Viens Commission waking up Quebecers to plight of Indigenous peoples, says Huron-Wendat grand chief

The work of Quebec's Viens Commission, which is travelling around the province to hear Indigenous peoples' testimony about their mistreatment by police and other public servants, is of "utmost importance," says Grand Chief Konrad Sioui, who headsthe Huron-Wendat community of Wendake.

Sitting next to Justice Jacques Viens at the start of nine days of hearings in Quebec City Tuesday, Sioui saidthe hearings give First Nations people a chance "to speak and explain themselves."

Sioui enumerated some of the challenges First Nations face, such as getting more of their people into post-secondary education, resolving the membership issues ofwomen "thrown out because they married outsiders," and tackling "the highest suicide rate in the world."

"We can no longer pay that price," he said.

Sioui spoke of a young First Nations girl who can't look at herself in the mirror "because she isn't white."

"We want her to look in the mirror and say, 'I am beautiful,'" Sioui said.

Not a love story

Laterin an interview with CBC News,Sioui said the Viens Commissionis forcing Quebecers to stripaway the image theyhave of themselves as more accepting of Indigenous peoplethan other Canadians.

"You know:we were intermarried. We were not like those bad English people."

"It's been a love story," he said. "But ... it was really, really not true at all. It was quite the opposite, and it's never been a love story."

Sioui said he compliments Premier Philippe Couillard for creating the Viens Commissionafter repeated allegations of abuse of Indigenouswomen by police officers in Val-d'Or, which failed to lead to the laying of anycharges.

The travelling commission has allowedQuebec society at large "to discover that these problems occur in their own backyard and see that there is racism.There is discrimination. There is rejection."

Sioui said the poor health and living conditions of First Nations people in Quebec come asa surprise to some people.

Others do not believe the problems exist.

"They still put the blame on First Nations," he said.

Nation-building should come first, Sioui says

Sioui was involved in a historic effort more than 20 years ago by the federal government to address the issues confronting Canada and its relationship to Indigenous peoples, the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, co-chaired by Georges Erasmus and Ren Dussault.

"All the answers are there," Sioui said, noting Erasmus-Dussault's 4,000-page report, which set out a 20-year agenda for change, made over 400 recommendations.

The first recommendation was nation-building, he recalled.

However, the Chrtien government chose instead to focus on thehealing process, which still goes on, he said.

"We could not claim our self-determinationwhile at the same time we are sitting in a wheelchair," Sioui said.

Viensacknowledges ancestral territory

In his response to Sioui's remarks, Viensnoted that while his mandate was triggered by the allegations made in Val-d'Or, the problems have existed "longer than that."

"We are here in Quebec City, in Huron-Wendat territory," Vienssaid.

Sioui was pleased with the acknowledgement that Quebec City lies in ancestral Huron-Wendat territory and said that recognitionby Canadian authorities is a recentdevelopment.

The first to make that gesture wasformer Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne, when she met Premier Philippe Couillardat the Quebec National Assembly last year, he said.

"First of all, let me thank the Grand Chief Konrad Sioui and the whole Huron-WendatNation for welcoming us on their traditional land," Sioui recalled Wynne saying.

"We almost fell off our chair," hesaid.

Afterwards, when he spoke to the premier about Wynne's remarks, Couillard responded, "Oh, Konrad, you know, I would have said that anyway."

Ever since Wynne'sgesture, Sioui said, wherever they go in the province,Couillard and his ministers acknowledge the First Nation that claims the territory they are visiting.

"We feel proud of that," Sioui said.