First or Last Nations?

Since the federal apology in 2008 for residential school abuse, and the holding of the first Conservative/First Nations conference in January 2012, some aboriginal leaders, like Sean Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, hope for a renewed relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canada – a relation that appeared to be renewed by the 1994 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Report and the Kelowna Accord of 2005 – with a promise of five billion dollars over ten years to address native poverty to create a more self sufficient future.