Monday’s historic meeting between First Nations leaders, Prime Minister Mark Carney and the premiers will be historic even with two empty chairs. Quebec Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have both said they will be absent from the gathering, the first of its kind since the Kelowna Accord talks of 2005.
The absences were confirmed in reporting on the meeting, while the Privy Council Office has not said which premiers will attend. First Nations will be represented largely by regional chiefs from the Assembly of First Nations, and Sunday’s ceremony in Ottawa, with knowledge keepers, elders and community members, precedes the closed door talks.
What an absence signals
A premier’s absence from a first ministers style gathering is never just a diary clash. It signals a political calculation about what attendance would cost at home versus what absence costs nationally. Quebec and Alberta are the two provinces whose relationships with Ottawa are most often defined by autonomy and grievance, and both premiers have built their politics partly on distance from the federal government.
For the meeting itself, the practical effect is limited. The table will still include the prime minister, First Nations leadership and the premiers who do attend, and any commitments made there can still be carried forward. But the symbolism matters, because a meeting described as historic loses some of its claim to national breadth when two of the largest provinces are not in the room.
Ceremony, then the test
As The Canadian Press reported, National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said ceremony was important so participants enter the meeting with the right frame of mind, grounded in First Nations spirituality. That framing puts the emphasis where it belongs: on the relationship between First Nations and the Crown, rather than on which premiers chose to attend.
The absences will be noted in the history of this meeting, but they will not define it. What defines it is whether Monday produces commitments that close the socioeconomic gaps first discussed at Kelowna in 2005, with dates, funding and accountability. A full table helps that cause. An incomplete table does not prevent it, and the leaders who do attend will be judged on what they deliver, not on who stayed away.
