National Indigenous leaders to meet premiers amid deteriorating relationship

Indigenous leaders will attend a meeting with Canada's premiers on Monday, with health care on the agenda — but also a deteriorating relationship.

This is the first time Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan Obed will meet provincial and territorial premiers since the June 2016 Council of the Federation meeting in the Yukon. This summer's meeting is being held in Halifax.

Since then, all of the provinces and territories have elected new leadership, and Obed said he's returning to deliver a message.

«I would like to put out an offer, and I'll be explicit in that we just respect each other and our jurisdictions,» he said.

National Indigenous leaders have been at odds with the premiers over implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and a federal law affirming Indigenous jurisdiction over child and family services.

«I would say in the last year the relationship with provinces and territories has regressed,» Obed said.

The other challenge, he said, is that the council doesn't seem to respect the national institutions that represent the interests of First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities: the Assembly of First Nations, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Métis National Council.

The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the Native Women's Association of Canada have been invited to Monday's meeting. Obed said these organizations should not be at the table discussing jurisdictional and governance issues that impact Inuit.

«We don't want to be at a table where there's a purposeful ignorance of the respectful relationship between premiers and leaders of Indigenous Peoples,» he said.

The council's chair, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston, selected health care as the topic of discussion for the