Perry Bellegarde: ‘If we win, Canada will win’ – Macleans

September 16, 2015

Perry Bellegarde on why he’s voting and Ottawa’s oddly adversarial relationship with Indigenous people

Perry Bellegarde was elected Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations last December. Bellegarde is from the Little Black Bear First Nation, in Treaty 4 territory, in southeastern Saskatchewan. He spoke to Maclean’s from Winnipeg, where he was attending the annual Indigenous Music Awards.

Q: It seems there has been no attention paid to Indigenous issues in this election. Is that your perception?

A: I have noticed that for sure. Part of our job is to ensure our priorities get front and centre attention. According to the UN Human Development Index, Canada ranks six in the world. If you applied the same indices to First Nations, we would rank 63 in the world.

Read More: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/perry-bellegarde-if-we-win-canada-will-win/