aboriginal affairs
Learning from the
Kelowna Accord
Christopher Alcantara and Zac Spicer
The Kelowna Accord may have been consigned
to history’s dustbin, but the process that led to its
creation still has much to teach policy-makers about
the best way forward.
Si l’Accord de Kelowna a été relégué aux oubliettes, le
processus qui lui a donné naissance est riche en leçons
pour les décideurs en quête de la meilleure voie à
suivre.
I
f you open a newspaper or listen to the radio, it is easy
to get discouraged about the relationship between in-
digenous communities and the government of Canada.
Aboriginal Canadians lag far behind the Canadian average
on almost every socio-economic indicator, including hous-
ing, education, unemployment, child poverty, and health
and well-being. Many blame the federal, provincial and ter-
ritorial governments for not doing enough to address these
issues, and they criticize these governments for failing to
establish good working relationships with indigenous com-
munities. These are not new criticisms; almost all federal,
provincial and territorial governments in the past have been
criticized for their inability to partner with indigenous com-
munities to create mutually beneficial public policies.
What is the solution? This year marks the 10-year an-
niversary of the ill-fated Kelowna Accord, a comprehensive,
multiyear and multilevel initiative that was designed to
forge a new, workable relationship and lasting change for
Canada’s indigenous populations. Shortly after its signing,
Christopher Alcantara is associate professor of political science
at Wilfrid Laurier University and author of Negotiating the
Deal: Comprehensive Land Claims Agreements in Canada
(University of Toronto Press, 2013), which recently won the
2014 International Council for Canadian Studies Pierre Savard
Award and the 2014 Confédération des Syndicats Prize for the
best book in Canadian studies. Zac Spicer is a Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council postdoctoral fellow in the
Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University.
however, the accord was all but abandoned by the incoming
Conservative government. Since then, we have seen social
and economic conditions in many indigenous communities
worsen and the relationship between Aboriginal Canadians
and the Crown further deteriorate. Although the Kelowna
Accord was abandoned 10 years ago, we argue that the pro-
cess used by former prime minister Paul Martin to negoti-
ate the accord may be the only way forward for improving
the relationship between indigenous communities and the
Crown.
The Kelowna Accord was a $5.1-billion, five-year
agreement designed to bridge the life gap between Ab-
original Canadians and the rest of the population. The
accord and the process used to negotiate it were meant to
be broad and inclusive, and were unprecedented in scope
and scale. Those involved with the accord maintained
an open, honest dialogue that was driven by Aboriginal
representatives rather than the federal, provincial or ter-
ritorial governments. As such, it was a unique departure
from the traditional relationship between the Crown and
indigenous communities.
The Kelowna process began slowly, with informal dis-
cussions between Prime Minister Paul Martin and Aborig-
inal leaders such as Phil Fontaine. The first formal meeting
was held on April 19, 2004, and included nearly 150 partici-
pants, including the Prime Minister, the entire federal cab-
inet, provincial officials and representatives from Canada’s
national Aboriginal groups: the Assembly of First Nations,
the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the Métis National Council, the
Native Women’s Associations of Canada and the Congress
of Aboriginal Peoples. This first meeting was intended to
POLICY OPTIONS 95
JULY-AUGUST 2015
 Christopher Alcantara and Zac Spicer
The Kelowna experience offers a
number of important and useful
lessons for policy-makers interested
in achieving real change.
i­dentify the major issues plaguing Ab-
original communities — health care,
housing and education — and provide
a road map for discussion in the next
stage of the accord negotiations: sectoral
round tables based on the priority areas
identified by Aboriginal participants.
These areas included health, lifelong
learning, housing, economic opportun-
ities, negotiations and accountability.
The next phase involved a bilat-
eral policy retreat that was intended
to fine-tune the policy areas discussed
during the sectoral round tables and
fully develop the areas of interest for
the accord. The final phase of the pro-
cess was the First Ministers’ Meeting on
Aboriginal Issues in November 2005.
The resulting agreement, entitled First
Ministers and National Aboriginal Lead-
ers: Strengthening Relationships and Clos-
ing the Gaps, aimed to launch a 10-year
effort to close the gap in the quality
of life between Aboriginal people and
other Canadians.
Despite the fact that the accord
was widely hailed as a success, the
incoming Conservative government
showed ambivalence about the agree-
ment, eventually abandoning it in its
first budget. The Conservatives argued
that the accord “did not exist” and
was merely “written on the back of a
napkin.” Despite Martin’s best efforts
to revive the accord through a private
member’s bill, it was effectively dead,
which helped to contribute to the frac-
tured indigenous-Crown relationship
that exists today.
96 OPTIONS POLITIQUES
JUILLET-AOÛT 2015
W hatever one thinks of the wis-
dom of the Conservative deci-
sion to abandon the Kelowna Accord,
the experience offers a number of
important and useful lessons for gov-
ernment policy-makers interested in
achieving real change, not only with-
in indigenous communities but also in
terms of improving the Crown’s rela-
tionship with indigenous peoples.
One lesson is that you cannot ex-
pect to achieve real and fundamental
change at the community level if com-
munity members are mired in poverty.
The Kelowna process recognized this
fact by focusing in the first five years
of the agreement on improving Aborig-
inal housing, water, health, education
and infrastructure. Once conditions had
reached a certain level, government and
indigenous leaders planned to negotiate
a second five-year agreement that would
address broad, structural changes to the
Aboriginal-Crown architecture.
The second and perhaps most im-
portant lesson from the Kelowna Ac-
cord was that it provided a model for
how to successfully engage indigenous
and nonindigenous actors in Aboriginal
policy-making. In contrast to previous
efforts, the Kelowna process was dy-
namic, open and fluid. Rather than fol-
lowing a top-down, government-dom-
inated process, and recognizing that
the situation facing indigenous peoples
was a “wicked” problem, Prime Minis-
ter Martin realized that he needed to
involve all the relevant actors in a way
that played to their strengths. Drawing
upon a set of relationships he had es-
tablished with indigenous leaders when
he was in business and as minister of
finance, for instance, Martin sought
out the involvement of the five major
indigenous organizations, asking them
to take the lead in identifying the pri-
orities that the accord should address.
He also realized that the priorities in
the accord were such that the provin-
cial, territorial and indigenous govern-
ments were best positioned to imple-
ment and spend the money allocated
in the accord. Finally, he recognized
that the proper role of the federal gov-
ernment in this situation, with its sub-
stantial fiscal capacity, was to provide
the money to fulfill the ambitious goals
set by participants. The result was wide-
spread support by indigenous and non-
indigenous leaders across the country.
Of course, support was not univer-
sal; some criticisms emanated from the
official opposition and some from Ab-
original organizations. Nonetheless, by
allowing indigenous groups to set the
priorities and drive the process, the fed-
eral government achieved something
that is rare in Aboriginal policy: a sense
among indigenous leaders that mean-
ingful consultation had occurred. The
policy environment is different now,
with significant grassroots opposition
emerging toward the traditional model
of the Crown negotiating with indigen-
ous leaders. Nonetheless, the Kelowna
model provides the basis for designing
a new policy-making process that is
driven by Aboriginal people and inclu-
sive of a wider range of actors that felt
excluded from the original process.
The final lesson from the accord is
that a pan-Aboriginal approach to ad-
dressing indigenous issues should be
avoided. Participants made it known
very early on in the process that the
breadth and diversity of Aboriginal com-
munities across Canada, coupled with
the geographic isolation of some com-
munities, meant that a one-size-fits-all
approach was not appropriate. While
the issues facing the communities were
relatively similar — rampant poverty,
higher-than-average suicide and high
school dropout rates, and poor health

outcomes — the conditions for the solu-
tions that were needed differed consider-
ably. Each of the five national Aboriginal
groups that participated in the Kelowna
discussions concluded individual agree-
ments with the federal government.
Some groups, for instance, such as the
Métis Nation, were primarily concerned
with increased legitimacy as constitution-
al actors — a recognition they received.
The asymmetrical approach was the one
that found agreement and success.
Ten years ago the federal govern-
ment designed an innovative approach
to restructuring the relationship be-
tween indigenous communities and
the Crown, which resulted in the Ke-
lowna Accord. This approach was sub-
sequently abandoned, resulting in
years of policy stagnation and, in some
communities, social and economic de-
cay. To reverse these trends, we need
not reinvent the wheel. Instead, we
need only look to our past for a work-
aboriginal affairs
CP PHOTO
able, collaborative and multilevel solu-
tion. As the 10-year anniversary of the
accord’s signing passes, let’s remember
not only the accord’s promise but also
the innovative process used to negoti-
ate it. The time has come to recover and
open the black box from the wreckage
of the Kelowna Accord and implement
what may be the only way forward for
improving the relationship between in-
digenous communities and the govern-
ments of Canada. n
POLICY OPTIONS 97
JULY-AUGUST 2015