(By Betty Ann Adam / Prince Albert Daily Herald.)
REGINA.
Brendan Cross, founder of the First Nations Party of Saskatchewan, has resigned, leaving the future of the fledgling party in question.
Cross, 24, said Sunday he is resigning because his leadership is hindering the party.
“I’ve received a lot of criticism from all quarters and that has hindered the growth of membership of the First Nations Party.”
“There are a lot of people I believe would be involved with the party if I wasn’t the leader.”
He would like to stay involved and hopes to recruit a new leader but admits the entire party could fold when he leaves.
At present only three of seven director positions are filled and four of seven executive positions.
The party has about 200 registered members, he said.
“With such a low membership and lack of involvement it’s kind of redundant to even have the party exist at this moment. That’s not to say that in a couple of years from now, whenever there is sufficient interest, that the party couldn’t be created once again,” he said.
“It could just be ahead of its time.”
Cross founded the party last spring and received considerable support.
He obtained 2,500 signatures and the First Nations Party became official in September.
With Cross as the frontman, the party began to attract attention and criticism.
Some people who could have taken leadership roles backed away from the party as Cross’s background and political activity became known.
Cross had been convicted in 1997 on two counts of indecent exposure.
He said that 30 months of intensive group therapy he took, as ordered by the courts, will prevent him from reoffending.
Cross alienated many powerful Saskatchewan Indians by criticizing the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, something he did after the organization ignored his attempts to contact them on behalf of the party he was trying to form.
Cross said he was angered that as an Indian, supposedly represented by the FSIN, the FSIN refused to return his almost-daily phone calls for three months.
He said he once drove to Saskatoon from Regina for a meeting with an FSIN representative only to find the meeting had been canceled and referred to somebody else.
Other aboriginal people who might have sympathized with Cross’ discontentment with organized Indian government also balked at his party when they learned that he had held memberships in the Saskatchewan Party, the Canadian Alliance and the federal Liberals.
More walked away from him when he ran unsuccessfully as a candidate in the Canadian Action Party in last week’s federal election.
Former First Nations Party director, Leonard Iron, called the candidacy a “politically self-indulgent shenanigan” and said he would have no further political involvement with Cross or any party Cross is involved in.
Cross admits he didn’t know anything about the Saskatchewan Party when he joined it and was disillusioned at not being able to change the party’s aboriginal policies.
As for his membership in the Canadian Alliance, Cross said he just joined so that he could find out more about its aboriginal policy.
