Ovide Mercredi should stay out of the upcoming Quebec referendum campaign on sovereignty, says Konrad Sioui, the former regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations for Quebec and Labrador.
Sioui, who ran unsuccessfully to replace Mercredi as National Chief of the AFN last July, claimed in an interview with La Presse that Mercredi would just inflame Quebec nationalists and hurt the cause of Quebec First Nations.
“What I would never want to see, that’s national politicians who would come to put oil on the fire,” said Sioui, who added that Chief Mercredi received virtually no votes from Quebec Chiefs during his election.
Sioui said that Chief Mercredi often makes statements that “give pleasure to the Orangemen [English-Canadian extremists] and to [Reform leader Preston] Manning.”
Sioui also told La Presse that Quebec natives are uneasy over the PQ election victory on Sept. 12. Sioui, whose wife, Linda, is Innu, has been working for a month as the government-relations advisor to the Uashat-Maliotenam Innu First Nation.
