Paul Martin had just rattled off an impassioned, combative speech before the Assembly of First Nations in July, and the audience members quickly rose to their feet.

The former prime minister hammered the Conservative government’s funding caps on aboriginal education, calling the trend “contrary to every value Canada stands for.” Martin’s fiery keynote speech closed the AFN’s annual general assembly — a three-day meeting that centred on a campaign to get indigenous people voting in this year’s federal election.

It struck a chord with many of the national chiefs, who showered him with applause as he walked off the stage at Montreal’s Place Bonaventure.

But there was at least one holdout in the crowd who refused to stand and cheer Martin: Joe Norton.

It didn’t matter that Norton, the long-serving Kahnawake Mohawk chief, was an old friend of Martin, or that he agreed with the substance of his speech. Nor did it matter that the two leaders would embrace moments later, playfully slapping each other’s arms in the middle of a packed ballroom.

Joe Norton will not stand at attention for the former prime minister of Canada.

“(Martin) is a longtime friend of mine, we go way back and I have a lot of respect for him and what he’s trying to do for First Nations,” Norton told the Montreal Gazette. “But he’s someone who represents something I cannot, in good conscience, participate in.”