Candidates running for national chief of Assembly of First Nations

VANCOUVER — Chiefs from 634 First Nations communities will elect a national chief to lead the Assembly of First Nations during their convention in Vancouver on Wednesday. Five candidates are vying for the top job:

— Perry Bellegarde: The incumbent chief of the AFN is from the Little Black Bear First Nation in Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan. He says his close relationship with the federal government has secured billions of dollars in new funding for Indigenous issues over the last three budgets though he has been criticized by other candidates for being too cosy with the government.

— Russ Diabo from Kahnawake, a Mohawk community south of Montreal, is a policy analyst who says Ottawa has acted unilaterally in efforts to come up with a new Indigenous legal framework and consults only chiefs when it seeks input from Indigenous communities.

— Sheila North, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, has said she wants to lead the Assembly of First Nations to push the federal government to act on all the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.