About us

Who we are

The AFNQL was created in 1985. It is composed of the Assembly of Chiefs and an administrative office. The Assembly is composed of the Chiefs of the 43 First Nations communities located in Quebec and Labrador and represents a total of 10 nations: Abenaki, Algonquin, Atikamekw, Cree, Huron-Wendat, Maliseet, Mi’gmaq, Innu Mohawk and Naskapi. The Assembly meets about 4 times a year to give mandates to its Bureau and to the Commissions it has set up. The Chiefs in Assembly elect, for a three-year term, an AFNQL Chief. The current Chief, Mr. Ghislain Picard, has been in office since 1992 and is in his sixth term. The AFNQL is attached to the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) whose office is located in Ottawa. The Chief of the AFNQL is a member of the AFN executive and can be appointed as the bearer of national files (e.g.: international, education, health, finance, etc.).  

Ghislain Picard

Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador Mr. Ghislain Picard is Innu from the community of Pessamit. Between 1976 and 1989, he dedicated most of his time in the area of communications. He was responsible for communications and media relations for the Conseil Atikamekw Montagnais (CAM). He published a periodical called “Tepatshimuwin” intended for Atikamekw and Innu communities. At the beginning of the 80’s, Mr. Picard was President of the Quebec Native Friendship Center. In 1983, he was very active to implement a community radio stations network for his nation. He is one of the founding members of the Société de communication atikamekw et montagnaise (SOCAM). SOCAM produces radio shows in Aboriginal language.  
In the middle of the 80’s, Mr. Picard participated to a UNESCO international study on the role of communications in rural communities. After he was appointed Vice-President of the CAM in 1989, he was elected Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL) in 1992. He has been the AFNQL Regional Chief since then. As AFNQL Chief, he sits on the Assembly of First Nations’ Executive Committee and Management Committee and he is the spokesperson for the Comprehensive claims, Urban population and International Issues portfolios. On July 15, 2014 in Halifax, the Chiefs in Assembly unanimously appointed him as National Chef. He occupied this function until December 2014 and then resumed his position as Chief of the AFNQL. On October 28, 2003, Mr. Picard received the National Order of Quebec. On January 24, 2005, he received the distinguished insignia of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur from the Consul Général de France.

History of the AFNQL

People who have never given up
The rich political history of First Nations is one of strong and proud people. It is marked by political and legal petitions, demonstrations, hunger strikes and repeated actions. It tells us that over the centuries, First Nations have consistently sought recognition and respect for their fundamental rights as nations through every possible means. This history reveals that indigenous peoples have never given up.
To understand the richness and depth of this history, we must go back to all the First Nations ambassadors who went to London, from the British Conquest onwards, to meet Kings and seek solutions to conflicts with the colonial authorities. This is the case in particular of the Huron Grand Chief Nicolas Vincent who, in 1825, went to meet King George IV in the company of three other chiefs of the Jeune Lorette to present him with a request concerning the dispute over the ownership of the lands of the Sillery seigneury. The steps and internal appeals had not produced the expected results. Around 1850, a critical period when many First Nations complained about the invasion of their lands, two Mi’kmaq delegations from Listiguj went to London hoping to receive a sympathetic ear from the British Crown. In 1909, Chief Joseph Gabriel of Kanesatake also went to London to make the King aware of the rights of the Mohawks of Oka over the famous seigneury of the Lake of Two Mountains. This was unsuccessful and the dispute will remain unresolved as the events surrounding the Oka crisis of the summer of 1990 have proven. In Western Canada, ambassadors from the Squamish Nation of British Columbia went to London in 1906 and 1926 to meet with the King. As in Quebec, they were dispossessed of their land even though they had never ceded it under any treaty. In a similar situation, the Nishga of British Columbia took recourse in the 1910s to the provincial and Ottawa governments. They even hired a lawyer to take their case to the Privy Council in London. This was unsuccessful. Unfortunately, at that time, claiming to be a nation and claiming rights as a nation was deemed inadmissible by the federal government. The policy put forward was that of assimilation, that is, the complete disappearance of the First Nations as distinct peoples. Thus, several provisions were included in the Indian Act to counter political movements that opposed the views of the Department of Indian Affairs. For example, First Nations were prohibited from using funds to sue the Government of Canada. It even became illegal for Aboriginal people to hire a lawyer. Until 1950, First Nations were thus deprived of any legal recourse.  
In 1918, Fred Loft’s struggle was equally remarkable. He attempted to establish the League of Canadian Indians and raised funds for this purpose. While he was very successful in his efforts, his public meetings were monitored by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on the grounds that Loft was causing unrest. To combat this type of political movement, the federal government went even further in the 1920s. Amendments to the Indian Act made it illegal to collect funds from First Nations communities without the express permission of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Moreover, on the simple recommendation of the Superintendent, an Indian could be declared enfranchised, i.e. lose his Indian status. His presence could be prohibited on the reserves. This threat of involuntary enfranchisement would be a formidable tool used by the federal government to nip in the bud any political organisation with autonomist aims within the First Nations. In order to silence the League of Indians of Canada, Fred Loft has been declared enfranchised. Several measures were introduced into the Indian Act to combat these political movements. During the 1920s, the federal government sought to impose the Indian Act. In order to establish control over the political life and internal affairs of the communities, it made the system of elected band councils mandatory, while some nations had a traditional chieftaincy.
The story of Chief Deskaheh is one of the most inspiring in this regard. He is the Chief of the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario and his government is opposed to the Indian Act and its enforcement. During the 1920s, Deskaheh would first exhaust domestic remedies and then go to see the King. When this failed, he tried to appeal to the League of Nations in Geneva. There he asked that the dispute between the Six Nations government and the federal government be submitted to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In order to do this, he had to convince the member states of the League of Nations to support his case. The federal government and Great Britain organised a diplomatic counter-attack that defeated Deskaheh’s attempt. They argued that the dispute between Deskaheh’s Six Nations government and the Government of Canada was an internal Canadian matter and that such an intrusion would be unacceptable. In 1924, while representing his nation at the League of Nations, the federal government took advantage of Chief Deskaheh’s absence to organize an election to elect a new Band Council in his community and thus declare Deskaheh unfit for this representation. Chief Deskaheh lived in exile in the United States until his death a year later, in 1925.
In the early 1940s, Jule Sioui, a Huron from Lorette, set up an Indian Rights Committee inviting all the First Nations chiefs in Canada to attend a major convention in Ottawa. The Superintendent of Indian Affairs immediately warned the chiefs that Sioui was not a chief and that those who planned to attend would have to pay for it. Despite this deterrent, the Convention took place from October 19 to 21, 1943, and would lead to the establishment of the North American Indian Nation Government in 1945. An article published in the press at the time was entitled: Great event in our history: The Indians of Canada now have their own parliament. (Le petit journal, July 8, 1945) Upon its creation, the Government of the North American Indian Nation adopted a proclamation that included an explicit reference to the founding Charter of the United Nations. The establishment of the United Nations in 1947 had raised new hopes among First Nations as it recognised the right of all nations, large and small, to equality and freedom. Members of the North American Indian Nation Government were invited to pursue this goal of recognition as a nation. It was also at this time that the federal government began a review of the Indian Act. In contrast, the North American Indian Nation Government was to adopt its own Indian Act and proceed to register its members. This demonstration of self-government would come at a price. In 1949, Jules Sioui of Huron Village, Michel Vachon, Chief of Pessamit, his namesake Michel Vachon of Sept-Îles, John Chabot, Chief of Maniwaki and others were convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to two years in prison. They were accused of fomenting rebellion against the Canadian government by suggesting that First Nations people were not subject to the laws of the land. Although this judgment was overturned on appeal, the federal government took the case to the Supreme Court. Jules Sioui then went on a hunger strike that lasted 72 days. Finally, the federal government dropped the case. The attempt to create an Indian government across Canada was a bold move for its time. To form such a government was no small task considering that there were communities of different denominations, Catholic and Protestant. There was also the question of language of communication, since some spoke English, others French as a second language, some had signed treaties and others had not, not to mention the means of transportation at the time and the difficulty posed by the immense distances involved in travelling across Canada from East to West, as well as the difficulty of accessing isolated regions, etc. This Indian government was particularly active in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to the people mentioned above, some illustrious figures were involved. To name but a few, Francis Pegahmagabow of the Ojibway Nation in Ontario, a World War I hero, and in Quebec, the highly respected William Commanda of the Kitigan-Zibi community, were in turn Supreme Chiefs of the organization.
It was not until the 1960s that well-structured First Nations political organisations emerged at the provincial and Canadian levels. The National Indian Council, set up in 1961, brought together status, Métis and non-status Indians. The well-known Harold Cardinal was one of its influential leaders. This organisation played a decisive role in Quebec in the organisation and animation of the Indian Pavilion of Canada located on the grounds of Expo 67 in Montreal. The National Council of Canadian Indians later split into two entities, giving rise in 1969 to the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada, which would henceforth represent the Status Indians. In 1971, the Native Council of Canada was established to represent Métis and non-status Indians. This was an intense period in which political organisations were being created or consolidated at the provincial level. The Quebec Indian Association was formed in 1965. As early as 1967, it led a fierce struggle for the recognition of hunting and fishing rights for the province’s Aboriginal people. It was also the Quebec Indian Association that, in the early 1970s, challenged the vast James Bay hydroelectric development project in court and obtained an interlocutory injunction from Judge Albert Malouf to halt the work. Even though this ruling was overturned on appeal, it allowed First Nations to break through the wall of indifference and led the Quebec government to undertake negotiations with the Cree Nation, which will now be represented by the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec. These negotiations concluded with the signing of a treaty in 1975: the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. The Indian Association of Quebec ceased its activities in the mid-1970s. The political organisations were then split up to the benefit of the various nations, including the Grand Council of the Crees of Quebec, the Algonquin Council of Western Quebec and the Attikamek-Montagnais Council.
In 1968 a courageous Kahnawake woman, Mary Two-Axe Early, started the Equal Rights for Indian Women movement. She called for mobilisation against the discrimination in the Indian Act against Indian women who lost their status when they married non-Indians. This activist was particularly prominent in Mexico City in 1975 at the first United Nations Conference on Women’s Rights. Her action was a great source of inspiration throughout Canada and in 1971 she encouraged the emergence of the Native Women’s Association of Canada. In 1974, the Quebec Native Women’s Association was born, now known as Quebec Native Women. Since 1992, Quebec Native Women has had a seat and full participation in the decisions, without the right to vote, at the Chiefs’ Table of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador. Among the important struggles of Aboriginal women are the major campaigns against violence in First Nations communities. More recently, the great determination of the activists of this organisation contributed to the Government of Canada establishing a National Commission of Inquiry into the situation of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls. Furthermore, we cannot overlook the decisive role of First Nations women in the creation of the Idle No More movement across Canada and its Quebec branch. Their mobilizing political actions have created a sense of pride among First Nations youth.
In 1969, Jean Chrétien, then Minister of Indian Affairs, tabled a White Paper entitled The Indian Policy of the Government of Canada. The Liberal government of Pierre-Elliot Trudeau announced, in the name of so-called equality, its intention to abolish Indian status in Canada altogether. The reaction of the First Nations was strong and immediate. At a meeting in Ottawa, the Chiefs expressed their opposition by tabling a Red Book. It was also in opposition to the White Paper that leader Harold Cardinal published a now famous book entitled The Tragedy of Canada’s Indians. The 1969 White Paper policy was eventually abandoned by the Trudeau government, but it was a major event in the history of the First Nations, as it gave an important impetus to the political movements of the time. Indeed, there was an unprecedented mobilisation of the various Aboriginal nations across Canada. The National Indian Brotherhood of Canada was born in a context of concern for the very survival of the First Nations and the respect of their ancestral rights and those resulting from treaties signed with the Crown. During the discussions surrounding the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in the early 1980s, it became the Assembly of First Nations, the large organisation we know today and which is made up of regional associations including the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador. It was also the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada that launched, at the beginning of the 1970s, the movement to take charge of a sector that was crucial for the survival of First Peoples, namely education. It was necessary to put an end to the residential school system, this privileged tool of assimilation. The slogan was unambiguous: Indian education by Indians.
Since its creation, the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada has been concerned with developing a sustained representation not only within Canada but also on the international scene. The indigenous peoples of the Americas had been largely ignored in international law and had not benefited from the anti-colonial measures adopted by the United Nations in the 1960s. The Brotherhood showed leadership by seeking consultative status at the UN. This status was granted in 1975, a first for indigenous organisations. The fact that it was a non-governmental organisation (NGO) accredited by the United Nations Economic and Social Council gave it direct access to certain international bodies, including the Commission on Human Rights, and enabled it to play a role as a counterweight to the powers of Member States, including Canada. The Brotherhood was also responsible for the creation in 1975 of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples, an organisation that would bring together a large number of nations from the three Americas. This umbrella organisation obtained its consultative status at the UN in 1987.
The political representations, activism and use of legal recourse by the First Nations played a determining role in the discussions surrounding the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in the early 1980s. It should be recalled that three hundred Indian chiefs travelled to London to express their concerns about the Canadian government’s unilateral approach. The patriation as proposed was likely to jeopardise the rights recognised in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 as well as the rights resulting from the treaties concluded between the First Nations and the British Crown. These representations were not in vain. They led the House of Commons to include in the 1982 Canadian Constitution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms an explicit reference to and substantial protection of Aboriginal and treaty rights. They prompted the Canadian Parliament to hold four constitutional conferences on Aboriginal rights and self-government to which First Nations, Métis and Inuit representatives were invited.
In 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The adoption of this declaration is a great victory resulting from thirty years of activism, political representation and struggle by First Nations on the international scene. We saw earlier that from its inception, the National Indian Brotherhood of Canada played a leadership role in this regard and obtained the status of an NGO accredited by the United Nations. In the early 1980s, the UN undertook a vast study on the problem of discrimination against indigenous peoples. It created the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, whose mandate was in particular to develop international standards on the rights and freedoms of indigenous peoples. Whether at the annual meetings of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations or at other international forums, the First Nations of Quebec and Canada have made a significant contribution to the evolution of international law. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples clearly states that indigenous peoples are not ethnic, social, cultural, linguistic or religious minorities within States, but peoples, equal to all other peoples, and as such have collective rights essential to their survival and development, including the fundamental right to self-determination. Pierre Lepage 19 May 2017

List of commissions

First Nations Education Council (FNEC) :

The First Nations Education Council (FNEC) is an association made up of the 22 First Nations in Quebec that has been working for more than 35 years to enable First Nations to exercise their right to full jurisdiction over education by establishing a comprehensive, adequately resourced education system designed and managed in accordance with their values and cultures. Excellence, student success, cultural pride and control of education by and for First Nations are at the heart of its mission.

First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission (FNQLHSSC)

The First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission (FNQLHSSC) is a non-profit organization responsible for supporting the efforts of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador to, among other things, plan and deliver culturally appropriate and preventive health and social services programs. Its mission is to support First Nations in Quebec in achieving their health, wellness, cultural and self-determination objectives.

First Nations Human Resources Development Commission of Quebec (FNHRDCQ)

As one of the regional commissions of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL), the First Nations Human Resources Development Commission of Quebec (FNHRDCQ) is responsible, on behalf of 27 First Nations, for the administration of the Aboriginal Skills and Employment Training Program (ASEP) as well as the Urban ASEP which supports urban First Nations, Métis and Inuit in Quebec. Through its 31 Employment and Training Service Centres (ETSCs), located in 27 First Nations communities and 4 cities (Montreal, Quebec City, Val-d’Or and Sept-Îles), the FNHRDCQ helps clients integrate into the labour market by offering various employment and training measures.

First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Sustainable Development Institute (FNQLSDI)

Founded in 2000 by the Chiefs of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL), the mission of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Sustainable Development Institute (FNQLSDI) is to provide First Nations with a dynamic crossroads of services in support of their efforts for the health of the territory and its resources, for the development of sustainable communities and for the recognition of First Nations rights.

First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Economic Development Commission (FNQLEDC)

The FNQLEDC is recognized as a service organization, controlled at the local level and based on consultation and consensus decision-making. The FNQLEDC works with all of its members, i.e. the Community Economic Development Officers (CEDOs) and their respective economic development organizations, while respecting local autonomy and political allegiance, and has received the support of the various First Nations partners. The FNQLEDC is a knowledge-sharing organization that recognizes access to quality information as an essential condition for decision-making that serves the collective interest. It is dedicated to the support, training and promotion of its members as well as to the socio-economic development of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador insofar as the actions meet the needs of the members.

First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Youth Network (FNQLYN)

The mission of the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Youth Network is to support and inform First Nations youth between the ages of 15 and 35 about the opportunities (programs, services, activities, events, jobs, training, etc.) available to them.