Tyrone Souliere: The day that Canada has greatly feared is coming

Tyrone Souliere, an architect of the Rally the First Nation Vote movement, wants the public to understand that when voters elect a party that represents First Nation interests, they’re voting in favour of the environment and economic growth.

The Garden River First Nation resident told SooToday that although Canada has an extremely high standard of living in terms of social services, health care and education, First Nation citizens are at the bottoms of these indicators.

“Through our treaties and our agreement to share our natural resources, First Nations subsidized this high standard of living for the rest of Canada because the government has never shared those resources with us according to our treaties,” Souliere said.

“If we were to get the smallest percentage of the royalties due us, we would not have issues on reserves,” he continued. “The root of those reserve issues is poverty. Our treaty rights would lift us out of poverty, and the rest of Canada would benefit because we would be investing in the local economies.”

Through Rally the First Nation Vote, Souliere hopes to educate indigenous citizens and leaders of electoral practices while organizing the population to vote for the party that best represents the First Nation community by honouring treaty rights.

The Robinson-Huron Treaty territory covers an area from Lake Superior east to the Ottawa River and north to Timmins.

Within that territory, approximately 30,000 eligible indigenous voters reside in 21 communities, only a small percentage of which actually vote on election day.

Souliere attributes this low voter turnout to a sense of helplessness as the First Nation community feels under represented and ignored by the Canadian government.

“It’s part of the legacy of colonialism,” he told us. “The plan was total and complete assimilation. So now we see people who are apathetic because they’re beaten down and don’t see the point in voting. The government has waged a war of attrition on First Nations for 500 years and it takes a toll.”

But 50 years ago the government made a mistake when it gave indigenous citizens the vote, Souliere said.

“That was a tactical error on their part, so we’re taking advantage of that error. We’re going to vote in people who are sensitive to our needs, people who are on our side, and we’re discovering that they are there. We have allies.”

“The day that Canada has greatly feared is coming upon them,” he said. “And that day is when First Nations actually get organized. This has never been done before. We’ve never voted as a bloc.”

Through information sessions with representatives from Elections Canada, Rally the First Nation Vote has been helping eligible First Nation residents register to vote.

While the grassroots initiative began locally, there are now has sister chapters in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

And the movement has gained the attention of a number of candidates.

In mid-June, Souliere was invited to meet with NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair in Ottawa, where he received a number of MP commitments to ‘speak to the vote’ during regional voter registration events.

Last week, he and his daughter Shaan traveled to Montreal for the Assembly of First Nations Annual General Assembly.

While there, he was given opportunities to address the entire Assembly of Chiefs, to strategize with Anishinabek Nation Grand Chief Patrick Madahbee, and was invited to a meeting with Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and a small group of grand chiefs.

“I told the chiefs that this is a leadership issue,” Souliere said.”Each chief and council has a duty to make sure that if there’s anyone on their reserve that wants to vote, that they are registered and they have every access to the polls to make sure they can vote.”

On August 24, Souliere will head to London, Ontario to work with the Council of Canadians, a social action organization, and host a Rally the First Nation.

Invited delegates include MP Niki Ashton and Grand Chief Patrick Madahbee.

A large portion of new Rally the First Nation supporters are non-native, Souliere said, who understand the value in the First Nation bloc of votes.

“We make traction in terms of having Canadians understand our position because Canadians have been fed the propaganda for ever. And there’s been very little in way of explanation in terms of the Anishinabek narrative,” he said. “So I take that opportunity every time someone asks me to speak. I go right into the truth about our relationship as opposed to the propaganda. And when that happens, we always wind up with people coming on our side.”

To follow the progress of the Rally the First Nation initiative, and to learn about upcoming voter registration events, join the movement’s Facebook group.