The Dominion - Pembroke

Special Rapporteur Agrees to Meet

Paula LaPierre — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:00:39 +0000

Special Rapporteur Mr. James Anaya has agreed to meet with Paula LaPierreregarding numerous concerns.

LaPierre contends that all Canadians have been denied access to their own genuine history. She further claims that often, as a result of this poor understanding of history there can continue a lingering sense of injustice. Communities need to have a deep understanding of their own identity and history if they are to position themselves effectively for the transitions ahead.

LaPierre looks forward to the creation of community-based processes that can stimulate deeper community learning and engagement.

The Need for Legal Empowerment

Paula LaPierre — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:22:17 +0000

The Need for Increased Legal Empowerment

We must avoid the trap of interpreting disadvantaged or poor strictly from a material paradigm.

Sincerely,

Paula LaPierre

Joint Efforts are the Key

Paula LaPierre — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:36:16 +0000

Concerns

Paula LaPierre — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:45:41 +0000

The Dialogue Denied Us

Appreciates Recent Correspondence

Paula LaPierre — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:13:35 +0000

Moving Forward in a Sustainable Process

Paula LaPierre — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 02:03:11 +0000

Nuclear Haste Makes Waste: Regulators

dru — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 03:52:39 +0000

Pembroke-based SRB denied license for tritium processing

In a significant regulatory shift, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) recently refused to renew the operating license of tritium-processing firm SRB Technologies in Pembroke, Ontario on the Ottawa River. This departure resulted largely from pressures exerted by a coalition of the Pembroke-based nuclear concern and environmental protection NGO Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Algonquin activists.

The Pembroke Decision was the first in history where CNSC, Canada’s chief nuclear regulator, denied a license application from a major nuclear industry firm. SRB intended to continue operating in Pembroke with tritium, a hazardous radioactive substance purchased from Ontario Power Generation Inc. for incorporation into glow-in-the-dark illuminating devices.
CNSC hearings revealed that SRB long operated in a failed, unfenced Pembroke industrial park with no plant confinement, no containment and no physical security. SRB’s plant lacked a buffer zone, and adjoined a busy Pembroke artery near a heavily used hockey arena, a well-fished river and a residential subdivision.

CNSC’s 31 January 2007 “reasons for decision” document explained: “the licensee has not taken all reasonable precautions to control the release of a radioactive substance within the site of the licensed activity into the environment.”

During the precedent-setting hearings, CNSC encouraged knowledgeable intervenors to separate fact from fiction. These included radiation protection professional Rosalie Bertell, PhD in biometrics, representing the International Institute of Concern for Public Health and Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, and landscape painter Alfred Villeneuve, an Algonquin guardian of the Ottawa River.

Villeneuve is an Algonkin artist living since birth in Renfrew County and has resided in Pembroke for the past twenty-three years. “We have been here since time out of mind,” Villeneuve told the Dominion.

“As our ancestors did, we continue to follow Algonkin Law as it pertains to the outright protection of this Earth, our Mother, and all that exists on it.”

He said that the use of the Ottawa River for the disposal of nuclear waste fits into a long pattern of grave mistreatment and attempted genocide against Algonquin Nations.

“Less than two dozen people escaped and survived, out of an entire nation … First the old men, boys, girls and women at their encampment on what is now known as the Ottawa River, and then the wholesale slaughter of the men that were hunting elsewhere in their territory.

“Even through this horrific act of genocide, our ancestors survived.”

“SRB Technologies,” said Villeneuve, “in order to reduce toxic, nuclear waste contaminating their site, believes it is better to use our river for a nuclear dump.”

“You have no right to pollute the waters of our Spiritual and Historic Heartland … You have no right to dump any garbage … into our waters.”

Villeneuve warned civil servants in Ottawa against allowing further release of nuclear waste.

“While this land and this river is still under dispute with our nation and the governments of Canada and Ontario, we … will do all that is in our power as a nation of people to alert others of any destruction of our homelands including the United Nations.”

CNSC’s decision document created a new class of license, called a “nuclear substance processing facility possession license” for SRB in Pembroke. The firm sought rapidly to amend this license, and CNSC scheduled a hearing on this amendment for 12 April in Ottawa.

Joseph Castrilli, counsel for Canadian Environmental Law Association representing Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County (CCRC) objects to CNSC procedures in “prematurely” scheduling this hearing, at which CCRC has been denied speaking rights. Only CNSC staff and SRB are presently scheduled to speak at the “premature” hearing, and the staff supports the SRB position.

Villeneuve told the Dominion: “We object to any SRB backdoor continuation whatsoever of activities.”

Ottawa River

Land Claims and the People of the Great River

hillarybain — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 13:25:21 +0000

An interview with Paula Lapierre of the Kichesipirini Algonquin Nation

Artist Paula LaPierre is a principal Sachem of the Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation, based in Pembroke, Ontario, and serves as the First Nation’s elected representative.

LaPierre has been employed by the governments of Ontario and Canada in the delivery of social services, including employment services and the development of human resources.

LaPierre recently contributed to a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada research project with York University in Toronto, compiling and preserving oral interview information on family and lineage continuity in Aboriginal and Algonquin communities.

She has volunteered for positions on the boards of directors of Renfrew County Children’s Council, Pembroke and Area Association for Community Living and Renfrew County Children’s Mental Health Services.

LaPierre is the mother of three daughters and one son, and grandmother of five, and she is expecting two more grandchildren. In her spare time, LaPierre is writing a book on the history of Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation and their land-base on Allumette Island.

Stephen Salaff: Paula, what is the current status of your struggle?

Paula LaPierre: Our Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation seeks to gain full participation rights in negotiations on the Algonquin Land Claim. Representatives of Algonquin communities, Ontario and Canada are now meeting monthly to negotiate Algonquin historical and constitutional-based claims to ownership of the Ottawa River watershed in Ontario and its natural resources.

Our community name Kichesipirini means “People of the Great River.”

We are encouraged by recent statements from semi-official lawyers in Ontario that KAFN can soon anticipate a place in the Land Claim negotiation, short of a KAFN legal challenge.

We plan to act quickly to secure the substantial financial sums owed to us by the two governments for unjust denial of our participation rights until today. We will be investing these resources in community initiatives, establishment of downtown Pembroke offices and developing responsible environmental and sustainable development priorities for the Ottawa River watershed, including Pembroke.

We believe that a comparative cost analysis of the administrative expenses of running a “Reserve” versus an even larger community such as Pembroke will demonstrate that the “Reserve” system has contributed to the poverty and deprivation of registered “Indians.” At the negotiating table, we will seek improved new models of Algonquin and Aboriginal governance.

In your land claim you refer to Kichesipirini historical traditions and entitlement. Can you please describe your approach to documenting this history?

In addition to extensive genealogy and proven historical attachment to well-defined territories, I employ the “totemic” research methodology explained and illustrated by University of Toronto law professor Darlene Johnston in her recruited presentation “Great Lakes Aboriginal History in Cultural Context” to Day One of the Ipperwash Inquiry in April 2004. As an Aboriginal-origin legal scholar, Darlene argues that evidence of identity should not depend upon the language of the record-maker. Algonquin and Aboriginal history is recorded in identifying symbols that our ancestors marked on physical objects like trees, canoes, houses and clothing. When the Europeans arrived with ink and parchment, these marks were used by Algonquin and Aboriginal leaders whenever their “signature” was required. These identifying marks are called “totems,” or “dodems,” and my approach to our written history is totemic in essence.

I have learned through collection of oral histories on the continuity of family and lineage in Algonquin culture, and through written sources, including The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 1959, that the Kichesipirini Algonquins once flourished on present-day Allumette Island in the Ottawa River and in nearby areas on both sides of the river.

However, the Kichesipirini Algonquins were badly decimated in conflicts brought by the French and British. From my reading and apprehension of our history, I claim that the Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation was the victim of European-originated genocide.

Our nation is currently regrouping and re-establishing its identity. My personal identity is the symbolic crane dodem.

Our path is hindered by dismissive procedures of governments under the federal Indian Act, who prefer to “recognize” and financially support an inland “Reserve” established before 1850.

Speaking of the Ipperwash Inquiry, Peter Rosenthal, counsel for the cousins of Aboriginal activist Dudley George, who was killed on an Ipperwash community burial ground, told me recently that the Inquiry Report may appear in early 2007 and will “increase public awareness of the situation of First Nations people and will include many recommendations designed to combat racism and to treat land claims with appropriate respect.”

That sounds helpful. I believe that the family and burial ground traditions of Dudley George’s community at Ipperwash are quite similar to ours. In her evidence to the Ipperwash Inquiry, Darlene Johnston recalled French explorer Champlain’s 1613 description of a Kichesipirini Algonquin cemetery on Tesouat’s Island (present-day Morrison’s Island) in the Ottawa River. Darlene also quoted Jesuit Father Baird in Volume One of Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: “[the Algonquin people] are very reluctant to be separated from the tombs of their ancestors; their graves and cemeteries are well-marked and well-tended.”

Paula LaPierre