Romeo Saganash was in a happy mood after he got off the plane from Europe.
“It went pretty well. We have a lot of support out there,” he said.
“We know there is support in the European Parliament for our right to self-determination in the event of Quebec separation.
“It was important to find out.”
Saganash, director of provincial relations at the Grand Council of the Crees, was returning from a trip that made international headlines.
He and Innu official Armand McKenzie were in Europe to counter a Quebec campaign suggesting that the Parti Québécois government has improved relations with First Nations.
Native Affairs Minister Guy Chevrette flew to Europe with three Native chiefs to trumpet the improved relations.
They met with European politicians and held press conferences to tell of joint projects and agreements.
But Saganash and McKenzie were one step ahead. They managed to learn which politicians were meeting with the Quebec delegation, and met with them first.
They scored another coup when they got support from Gérard Onesta, Vice-President of the European Parliament. Onesta invited Saganash and McKenzie to use his office as their base of operations.
“That was our working HQ,” said Saganash.
From here they called journalists and got other useful contacts to counter Quebec’s message.
In an interview with La Presse, Onesta didn’t hide his skepticism about Quebec’s “somewhat idyllic” picture of harmony with Native people.
Onesta also issued a declaration supporting the Native right of self-determination if Quebec separates. He said if Quebec has this right, so do Native people.
The Cree and Innu diplomacy was not, however, appreciated by Chevrette. The tensions spilled into the newspapers when Chevrette accused Saganash and McKenzie of spying on one of his meetings.
Chevrette said Saganash and McKenzie were listening in from a neighbouring office on his meeting with Matti Wuori, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for human rights.
By coincidence, Chevrettè’s meeting with Wuori took place in the office next door to Onesta’s, where Saganash and McKenzie were based.
Saganash said the allegation is ridiculous. “I don’t have to listen to him. I know what he’s going to say.
“I can understand the man’s frustration. It must be terribly frustrating, with all the resources of the Quebec government, to be beaten on the international stage of world diplomacy by Indians.
“That’s what he doesn’t like. That’s what I find unacceptable about these insinuations.”
Onesta wrote a letter to La Presse defending Saganash and McKenzie, saying they “cannot be accused of having ‘listened at the door.’
“I can assure you there was no form of espionage, and I find this word inappropriate, to the point of defamation,” he wrote.
Onesta called the spying allegation “unfounded and petty.”
There were more tensions when Quebec and Canadian officials barred Saganash and McKenzie from two seminars in Brussels organized for European academics, human-rights workers and government officials.
