FEDERAL URBAN ABORIGINAL POLICY

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FEDERAL URBAN ABORIGINAL POLICY

• The Challenge of Viewing the Stars in the Urban
  Night Sky
• Frances Abele and Katherine A.H. Graham
• Carleton University

2
RCAP 1996

• Woeful neglect of urban Aboriginal issues by
  Canadian governments and Aboriginal authorities
• Two questions
• What were the causes of past deficiencies?
• What are the conditions necessary to have good
  urban Aboriginal policy?

3
Our Focus

• The dynamics of policy engagement
• What would be the best alignment of social
  forces, conditions in municipalities, and federal
  priorities and institutions that would result in
  good urban Aboriginal policy?
• Challenge of viewing alignment of the stars in
  the busy, hazy urban night sky

4
Four periods

• Activist engagement 1965-1977
• High politics 1978-1986
• Deteriorating relations 1987-1992
• Consolidation and construction 1993-

5
contemporary signs of progress

• Government retrenchments in the mid-1990s
• New federal funding model supporting numerous
  small Aboriginal controlled service organizations
• Partnership paradigm emerges in some
  municipalities
• Municipalities dealing with challenges of
  increasing population diversity, as well as
  increasing Aboriginal populations
• Increasing urban focus by all NPOs

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Contemporary signs of progress - 2

• RCAP reports 1996
• Gathering Strength 1998
• Urban Aboriginal Strategy 1998
• Partnership paradigm
• Place-based policy making
• Sustained through successive governments
• Enhanced capacity among urban Aboriginal
  organizations
• Some evidence of better relations between cities
  and their Aboriginal inhabitants

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conclusion

• Stars better aligned than previously
• Challenges of collaboration within the federal
  government remain
• Further progress requires federal engagement with
  the Aboriginal policy delivery sector and with
  Canadian cities