A federal committee working on sweeping native-reform legislation is violating human rights laws by ignoring native opposition to the bill, rights watchdog Amnesty International Canada warns. And the head of a London-based group representing eight First Nations bands says Bill C-7 not only has been handled badly, but threatens native self-government rights.

"We are against all of it and we want it withdrawn," said Chris McCormick, grand chief of the Association of Iroquois and Allied Indians (AIAI).

The bill, the First Nations governance act, would amend the outdated and widely criticized Indian Act, which treats natives as wards of the state.

The new law would require bands to establish electoral, financial and administrative codes within two years, failing which the government would impose codes on them.

But native leaders won't accept the legislation because there was no consultation with them, McCormick predicted.

"We don't need people who have never lived on a reserve telling us what to do," he said. "We don't need ultimatums."

Prime Minister Jean Chretien made Bill C-7 a government priority, a move observers said is intended to add to his legacy as he leaves office.

But when Chretien called a parliamentary recess last week sending MPs home a week early for the summer, the bill had not been passed.

Although the bill is expected to return to the agenda this fall, Paul Martin, who is considered likely to succeed the prime minister, has said he would not enforce the legislation in its current form.

Amnesty International Canada has sent an open letter to Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault criticizing how Ottawa has gone about trying to pass the bill.

UN human rights standards require governments to seek native participation and consent in decisions and laws affecting them, said Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada's secretary general.

Neve said the government has ignored that with Bill C-7, despite widespread First Nations opposition.

Leaders have threatened road blockades and nationwide protests unless the bill is withdrawn.

The committee on aboriginal affairs has consulted First Nations communities through discussions, the Internet, phone calls and letters sent to the minister, according to Alastair Mullin, a spokesperson for the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

"The offer was made and it was taken up by over 12,000 First Nations people who participated," Mullin said.

But McCormick doesn't agree the Liberal-dominated committee is listening to the voices of First Nations people.

He said a native representative present at committee hearings on the bill noted that of 201 witnesses, 191 were in opposition.

Mullin called McCormick's numbers "fiction." He said there were more than 280 submissions to the committee, more than half of which contained suggestions on how to improve the bill.

"Because someone offers an amendment does not mean they are opposed to the bill."

McCormick said Bill C-7 gives the Indian Affairs minister new powers and "further entrenches the colonialistic Indian Act."

Mullin argued the bill, which calls for more accountability on the part of band leaders, has nothing to do with the federal government. "It is about the government getting our nose out of where it doesn't belong."