Chief wants meeting within 72 hours

OTTAWA — The hunger-striking chief of northern Ontario’s poverty-racked Attawapiskat First Nation can’t wait three more weeks for the prime minister to meet with aboriginal leaders, a spokesman said Thursday.

Theresa Spence, who’s been subsisting on liquids since Dec. 11 to prod Stephen Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston into talks with aboriginal leaders, is weak with hunger and needs the meeting to take place within the next 72 hours, said spokesman Danny Metatawabin.

Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, has urged Harper and Gov. Gen. David Johnston to meet chiefs on Jan. 24 — the one-year anniversary of Harper’s summit with First Nations.

“First Nations across this country have been voicing concern and frustration with a broken system that does not address long-standing disparities between First Nations and the rest of Canada,” Atleo said in a news release.

“There is no excuse for inaction either by First Nations leadership or by Canada.”

But Spence’s failing health won’t allow her to wait that long, Metatawabin said.

Spence met Thursday with regional chiefs to establish a united front and clarify their demands in order to better expedite a meeting and call a halt to the hunger strike, which has been attracting support across Canada.

Alvin Fiddler, deputy grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, a regional advocacy network, said First Nations leaders need to clarify their concerns in order to resolve their dispute with Ottawa.

Liberal aboriginal affairs critic Carolyn Bennett, who also sat down today with Spence, described her as weak but in good spirits.

Spence has been demanding discussions with Harper and Johnston about revisiting the treaty rights of First Nations, although the scope of her demands has left government officials puzzled.

Harper has not agreed to meet Spence, but Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan has tried repeatedly to speak with her, to no avail. In recent letters to Spence and a letter to Atleo in November, Duncan has proposed a First Nations-federal government working group on treaty implementation and a separate discussion on comprehensive claim negotiations.

“Our government remains committed to creating the conditions for healthier, more self-sufficient First Nation communities,” Duncan’s spokesman said in an email statement Thursday.

“We continue to believe that the best way to make progress on our shared priorities — education, housing, clean drinking water and economic opportunity — is by working together.”

But since the exchange of letters and promise for treaty talks in November, tension has escalated. Grassroots protests under the Idle No More banner have broken out across the country and there have been several blockades of transportation corridors.