First Nation community invites Stephen Harper to live among them for one week

It has all the makings of a first-rate reality television show.

A B.C. First Nation community has penned a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking him to spend one week living among them on their reserve.

The letter by the Cheam Indian Band, obtained by Yahoo Canada News, claims that the visit would strengthen the relationship between the Government of Canada and it’s indigenous populations.

"This would provide an opportunity to get to know our community, develop an understanding of how we govern, learn about our cultural life and see the steps that Cheam is taking in health, land, economic development and other important matters," notes the letter dated October 9, 2014.

"This could be an historic and memorable event to add to the positive steps already taken by your office. We see this as an opportunity to reconcile relations between the Canadian government, the people of Canada and the indigenous nations of Canada."

The invite was inspired by Australian prime minister Tony Abbott’s vow to spend one week a year governing from a remote indigenous township in his country.

“For an entire week, Aboriginal people will have my full focus and attention as prime minister,” Abbott said, during his most recent trip last month, according to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

The Aussie prime minister claims that his stints in these communities will enable him to ”gain a better understanding of the needs of people living and working in those areas”.

[ Related: Can the new First Nations initiative create positive change? ]

In Canada, like in Australia, indigenous peoples living on reserves lag far behind in most of the social indicators.

The suicide rates in First Nations’ communities, for example, are about five to six times higher than in the general population; less than half of First Nation children graduate from high school compared to 80 per cent in the non-Aboriginal population; and, as of 2008, the Aboriginal incarceration rate was nine times the national average.

Moreover, First Nation relations with the Harper government have strained over the past couple of years. There was the Idle No More movement in 2013, the public outcry over the Harper government’s decision not to hold a national inquiry into missing and murdered women, consternation over the government’s First Nation transparency legislation; a big mess with regard to the government’s First Nation education bill which is now on hold; and an overall sense of growing unrest of the status quo.

[ Related: Little has improved for Canada’s First Nation communities in ten years, UN Rapporteur’s report shows ]

For their part, the government insists that they have taken significant steps to improve the lives of those living on reserves.

"Our investments in jobs training, safe drinking water and infrastructure in addition to legislation that ensures the same basic matrimonial rights for women, are contributing to stronger, more self-sufficient and prosperous First Nation communities," a spokesperson for Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt recently told Yahoo Canada News.

Ernie Crey, a member of the Cheam Indian Band, says the invitation to to Prime Minister Harper is not about shaming him, but an opportunity to build on his government’s successes.

"He’ll be treated respectfully and cordially, and if he spends a week here, he’ll come to a deeper appreciation of how we can work together," Crey told Yahoo Canada.

"They may not appreciate the significance of it immediately. It may require [public pressure]."

"We’re drifting towards an election and if [the prime minister is] not prepared to come maybe the other party leaders are. They don’t have an invitation yet, but if [Harper] says ‘no’, they’ll get one."

The Cheam Indian Band has not yet heard back from the PMO.

(Photo courtesy of Reuters)

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