[3] In 1988 he was elected to the Presidency of that council, and he began an initiative to transfer management of the government's Fort Qu’Appelle Indian Hospital to First Nations control.

[3] In addition, he initiated and implemented the establishment of a new urban service delivery centre for First Nations people in the city of Regina.

[1] He identified as an early priority to seek federal government support for a judicial inquiry into the high rate of missing and murdered aboriginal women,[4] an issue that had dominated First Nations activism in the 2010s.

[8] He contributed to the newly elected Liberal government's establishing the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women Inquiry on 3 August 2018.

[13] In 2019, Bellegarde signed an agreement with the Canadian government that led to passage of Bill C-92: An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families.

[16][17][18] In March 2020, he along with the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and Métis National Council leaders met with the federal prime minister and the provincial premiers to lobby for the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into Canadian law.

[19] On the 24th of March 2020, the Assembly of First Nations declared a state of emergency over the severe risk faced by Indigenous communities due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.

[22] On December 7, 2020, he announced he would not seek re-election to focus on completing important work, such as the passage of Bill C-15, before the end of his in July 2021.