REGINA – Agriculture promises to play a key role in job creation for treaty Indians in Saskatchewan, says the chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.
Blaine Favel told a Regina business audience he wants to see 30,000 new jobs for status Indians by the year 2000. That increase would double the number of status Indians now working in the province.
Agriculture is one of six areas Favel said could provide new jobs. Farming and agricultural processing are major employers of Indians now, he said, but there is a potential for many more to be employed in the future.
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“With the treaty land entitlements helping first nations acquire more land resources, farming will continue to be one of the mainstays of our economy,” Favel said.
Treaty land entitlements give Indian bands money to buy lands that they were promised in treaties, but either never received or had taken away. Bands are also given financial compensation.
Favel said Indians throughout Saskatchewan are involved in agriculture, from bison raising and wild rice processing in the north to grain growing in the south.
Favel also criticized Yorkton, Sask. MP Garry Breitkreuz for wanting to end treaties.
“What that Reform party Member of Parliament failed to appreciate is that all non-treaty people in this audience are beneficiaries of treaties,” he said. “The business community, the governments are the direct beneficiaries of treaties because your economy, your government is based upon our land ….
“I believe there’s a great deal of injustice and a great deal of breach of faith and breach of trust with that position.”
Favel also defended the drive by some Indian bands to set up casinos, or work with the provincial government to set up gaming houses in Regina and Saskatoon.
