Quebec premier to meet with AFNQL Wednesday, after skipping first ministers summit with Indigenous leaders

Criticized for his absence from a summit on Monday in Ottawa between premiers and Indigenous representatives, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon will finally meet with representatives of the Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL) on Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the new PQ government announced this on Monday.

Last week, St-Pierre Plamondon’s team had suggested that he would not attend Monday’s federally organized meeting because the timeline was too tight, given the transition currently underway in Quebec City since the Oct. 5 election.

In a social media post on Monday, the leader of the official opposition, Charles Milliard, criticized the premier for “leaving Quebec’s seat empty,” even though he had promised to “work with the rest of Canada.”

“But this is a ‘deliberate and well-considered’ choice,” retorted the new Minister of Relations with First Nations and Inuit Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay.

“The Government of Quebec meets with Indigenous nations directly, nation-to-nation, on our territory,” and not “at a table organized by the federal government,” according to “its framework, schedule, and parameters, which remain very vague,” he wrote on social media, noting that the premier of Alberta and the newly elected premier of British Columbia were also absent.

The premier is therefore expected to meet with AFNQL Chief Francis Verreault-Paul on Wednesday.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews

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