By Sumayya
OTTAWA — First Nations leaders met with Prime Minister Mark Carney and several of the country’s provincial premiers in Ottawa on Monday. The national chief called this face-to-face meeting long overdue.
“The prime minister has said that Canada is built on the foundation of three peoples: First Nations, French, and British. But there is no getting around the fact that First Nations lived in these lands long before any colonial borders were made,” National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said in her opening speech at the meeting on Monday.
“That is why we are here, to build wealth and well-being for our children and the next seven generations. It cannot just be about forcing through large projects as fast as we can.”
Monday’s meeting is the first gathering of its kind since the Kelowna Accord talks in 2005. That old meeting brought provincial premiers and the prime minister at the time, Paul Martin, together with Indigenous leaders to talk about ways to close the social and economic gaps in Indigenous communities.
This new meeting comes at a time when Carney’s government is working to speed up the approval and development of large projects. Some First Nations chiefs say these efforts threaten their legal rights.
Tensions between the Ottawa government and First Nations went up quickly after Carney was elected in 2025. This happened when his government passed a law to create a new office. The job of this office is to make the development of large projects faster and to approve projects within a single year.
First Nations leaders warned that these shortened timelines would interfere with their rights and cause people to fight the choices in court. Provincial governments have also passed similar laws.
However, tempers are flaring for a number of other reasons as well. These include the land claims process in British Columbia, the recently announced Pacific Link pipeline project in Alberta, and the development of the mineral-rich Ring of Fire area in Ontario.
First Nations are being represented in the private, closed-door meeting mostly by regional chiefs from the Assembly of First Nations. A group of modern treaty holders and representatives from Treaties 6, 7, and 8 are also attending the meeting.
Carney said on Monday that it is a serious and thought-provoking fact to realize this is the first meeting to bring federal, provincial, and First Nations leaders together in two decades.
“Our task has two parts. First is to work together to create opportunities for all our peoples, while building a country that is stronger, has more self-governing power, and is more independent,” Carney said.
“And secondly, our task is to live our values fully of a fair and welcoming Canada.”
While some First Nations are against Carney’s development plans and the plans of the provincial premiers, others are open to the idea of increasing business and economic activity in their lands.
Nisga’a Nation President Eva Clayton told reporters before the meeting that she supports Carney’s plans. She said that she and other modern treaty holders are at the meeting to support Canada.
