The Dominion - Sudbury

Red Squares in Sudbury

Tim McSorley — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:30:37 +0000

New academic year in Sudbury sees new opportunities for change

SUDBURY, ONTARIO—The day after students returned to classes at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, red squares could be seen on the city's streets. Students and supporters donned the red felt badges made famous in the Quebec student strike, picked up pots and pans, and noisily took up space on downtown streets to demand accessible, equitable, public postsecondary education.

Though the numbers were modest at between 15 and 20 participants, Brendan Lehman, who is doing a Masters degree in Neuroscience at Laurentian, described himself as "excited" at the turnout. Weekly "casseroles" marches began in Sudbury in the spring, initially with upwards of 40 participants, but attendance had dwindled to a handful during the summer months. Lehman saw the September 5th rally as a good early step in building something bigger.

In addressing the group through a megaphone, fourth year Political Science student Tom Sutton said, "Although we might not be many right now, this is just a humble beginning. The Quebec student strike had humble beginnings too. And guess what? They won!"

Not only was this march being held on the day after the start of classes, but Sutton pointed out that it was also the day after the electoral defeat of Quebec Liberal Premier Jean Charest, after an election campaign shaped in large part by his government's confrontation with Quebec's student movement.

The new premier, Pauline Marois of the Parti Quebecois, has already announced that two central demands of the student movement will be met by her government: the fee and tuition hikes introduced by the Liberals will be rescinded, and Law 12, passed as a repressive measure to the student strike, will be repealed.

Student activists in Sudbury are working hard to learn from the experience in Quebec. Several attended a weekend-long training at the University of Toronto earlier in the summer in which Quebec organizers passed on lessons to students from Ontario universities.

In addition, Sudbury's first "casseroles" march of the new academic year is meant to build towards upcoming speaking events by activists who will be visiting Sudbury from the largest and most radical of the Quebec student unions, CLASSE. They will be speaking at Laurentian on September 21 and in downtown Sudbury on September 22.

A handful of non-students also participated in the march, including Lyse Godard. Though it has been many years since she herself was a student, she can testify to the impact of rising education expenses.

"I basically had to sign my life away for my son, for six years of school, six years of student loans," said Godard.

Godard favours free postsecondary education for students who attend classes and get adequate marks, and thinks more should be done to enable graduates to get jobs in their field of study.

Research has confirmed that rising education costs have widespread impacts beyond students themselves, as in the 2011 study Under Pressure: The Impact of Rising Tuition Fees on Ontario Families. In it, David Macdonald and Erika Shaker of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives write, "Ontario undergraduate tuition fees are now the highest in the country," and the combination of tuition and other compulsory fees have risen, even when inflation is taken into account, by a staggering 244% between 1990 and 2011.

MacDonald and Shaker put this in the context of significant increases in mortgage and consumer debt for Ontario households, and of stagnating incomes for a great many Ontarians and conclude that not only is rising tuition a barrier to students, but that it hurts families as well. They write, "By increasingly downloading onto families and exploiting the parental desire to provide for their children, Ontario is severely hampering its economic and educational potential."

While Godard is eager to support a growing student movement in Ontario, she worries that many of her peers might not be. A lot of the people she associates with are retirees who do not necessarily understand the circumstances that students face today, and many have "no sympathy at all" for student demands. She says they say things like, "We paid our student loans, they can pay theirs."

Fourth year Laurentian English student Heather Harris is worried about the response from her peers, too. For her, a central point of student mobilizations is to demand that governments "take us seriously" and to make sure they "don't underestimate the youth of Canada." She believes passionately that other students "should be here," and that "because [other students] aren't doing anything about it, the government doesn't have to listen."

Some students, she thinks, are "apathetic," while others "think there's other things that could be done" apart from getting into the streets. She thinks that the biggest barrier to the student movement is information – that more students will only get active once they have better information about the realities of postsecondary education today and about what mobilizing has accomplished in Quebec.

Lehman agrees that it will take determined work to build the movement in Sudbury, but he argues that if organizers keep the focus "local" and "personal," and work "to try and hold our own school accountable," there will be a response from students. "We can really connect with students at Laurentian," he said, "because every year, everyone's tuition goes up," and every year there are courses and programs that are cut, "especially francophone ones."

Theatre student Linus Cunningham Closs sees the student victories in Quebec as key to mobilizations close to home: "Because there has actually been change in Quebec," Ontario students can begin to imagine what is possible, and "we can get some change.”

The students involved say they will continue to mount "casseroles" marches in dowtown Sudbury every Wednesday at 8 pm.

Scott Neigh is a writer and activist based in Sudbury, Ontario. For more of his writing, see his personal blog as well as the site about his forthcoming books on Canadian social movement history.

Red Squares in Sudbury

"There Is No Neutral"

Tim McSorley — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:59:17 +0000

Striking Vale Inco workers push for local politicians, residents to back anti-scab legislation

SUDBURY—As the longest strike in Sudbury’s history rolls on, United Steelworkers union organizers are calling for an end to the use of replacement workers, blaming the practice for prolonging the strike.

“If there was anti-scab legislation in place, this strike would’ve been over months ago," Bernie Arsenault told The Dominion. Arsenault, a member of Steelworkers Local 6500, added that the use of replacement workers is new in the experience of the Steelworkers.

Three-thousand three-hundred Steelworkers from locals 6500 in Sudbury and 6200 in Port Colborne have been on strike against mining giant Vale Inco since July 13, 2009, in what has become the longest strike in the history of all three parties. Central issues in the contract bargaining process are pension plans, workers’ nickel bonuses, seniority transfer rights, the contracting out of jobs and the reinstatement of nine activists who were fired during the course of the strike.

To increase pressure, United Steelworkers Local 6500 declared May “anti-scab month,” distributing flyers to homes around the Sudbury area appealing to citizens to support proposed provincial anti-replacement worker legislation.

The Steelworkers union also convinced Sudbury city council to adopt a symbolic motion in support of anti-replacement worker legislation. At the end of May, 10 months and one week into the strike, the Local 6500 held a rally in front of Sudbury Member of Provincial Parliament Rick Bartolucci’s office, calling on him to end his neutrality on the subject of replacement workers.

“When you sit on the fence, your backside is facing somebody, and I think we all know who that somebody is,” rally organizer Jamie West said through a megaphone. “There is no neutral. When you’re silent, when you refuse to take a stand and you hold office, you automatically take the side that has the most money.”

A release from Bartolucci’s office stated "Mr. Bartolucci has and will continue to oppose the use of replacement workers.” Yet Bartolucci remained silent when the anti-replacement worker bill passed its first reading in provincial parliament.

Such legislation existed for a brief period in the 1990s after being introduced by Bob Rae's NDP government, but was scrapped by Mike Harris' Conservatives.

A group called CANARYS (Community Activists Need Answers Regarding Your Safety) formed in response to the strike, and has supported the push to end the practice of hiring replacement workers.

“Of course the scabs have a huge effect on the Sudbury community, from dividing the community to the implications that they will have on safety,” explains Laurie McGauley, a founder of CANARYS and long-time community activist.

“A lot of work has gone into making things safer at the mine over the decades, and the union has been intrinsic to this" continued McGauley. "Now we have people coming from other communities, who are not trained and who do not have experience with the mine, operating without a union that has experience in a mine, which is a very dangerous operation."

McGauley’s concern over safety mixes with her sobering vision of what a defeat of the strike could mean: “If [Vale Inco] manages to break this strike, that would have huge repercussions for all workers in Ontario, all over North America, because it would be a signal to everybody that replacement workers can be used to bust a union. To bust a historically-strong union like [United Steelworkers Local] 6500 is a huge symbolic loss for all unions in Canada as well as in north America.”

The proposed anti-replacement worker bill is expected to go through its second reading in November. In the meantime, intermittent talks between Vale Inco and Steelworker Locals 6500 and 6200 continue.

Shailagh Keaney is a writer and gardener living in occupied Atikameksheng Anishinawbek territory.

Steelworkers rally in Sudbury

Steelworker calls on Bartolucci

A Watchdog with No Teeth?

dawn — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:33:04 +0000

Mining company involvement in Sudbury Soils Study contaminates findings

SUDBURY–Mounting concern about heavy metal contamination in Sudbury, a city whose landscape is so choked by slag and smoke that it was once used by NASA as a training site for their astronauts for moon landings, led to the creation of the Sudbury Soils Study. But some community members feel that instead of providing accurate data on pollution, the results of the study whitewashed the degree of soil contamination in the region.

For the last 122 years, nickel mines have been operating in the region now known as Sudbury. The companies involved in the extraction were among the world's biggest and most powerful players in the mining industry: the International Nickel Corporation and Falconbridge, among others. Today, the Sudbury basin sources a large portion of the world's nickel, for which the extraction process involves roasting and reduction, producing waste products in the form of slag, tailings and air emissions, all of which contain significant amounts of waste metals.

Before a smokestack was built in 1987 to carry the airborne byproducts further away, the blanket of waste on the ground choked life and prevented new vegetation from growing, thus giving Sudbury its infamous moonscape appearance.

"I don't trust what's in my vegetables. I don't know how much lead, copper, nickel is in the soil," says Tanya Ball, a community organizer and mother who used to garden in Greater Sudbury community of Wanup.

In May of 2008, the first part of the Sudbury Soils Study, the Human Health Risk Assessment, was finally released. The study concluded that there exists "little risk of health effects on Sudbury area residents associated with metals in the environment."

"The SARA [Sudbury Area Research Association] group announced that 'there is no unacceptable risk', despite the fact that there are levels of toxins that are found to be high in Falconbridge, Copper Cliff, Gatchel, West End, Central Sudbury and Garson. Together, these six geographical areas comprise a large percentage of the city's population," says Ball, who now lives in Central Sudbury.

"It doesn't take a genius to see the prevalence of chronic illnesses in Sudbury," she says.

Many in the community, like Ball, remain unconvinced by the results of the Soils Study. The participation of mining heavyweights in the process may explain why.

The Technical Advisory Committee (TC) of the Sudbury Soils Study was formed in 2002 in order to direct a research project that would determine human and environmental risk arising from soil contamination in the Sudbury region.

The TC hired a scientific research partner and set the research parameters for the study, but some, like Homer Seguin, a local health and safety advocate and former president and staff rep with Steelworkers Local 6500, feel the study was compromised from the beginning because of the the role that mining companies play on the TC.

Vale Inco contributed $7 million and Falconbridge contributed $3 million to the study. Of the six Committee seats on the TC, two are held by the two locally-operating mining companies, with the other four being made up of government and health organizations.

The Ministry of the Environment decided that the companies should pay for the study, but instead of having the companies give the money to the Ministry, the companies themselves took part in overseeing the study.

"They caused the pollution, they should pay. But my view of them paying is that they should be giving the money to the Ministry of the Environment, who's responsible for the environment, and the Ministry should oversee the study," says Seguin.

Despite holding a minority of seats on the TC, the mining companies gained a great deal of control when TC members agreed to make decisions according to consensus. As a result, any decision could be vetoed by any one member of the committee, including either of the mining companies.

The community was kept out of the process from the outset, and neither media nor public observers were allowed to witness the committee's process. In a gesture towards the community, the TC established a Public Advisory Committee (PAC) soon after the scientific studies commenced in 2003. Vale Inco and Falconbridge representatives participated actively in the public meetings.

During one of the public meetings of the TC, Seguin made a presentation on the health of mine workers.

"The first meeting where I had made a presentation to the PAC, one of the members actually attacked me, verbally attacked me and the union, saying that the union could have done some more. As if it was the unions' responsibility" he recalls.

"In my opinion, they set up this PAC as an attempt to fool the public that somebody was a watchdog over them so [the public] did not have to worry."

Franco Mariotti is the independent process observer for the Soils Study. He refutes the notion that mining-company representatives bullied participants at the PAC or TC meetings.

But the weight of mining companies in the process may explain why some of the testing procedures were, by federal and provincial standards, mild.

SARA, which was hired by the TC to conduct the study, was instructed to only make note of lead concentrations in Sudbury soil that were upwards of 400 parts per million (ppm), well above the federal standard of 140ppm, or the Ontario provincial standard for post-industrial cleanup sites of 200ppm. Lead is a known probable carcinogen with no known threshold. Even the recommended maximum levels of exposure may increase cancer risks.

When the SARA group announced their conclusions, community activists, academics, labour organizers and other community members, including Seguin and Ball, countered the "little risk" findings by forming the Community Committee on the Soils Study (CCSS).

Joan Kuyek, chair of the CCSS, explains that the goal of the Committee is to involve the public as much as possible in decisions that affect them with regards to the Soils Study. Currently, the Committee is calling for the Ontario government to provide further testing and analysis such as blood and hair testing, and more extensive testing of gardens. This is data that the community has requested and that the Study is not providing, Kuyek says. The CCSS is also expanding and holding public events in order to involve more people in the Committee's analysis and response to the Soils Study.

In addition, the CCSS is seeking an independent review for the Soil Study's next portion - the Environmental Assessment - which is expected to be released in early 2009.

"The reason why I am present [in the Community Committee] is because I want to keep this from happening to my son," Ball says in regards to living with heavy metal contamination in the Sudbury area. "I can't leave this mess for another generation to clean up."

In the fall of 2008, a union-sponsored report prepared by Environmental Defense Canada poked holes in the methodology used in the Sudbury Soils Study.

Environmental Defense's report, Human Health Risk Assessment, outlines key concerns for people living in the Sudbury area. It states that SARA's own conclusions are that lead, nickel and arsenic are above recommended exposure rates in a number of communities in the Sudbury region. Further, it reveals that the Soils Study does not take into account the compounded effect of multiple routes of exposure, nor does it consider how the environmental contaminants might interact with one another in the human body.

The report points out, for instance, that the levels of nickel found in the air are higher than recommended exposure limits for non-cancer and cancer effects in three communities. SARA dismissed the risk, stating that it was within acceptable range because it fell within a "margin of safety," when in fact margins of safety are intended to protect people who are more sensitive to contaminants, as well as provide a buffer for uncertainties in the data. They are not intended to discount the risk associated with higher levels of toxins.

Nickel has serious implications for health; in large enough quantities it increases chances of development of lung cancer, nose cancer, larynx cancer and prostate cancer, respiratory failure, birth defects, asthma and other conditions.

"In Sudbury, we have cancers that are 11 per cent higher than the national average. We have chronic obstructive lung disesases at 85 per cent higher, all this stuff that would be caused by these extra [contaminants]," says Seguin.

Another lingering topic of concern is the fact that the study's model subject in the calculation of health risks is a baby female born in Sudbury in 2005. While this model can be used to explore the health impacts on a vulnerable population, it also excludes anyone born prior to 2005, as well as workers who have been exposed to higher concentrations of metals and toxins in the smelters and mines.

Unions have been advocating a change in this approach since the formation of the TC was announced. The only reply from the TC has been that health risks that affect workers are the domain of the Ministry of Labour, not the Ministry of the Environment, and that they will therefore not touch the issue.

Seguin himself suffers from chronic obstructive lung disease resulting from his work as a labourer at Inco. The fact that many people in community have not responded to the soils study process affects him deeply. "When I get on this topic, I get very emotional about it. I take it to heart. I find it a hard thing to understand, how Sudburians would allow that to happen," he says, coughing and clearing his throat.

Currently, Vale Inco is applying for legal exception from new provincial legislation that requires that they reduce their nickel emissions, pushing for an alternate standard for nickel emission levels until 2015.

Shailagh Keaney is from Sudbury, in occupied Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory.

Homer Seguin

Copper Cliff, Sudbury

A Striking Outcome

dawn — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:14:30 +0000

Sudbury ‘78 resonates today

SUDBURY, ONTARIO–Twenty-four thousand workers rallied in September 1978, in a historic strike against Inco – a strike that forever changed the community of Sudbury and has had lingering reverberations for workers in the mining industry ever since. At the time, Inco was the second-largest nickel producer in the world, and the nickel deposits in Ontario were the largest on Earth.

In the late 1970s, Inco was on its way to bankruptcy: the company had too many workers on the books, costly operations and used and outdated equipment. Many people in Sudbury, including today’s Mayor John Rodriguez, say the company was like a house that was old and hadn’t been looked after for many years. More importantly, Inco had, until that point, controlled the price of nickel. When competition from Russia began to emerge in the world nickel market, Inco was not prepared, and began to see a drop in profits.

Every three years, workers with Inco, who are organized under the United Steelworkers (USW) union, must renegotiate their contract. When the workers' contract was up in July 1978, the company decided that the best way for them to save money would be by cutting pensions, wages and benefits. These were gains the USW had worked hard to achieve over decades.

"Inco was persistent all the way through negotiations – that if the concessions weren’t made, then there would be no collective agreement. We went past the July 10 deadline and in September we went back to the bargaining table once more to get Inco to move away from these concessions. They refused and on September 15, our members voted by 58 per cent to reject the collective agreement and take strike action," says Wayne Fraiser, who served on the bargaining committee for the Steelworkers throughout the strike.

In spite of ongoing bargaining during the strike, it took nine months before any agreement was reached.

Whether or not the small wage increase and pension package that workers received in the new contract was worth the fight is debatable. Thousands of workers lost their homes and cars from their inability to make the payments with their $20-per-month strike pay, and as nickel mining was Sudbury's primary industry, the city at large suffered.

Nickel has long been considered a 'strategic' metal, necessary for the manufacturing of arms and defense equipment, as well as for making stainless steel. The Sudbury strike in 1978 significantly impacted the world market for nickel.

Since 1979 Inco has undergone a tremendous amount of restructuring. They cut 20,000 employees from their staff and now have more people receiving payments from the pension roll than pay roll.

Malcolm Léger is now a pensioner who worked with Inco on the floor and as management for over 30 years. Léger believes the strike caused long-term psychological damage for the Sudbury’s workers and the wider labour movement.

“Every time we came up to negotiations, every three year cycle, we would remember the nine-month strike. And the shut-down period that came after the strike. And then we would remember the layoffs that happened afterward. Well, how do you think that made us feel? We would ask each other, ‘Are we in for another nine-month strike?’ It was in everybody’s brains and we were scared after of ever having to do it again. Even to this day.”

In 2006 Inco was bought by Brazilian mining company CVRD, which has since become Vale/Inco. The same year Inco was removed from the FTSE4GOOD index, which is designed by the Ethical Investment Research Service. Inco’s failures to meet the human rights criteria and environmental concerns were cited as reasons for the removal. The Steelworkers Union continues to represent the workers for Vale/Inco in the region of Sudbury.

The strike and its aftermath have emphasized the need to diversify the economy. "We don't ever want to go back and be beholden to the big mining companies again," says Mayor Rodriguez. He is busy lobbying to see mining profits used to help build and support other industries, such as research in environmental science and tourism.

Although The Dominion attempted to speak with a representative of Vale/Inco on numerous occasions, the company declined comment.

Amy Miller lived in Sudbury from 1980-1997 and credits the city for developing much of her analysis. She continues to visit her family, who live there.

Sudbury Stack

Two Ways to Be a Nation

Tim McSorley — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:16:06 +0000

Struggle for control of the "trillion-dollar Sudbury basin"

ATIKAMEKSHENG ANISHNAWBEK–In May of this year, the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek (Whitefish Lake) First Nation launched a land claim alleging that the Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850 has been violated by the Canadian and Ontario governments.

According to the Treaty, the reserve lands were to be "a tract of land [...] contained between two rivers called Whitefish River and Wanabitaseke seven miles inland."

The boundaries of the original treaty lands extend around almost all of Greater Sudbury up to Wanaitei Lake and past Dowling, halfway between Nairn and Espanola. The line cuts off half of Killarney Provincial Park and slices across territory just above Alban and the French River - 250,000 acres in total. However, when the land was surveyed by Crown officials 35 years later, the reserve was only a fifth of its agreed-upon size.

Since then, settler communities and industry have been set up on the remaining treaty lands. Railroads and mining operations have been established, and have extracted nickel, ore and minerals from the ground over the past 107 years.

Art Petahtegoose is the former chief of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek, and is one of the key people behind the claim. As a resident who grew up on the territory and a grandfather who has returned to the land, he has a strong connection to the area and an unbreakable commitment to his people.

He invited us to meet him on the powwow grounds on the edge of lake Atikameksheng, and spoke to us softly about the struggle for land that the people of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek have been locked into for the past 150 years.

As he understands it, all of the original treaty lands belong to the people of Atikameksheng Anishnawbek. Therefore, any money that has been produced through the use of these lands rightly belongs to them.

The financial aspect of the land claim amounts to over $550 billion, and is described by both the band and its lawyer as "conservative," especially considering the recent comments made by a mining executive that describe the "trillion-dollar Sudbury basin" as the richest mining district in North America.

Although the lawsuit's dollar figure has thus far garnered the most media attention, there is much more to this land claim than money. Survival and autonomy are also at the foundation of Petahtegoose's motivations for involving himself in the land claim.

To date, the vast majority of the resources extracted from the treaty lands has resulted in little or no compensation for the Anishnawbek of Atikameksheng.

Instead, there is rampant poverty on the reserve, as is the case for so many reserves across the land now known as Canada. Petahtegoose thinks the resources derived from the land of his people should go towards educating and supporting the community.

On an equally important level, the Anishnawbek of the area consider the land their home and their legacy: "For our people, it's part of our sense of being and there's a sacredness of this place because it's where our ancestors lived. This land is the mother, grandmother, grandfather of our people. We stay here because this is our home, We teach our children that it is our home. If you choose to live here, you must teach you children the same, that there is no other place to be as desirable."

The land has supported the Anishnawbek of Atikameksheng for generations through fishing, hunting, growing fruit and vegetables, and providing all of the resources necessary for survival. The lands have been encroached upon, mined, flooded, and logged, and the people's access to the sugar maple that they once tapped has been cut off.

While money is certainly at issue, Petahtegoose makes the goal of survival in the face of industry very clear: "If you kill the fish here, are you going to buy fish for this family for 100 years? How can you put a dollar figure on a family's ability to take care of itself?"
The claim includes reparation in the form of land, including treaty lands not currently inhabited by humans as well as other "Crown" lands. Petahtegoose envisions these as places where future generations could fish, hunt and perhaps set up businesses of their own.

Should the Band be successful, these reparations would be for damages inflicted not only by the government's breach of the Robinson Huron Treaty, but also by colonial legislation in general.

When the Indian Act came into effect in 1876, native populations in Canada were officially subjected to the rule of a government that they had never previously recognized as their own.

The government relegated people to reserve lands that it had drawn up itself, and then claimed control of these territories. According to Petahtegoose, this is racism in action. "When a reserve is created, colour becomes a factor in how people are looked at. It's been that way since early times," he said.

Petahtegoose goes on to explain that "the people are subjected to the Indian Act because of oppression. The original Indian Act made launching land claims illegal. In order to leave their home communities, First Nations people were required to carry a special pass. Community meetings were seen as potential for insurrection, and so they were criminalized."

Thus, in early colonial times, the Anishnawbek were put under surveillance by the government on lands where previously they had lived as a sovereign nation. The economic effects of government policy have also been deeply felt by the community. "We would not be living in the poverty that we are living in today were it not for the policies of the Crown and of the government," Petahtegoose states bluntly.

When asked what he hopes the claim will achieve, Petahtegoose says that he hopes that "where the line has been placed will challenge our government and the government of Canada. We will uncover what their hope was in signing the [Robinson-Huron] treaty with us. Our government will be posed with the question: 'Where do we go from here?' since we have become victims of policy of the Crown."

Aaron Detlor is the lawyer representing the Band for the purpose of the claim, and he is not so candid in his remarks. "I think that there was an effort to ensure that the reserve was as small as possible so that they could take advantage of the resources," he explains.

In fact, Petahtegoose doesn't even like to use the word 'claim' in this process. "This is our home," he says. "If anything, it is a claim of Canada against us. The land has always been ours."

Petahtegoose explains that the lawsuit is an action "very much" intended to challenge the Indian Act. The claim, as he describes it, will hopefully unearth the reasons for the reserve lands having been drawn at a fifth of their original size, as well as the reasons for the land having been put under government control.

So what does this legal challenge mean for the non-native people who are living on treaty lands?

Petahtegoose explains that he doesn't want to see anyone kicked out of their homes. And he philosophizes, "There are two sides, two ways to be a nation. One is that you create fence and you say 'this is mine.' You demonstrate with your behaviour all the ways that this is mine, and you don't invite people from outside the nation to take part. You make them unwelcome. Or two, you remove the fence. You share the resources because you both have to survive. That is the method that we have to work with."

And so, the distinction between the Anishnawbek and the colonizers is clear: "They put up fences,” explains Petahtegoose, “and said ‘this is mine.’"

The history of the Anishnawbek people is not widely known. Some might say that government-funded schools ensure that both Anishnawbek people and settlers will continue to be miseducated about their past.

As Petahtegoose clearly states, "We need to rewrite the history books because these are the histories not written in there. We must take a look at where it is where we are going. The outcome is the future that we are securing."

Shailagh Keaney is from Sudbury, in occupied Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory. She has a B.A. in Women's Studies and enjoys fixing bicycles.

Correction: The Indian Act was first passed in 1876, not 1985. The above text has been amended to reflect this.

Sudbury Tracks