--Description taken from "A Biography of Chief Walter P. Deiter"
The development of contemporary Indian organizations in Canada has been examined for leadership styles (Boldt 1973; Dyck 1983; 1991) and by historians and sociologists in a specific ways (Patterson 1972, Lueger 1977, Ponting and Gibbins 1980, Surtees 1971, Weaver, 1981). A corpus of political biographies about contemporary Indian political leaders in Canada has only recently begun to be created (MacGregor 1989; McFarlane, 1993; Sluman and Goodwill, 1982).
The focus of this study is a political biography on Walter Deiter, a central figure in the development of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and the National Indian Brotherhood (later to be known as the Assembly of First Nations). The conclusions of this study are that Walter Deiter had significant historical importance in the political development of Indian people in Canada. He was the first Canadian Indian leader to organize successfully national and regional Indian political aspirations. Deiter asserted that Indian people themselves knew what was the best approach to improve the social and economic conditions of his people. His approach was to confront colonialism in the Canadian federal government and to assert the potential of Indian people to help themselves. Deiter became the fulcrum of major change in the development of Canadian Indian policies. His legacies are the political platforms that he established for Aboriginal people that allowed them a voice in the policy decisions affecting them, which prior to his leadership seldom occurred. His ability to bridge Indian and non-Indian people was his greatest asset which, when combined with a firm conviction that Indians deserved the right to self-determination, laid the foundation for the Aboriginal self-government.