota Nation home until approximately 10 years ago, when he relocated to Dakota Plains for employment.

In Westman, Blacksmith is perhaps best known for his role in supporting the establishment of illegal smoke shops.

In 2013, he acted as spokesperson to his brother, who was one of four men convicted after trial in relation to the running of a smoke shop near Pipestone that sold unmarked cigarettes.

Last year, he was one of two people handed fines and penalties totalling more than $2 million for charges related to their running an illegal smoke shop at Dakota Plains.

As a non-treaty Dakota person, Blacksmith said that in addition to driving economic development for First Nations communities, the smoke shops served as a litmus test for Indigenous freedom, which he said the government failed.

Whether it’s high levels of unemployment, poor housing conditions, missing and murdered Indigenous women, or health care and education discrepancies, he said that all of the key challenges First Nations leaders face come down to the Indian Act.

“If we just look at the symptoms, then we’re not correcting the disease,” Blacksmith said, later describing the Indian Act as “the root cause of all the maladies that our people suffer from.”

With land held by the government in trust and revenue related to natural resources bled from First Nations communities, he said that the government “is reaping the benefits of the trust.” Land and resources that Indigenous people should be benefiting from, all while many still live in “Third World conditions.”

Blacksmith is far from alone in his belief that the Indian Act needs to be done away with.

Fellow grand chief candidate David Kobliski, of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, said that he supports the idea as long as there’s something ready to replace the Indian Act.

“Why abolish it if you don’t know what you’re going to replace it with?” he asked.

“If elected then I would work with the chiefs to work out a plan B,” he said, adding that his goal would be to make the effort as grassroots as possible in order to feel out what people would like to see replace the Indian Act.

Candidate Sharon Mason, of Wasagamack First Nation, said that while she believes the Indian Act is “archaic” and needs to go, a replacement needs to be put into place before its abolishment is seriously considered, otherwise they might create a “legal vacuum.”

“It’s all got to go eventually, and it’s just not empowering and it doesn’t respect our goals,” she said. “It’s like we’re children under care, which we shouldn’t be because we’re not.”

While both opponents were agreeable to abolishing the Indian Act with a replacement in place beforehand, it’s not at the top of the list of either candidate’s priorities.

Kobliski’s central platform point is economic development, while Mason’s is “unity and listening.”

Meanwhile, Blacksmith’s campaign is about abolishing the Indian Act first and developing a replacement afterward.

Sharing the same household parallel as Mason did, he said that a child doesn’t try to change the laws of a household where he lives under the rule of their parents.

“We need the Indian Act abolished first before there can be any negotiations,” he said. “We can’t talk about a replacement until we talk about the abolishment of the act itself.”

In order to become an official grand chief candidate, one must first receive the signatures of seven chiefs.

Among those to support Blacksmith’s bid was his home community’s chief, Orville Smoke, who offered support for the candidate’s focus on abolishing the Indian Act.

“To date, it hasn’t done anything other than restrict us within certain areas, including reserves and so on,” he said, adding that it has established First Nations people as “subhuman in some cases and not capable of handling our own affairs,” which is “terribly wrong.”

Indigenous people can fend for themselves, he said. “We did it once, already, for thousands of years and we can continue to do that by equalizing the opportunities that are available.”

Arlen Dumas of Mathias Colomb Cree Nation and Garry McLean of Lake Manitoba Treaty 2 First Nation are also running for grand chief, but were not available for comment by press time on Monday.

The election is being held on July 19, in the midst of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs’ Annual Grand Assembly at Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, located west of Thompson.

Current Grand Chief Derek Nepinak announced last year that he would not seek re-election, writing in a Facebook post at the time that he would not “accept any more titles within the colonized system.”

Nepinak has spoken out against the Indian Act on numerous occasions and has been working toward its abolishment.

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