Twenty years ago, a Manitoba MLA named Elijah Harper altered the course of Canadian democracy.

Grasping his now iconic eagle feather, Harper steadfastly delayed a legislative vote on the Meech Lake Accord, a package of federal reforms meant to integrate Quebec into the “constitutional family.”

“Harper deliberately delayed the vote because Canadian politicians had ignored aboriginal peoples for far too long,” said Kiera Ladner, an expert in constitutional politics and a professor at the University of Manitoba.

The Prairie Political Science Association (PPSA), in conjunction with the U of M, organized their third annual PPSA conference around the theme: “20 Years After Meech Lake: The Accord and Its Legacy.”

The conference, which was held at the Fort Garry Hotel Oct. 1 and 2, brought together a cross-section of academics and politicians directly involved in the high-stakes constitutional debate.

“Meech Lake was a shift for the aboriginal community across Canada,” said Jared Wesley, a politics professor at the U of M who organized the conference.

“(When Harper delayed the Meech Lake vote) there was the sense that aboriginals ... could break into the white stream political system.”

Shaneen Robinson is a former CTV reporter and the daughter of NDP MLA Eric Robinson. She is now running for city council in the Elmwood-East Kildonan ward.

If elected, she will be the first aboriginal woman to sit on Winnipeg’s city council.

“ Meech Lake put aboriginal issues on the map.

Kiera Ladner, politics professor, University of Manitoba

“(Harper’s decision) broke down barriers,” she said, adding that she was profoundly politically influenced by Harper. “1990 was a time of revolution for First Nations across Canada.”

In northwestern British Columbia in 1990, the Gitxsan First Nations erected blockades on several roads leading to their 33,000 square kilometre property. The blockades were meant to keep loggers off their land.

The Gitxsan continue to fight against the disparity between abundant foreign resource development on their land and unemployment on their reserves, which sits at 60 to 90 per cent.

In Oka, Quebec (known to aboriginals as Kanesatake) in 1990, the Mohawks set up a barricade against developers who wanted their ancestral land for the construction of a golf course.

The conflict precipitated a stand-off between the Mohawks and the Quebec provincial police, resulting in the death of a police officer.

Over the course of the conference, academics and others reflected that Harper’s actions simultaneously brought these aboriginal concerns into the mainstream political arena and changed how politics is done in Canada.

“Meech Lake put aboriginal issues on the map,” said Ladner, adding that the federal and provincial governments are now forced to consult aboriginal people on resource development.

“Constitutions don’t evolve just through negotiations, but through incremental change.”

Ladner added that since 1990 politics is no longer centered around high-stakes, executive negotiations. The focus has shifted to consultative and incremental legislative change.

Published in Volume 65, Number 7 of The Uniter (October 14, 2010)