Atleo Wins AFN Chiefdom

There was a notable generational change at the leadership level of Canada’s largest national aboriginal assembly during of the 29th trading week of the year.

• Shawn “A-in-chut” Atleo, 42, was elected national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) in the eighth round of voting in Calgary on July 23, beating out final rival Perry Bellegarde from Saskatchewan.

(For any non-Canadian readers unfamiliar with our aboriginal politics, the AFN represents Canada’s 750,000 or so “status” Indians, but not the “non-status” ones, nor the mixed-race Mtis or Inuit in the Arctic. Each Indian community in Canada is called a “First Nation.” While a national chief doesn’t exert hard power, he or she does exert considerable clout as the lead spokesperson for aboriginal issues in Canada, and sets the tone for much of the relations between aboriginal and non-aboriginal groups in the country.)

A new face on the national political scene, Atleo is a hereditary chief of the Ahousaht First Nation, who live on the remote Flores Island, about halfway up the western coast of Vancouver Island.

He’s married with two adult children, and holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in education that he earned online. Atleo’s father was the first aboriginal to earn a doctorate from the University of British Columbia. Most recently, Atleo has been the two-term B. C. regional chief to the AFN, and is chancellor at Vancouver Island University.

Unlike his national chief predecessors, Atleo comes from a new generation of aboriginals who did not attend the defunct and damaging residential school system that traumatized many aboriginals in the 20th century.

Atleo’s personal style is a departure from his predecessors, too. In contrast to many of the hulking, brooding men, mostly from the Prairies provinces, who pretty much locked up the AFN leadership since its creation in 1968, the likeable Atleo is short, urbane and a gentle but persistent communicator who likes to quote John Ralston Saul and maintains a slick website that’s hooked into YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Indeed, Atleo’s supporters openly compare his campaigning and communication style to U. S. President Barack Obama’s, with its upbeat tone, tech-savvy targeting of youth and even a catchy but vague slogan: “It’s our time.” Have a look at www.shawnatleo.ca.

Atleo’s particular zest for opening up educational opportunities for young aboriginals is an area that should be strongly supported by Canada’s mining industry, as it increasingly relies on skilled aboriginal workforces at exploration sites and mines that are being built in ever more remote reaches of the country.

• Some major changes may be afoot in Poland’s copper sector. The cash-strapped national government is considering selling much or all of its controlling 41% stake in copper miner KGHM Polska Miedz before the end of next year. The government may also sell a minority interest in Grupa Lotos, the country’s second-biggest oil refiner, as it seeks to raise about US$4 billion in 2010 to fight widening budget deficits that may reach as much as 6% of gross domestic product this year.

As Europe’s number-two copper producer, Warsaw-traded KGHM has vast, high-quality copper-silver reserves in Poland and the largest copper mine output in the European territory. It also owns 25% of cellphone operator Polkomtel. KGHM owns three mines, three ore enrichment plants and two smelters that produce electrolytic copper. Its total geological resources in 2007 stood at 1.5 billion tonnes of 2% copper and 56 grams silver per tonne.

At head office, KGHM has a newly installed, internally promoted chief executive, Herbert Wirth, who is already talking about expanding KGHM by acquiring new deposits abroad. The company’s previous chief executive was forced out in June after clashing with the state treasury over dividend policy.

Things are never so simple in Poland, though. The country’s famously truculent unions stopped a similar attempted selloff of KGHM in 1992 via a 32-day strike, and the leader of the nation’s second-largest union told Blooomberg that any present-day privatization of KGHM is “sabotage” and nothing less than “selling a national treasure.”

And how feisty are these guys these days? A union riot in Warsaw a week ago sent six police to hospital and 22 people to jail.

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