One of British Columbia’s most influential First Nations chiefs has turned down an invitation to participate in a reconciliation ceremony with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during their visit to Canada, describing the symbolic ceremony as a “public charade” that papers over the Canadian government’s failure to keep its promises to indigenous peoples.



The Black Rod ceremony is slated to take place on Monday evening, in a private sitting room at the stately Government House in Victoria. Officials have spent more than a year carefully crafting every moment of the ceremony, which will see Prince William add a carved silver ring to the Black Rod, a ceremonial staff created in 2012 to commemorate the Queen’s diamond jubilee.

The staff is currently adorned with three rings, representing the province, Canada and the link to the UK. Prince William is expected to add a fourth ring – engraved with eagle feathers and a canoe – that will symbolise First Nations in the province.

“Reconciliation has to be more than empty symbolic gestures,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs in explaining his decision to decline the royal invitation.

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He had been asked to hand the ring to Prince William and invite the royal to affix the ring on the Black Rod. Last week he and the chiefs of the 115 First Nations represented by his organisation decided it would not be appropriate to attend or participate in the event. “The Chiefs-in-Assembly just didn’t feel that it was appropriate to feed into that public illusion that everything is okay.”

When the Liberals, led by Justin Trudeau, swept into government nearly a year ago, there was a sense of great hope within the indigenous community, Phillip said. Amid crushing levels of indigenous poverty, sky-high suicide rates and thousands of missing and murdered indigenous women, Trudeau had campaigned on a renewed relationship with Canada’s indigenous peoples. He vowed to repeal legislation that failed to respect aboriginal and treaty rights, committed to closing the wide gap in education funding for indigenous Canadians and pledged to address the lack of clean water and dilapidated, overcrowded housing that plagues many First Nations across Canada, among other promises.

“Yet that hasn’t happened,” said Phillip. Instead, the Liberal government has repeatedly ignored a ruling by the Canadian human rights tribunal that found the government was racially discriminating against aboriginal youth by underfunding the welfare system. Its first budget – billed by the government as making “historic investments” in indigenous communities – will not deliver the bulk of the funding until after 2019. “We’re sick and tired of the lofty, eloquent rhetoric on the part of Prime Minister Trudeau,” said Phillip.

A similar situation has played out at the provincial level. “The British Columbia government has proven to be absolutely adversarial to the rights and interests of First Nation people in the province,” said Phillip, pointing to the province’s efforts to fast-track the Site C hydroelectric dam, a C$9bn (US $7bn) project that will see an area roughly equivalent to about 5,000 rugby fields flooded in north-east British Columbia. A campaign launched globally by Amnesty International last month calls on the federal and British Columbian governments to withdraw all permits and approvals for Site C, over concerns that the mega-project tramples on the rights of indigenous peoples in northeast British Columbia.

Philip said the hypocrisy of taking part in a reconciliation ceremony was laid bare last week as the organisation’s chiefs gathered for their annual general meeting. “There were tears and gut-wrenching first-hand accounts of the tragedies in our communities. At same time we’re asked to participate in a reconciliation ceremony that for all intents and purposes would suggest there is a very harmonious and robust relationship between the First Nation people and provincial and federal governments,” he said. “And that’s an illusion. We decided that for us it wasn’t appropriate to participate in such a public charade.”

He wasn’t sure if other aboriginal leaders would participate in the event and stressed that the decision was not meant to disrespect anyone. “I apologise for any inconvenience we may have caused with our decision.”

The duke and duchess, along with Prince George and Princess Charlotte, arrived in Canada on Saturday. The family will travel British Columbia and the Yukon in a visit dotted with stops at First Nations communities and traditional ceremonies. The visit, said Kensington Palace, “will help celebrate Canada’s First Nations community, its art and culture”.