RoseAnne Archibald of Taykwa Tagamou Nation, says coming from a leadership family, it’s important for her to continue on a journey of serving First Nations.
Running for national chief of the Assembly of First Nations is “the next evolution for me,” says Archibald who just completed a three-year term as the Ontario regional chief at the AFN.
Archibald is a third generation chief who has been active in politics for more than three decades.
Having spent the past three years on the inside as a regional chief, Archibald says the AFN is doing good things but she feels it also needs “real and evolutionary change.”
“What I’m seeing as an AFN executive member is the need to separate the political and administrative arms of the AFN,” she says. “The corporate and political interests of the AFN have to be properly delineated, in order to have a stronger organization and I see that as some of the immediate work that has to be done.”
The pandemic has changed the way the election is unfolding, this time around.
Archibald says she would have preferred to go to communities and see the conditions and the struggles that First Nations are going through, first hand.
“I was very much an activist chief when I was a chief,” says Archibald in an interview with APTN News. “I blocked highways and participated in every kind of action in order to defend our right and to protect our rights and that is something that is difficult to do in this kind of environment but I want First Nations to know that I will be standing beside them, behind them and working with them in their struggles because the road ahead is still long for First Nations.”
The race for the national chief of the AFN is nearing the finish line.
Seven candidates are running to replace Perry Bellegarde after he announced he would not be seeking a third term.
The vote for the next national chief will take place virtually on July 7th.
Roughly, 630 chiefs and proxies will elect the next national chief.
APTN News will be interviewing the seven candidates in the run-up to the July election which will be held virtually.
