Ex-national chief who helped create Assembly of First Nations says organization now 'in limbo'

The Assembly of First Nations has lost its way and is now "in limbo," having over its 40-year history slowly come under the influence of the Liberal Party of Canada, says the former national chief who created it.

Del Riley was the last president of the National Indian Brotherhood, serving one consequential term between 1980 and 1982, where he tackled reforms that transformed the brotherhood into today's AFN.

He did it while simultaneously helping entrench Indigenous rights in Canada's Constitution, jousting daily with then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau and his attorney general, a lawyer from Shawinigan, Que., named Jean Chrétien.

Today, the 79-year-old Riley says the raft of internal struggles facing the AFN — from defamation lawsuits and human resources probes to a forensic audit and political power jockeying — can be traced to the continued influence of the Indian Act.

"They're just operating in a state of total confusion, which means they aren't going to make much progress," Riley said.

"They're airing their dirty laundry, and all that does is make them look tremendously weaker. They have that appearance to us out here."

Riley, of Chippewas of the Thames near London, Ont., is a survivor. He spent his early years in a tuberculosis sanatorium before Mounties hauled him off to the Mohawk Institute residential school near Brantford, Ont.

Riley was elected National Indian Brotherhood president in 1980, succeeding Noel Starblanket of Saskatchewan who laid the groundwork for Riley, landing the new president right in the middle of the fierce, ongoing constitutional fight.

WATCH | Del Riley elected leader of National Indian Brotherhood:

Described as a hardliner on the issue, Riley took $200,000 from the brotherhood's federal grant money in November 1980 and established a permanent ambassadorial office in London to urge British politicians to oppose patriation of the Constitution.

Back in Canada a month later, the brotherhood hosted an all-chiefs conference in Ottawa — the second of three that sparked the eventual creation of the AFN.

Over the next year, Trudeau and Chrétien relented. Indigenous and treaty rights were enshrined in the Constitution. And in April 1982, at another all-chiefs conference in Penticton, B.C., the chiefs in assembly formally created the AFN.

David Ahenakew of Saskatchewan became the first modern national chief, spoiling Riley's bid for re-election.

Riley was optimistic the new Constitution and new organization would spark change, but, looking back, he said neither had the hoped-for effect.