Manitoba premier's reconciliation ride includes PC fundraiser but no meetings with Indigenous people

Some members of the Peguis First Nation are wondering why Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister doesn't seem to have met with any Indigenous people on his reconciliation bike ride to the community.

On June 16, Pallister headed out from East Selkirk — the original location of Peguis First Nation — on a bike ride to its present-day location in honour of the 200th anniversary of the Selkirk Treaty.

"I don't know of anybody [who] even saw him around the community, to tell you the truth," said Percy Fiddler, who lives in Peguis.

Fiddler said he went out driving with friends on different roads and highways on the weekend trying to spot the premier on his bike.

"I couldn't track him down. I went all the way up to Selkirk," he said. "I was wanting to talk to him about the poor condition of the provincial road that runs through this community here. The road is in very poor shape. It hasn't been worked on in years and years."

The premier's press secretary, Olivia Billson, said he completed the 160-kilometre journey in two days, riding about 100 kilometres on Friday and the remainder on Saturday. The day before he left, Pallister said he would be resting when he got to the community and did not have any plans to celebrate his ride with the people of Peguis.

"The ride itself was really a personal journey for myself and a good friend of mine to really solidify — granted, in a symbolic way — our support for reconciliation and our personal commitment to it," Pallister said.

However, the premier made time to meet with members of his party at two separate events in the Interlake.

He spoke at a fundraiser on Friday in Arborg, hosted by Interlake MLA Derek Johnson, and he attended a free community reception in Gimli on Saturday, which was hosted by the area's MLA, Jeff Wharton, Billson said.

"Once details of the premier's bike tour were finalized, local MLAs took the initiative to plan events that would coincide with the premier passing through their constituencies," she said in an email.

When Pallister kicked off his ride, he said he had already met with Peguis Chief Glenn Hudson and gave him a book of letters from Manitobans, offering thanks to Chief Peguis for helping the Selkirk settlers.

"There were very few meetings during the process of the ride because, by the nature of it, we were going on isolated country, isolated trails, so off the main roads," Pallister said Thursday.

Ride 'ill-informed', says professor

Peguis member and University of Manitoba professor Niigaan Sinclair said he isn't surprised the premier didn't meet with anyone in the community.

"I don't think anyone from Peguis wanted to meet with him, so there would be nobody to meet with," said Sinclair, acting head of the Native Studies department at the U of M. "He never should have done the bike ride in the first place."

Sinclair said while he appreciates the sentiment of the ride, he called it ill-informed.

"He literally rode a bike ride retracing the steps of our removal," he said. "While he was trying to remind us of the value of a treaty, he simply actually reminded us of the history of violence."

In 1907, the people of Peguis were forced off their original land near Selkirk and relocated to what is now Peguis First Nation. For that, the community received a land-claims settlement worth $126 million.

"For those of us who stayed behind in Selkirk and those of us who had our families ripped apart from us and forced to move up in to the Interlake, that pain is very real," said Sinclair.

"It`s 2017, and you'd think that we would listen twice as much as we'd speak when it comes to Indigenous issues in this country, but yet this premier just acted without thinking, acted without speaking, acted without listening to anybody, and that's the most disappointing part of it all."

Still, Sinclair said he is encouraged that the premier did take time out of his schedule to honour the Selkirk Treaty. He recommends consulting the community next time he wants to make a symbolic gesture.

"I think if the premier wants to do something, he should probably talk to the people who are most versed and most equipped to deal with the situation because he's clearly not able to do that on his own."