The Dominion - Ardoch First Nation

A Violation of Algonquin Law

dawn — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:03:08 +0000

First Nations spearhead resistance to uranium mining

TORONTO, ONTARIO–Ardoch and Shabot Obaadjiwan Algonquins and their neighbours along Sharbot Lake learned in late 2006 that Frontenac Ventures Corporation (FVC) was planning a uranium mining project on the land they live on. They have refused to let that happen, withstanding long days and nights in the freezing cold, on hunger strikes and in prison. It has taken a toll on the communities, but it has also brought them closer together.

The land in question is in North Frontenac Township, southwest of Ottawa, in an area which is the subject of ongoing land claims between the Ontario government and the Algonquin people and their government. Algonquins say the land was never ceded, and that they should have the right to free, prior and informed consent before the Ontario government can sell mining concessions.

FVC, a private company based in Toronto that specializes in uranium mining in Canada, was granted permission to drill hundreds of 200-metre-deep holes for samples of uranium-rich granite, hoping to use the core samples to secure financial backing to develop a mine on the 30,000-acre site.

Paula Sherman, Ardoch Nation co-Chief, says that mining exploration is an affront to traditional Algonquin law, which mandates a healthy relationship with the land. Although FVC's geologists continue to insist that there will be no ill-effects from the process, ecologists maintain that a uranium mine will have dire environmental consequences.

According to MiningWatch Canada, uranium deposits in Ontario are typically so low in quantity – around one per cent – that mining requires removing huge quantities of rock, which is milled. Tonnes of hazardous tailings (waste rock) are left over. Byproducts released into the air during the process include deadly radon gas as well as thorium-230 and radium-226, which continue to be hazardous for thousands of years. Even exploratory drilling can contaminate the water table with radioactive materials.

Hundreds of Ardoch and Shabot First Nations protesters occupied the site of the planned exploratory drilling beginning in summer 2007. Over 150 local settlers also supported the protest from outside the fence, bringing food and other supplies to the camp. Donna Dillman, a 53-year-old grandmother and member of the Community Coalition Against Mining Uranium (CCAMU), went on a 68-day hunger strike at the gates of the barricade in an act of solidarity.

"We have been very lucky in that this is an issue that also impacts non-Algonquin people," Sherman said in an interview with The Dominion in October 2008. "We formed an alliance against this project in November of 2006 and it has been building momentum ever since. We remain strongly committed to this alliance and our partnership with our neighbours in stopping irresponsible development that poses a significant risk to the entire region."

Robert Lovelace, Ardoch co-Chief and Aboriginal Student Councilor at Fleming College in Peterborough, served more than three months in jail after being found guilty of contempt of court for refusing to obey an Ontario court injunction ordering protesters to leave the site. Lovelace was fined $25,000, and Sherman, $15,000. Lovelace was released in May 2008. In their decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal cited deep flaws in the province's antiquated Mining Act.

Sherman explains that their fines were stayed and they were awarded $50,000 by the court for their legal costs, $40,000 to be paid by FVC and $10,000 by Ontario, based on the fact that the province failed to uphold its fiduciary responsibilities to the Aboriginal community.

Not long after the court's decision in the Ardochs’ favour, Dalton McGuinty's government announced that it would be updating the Ontario Mining Act – but refused to include uranium in the public consultations. Provincial authorities have refused to hold an inquiry into the impacts of uranium mining and nuclear power.

"What [the province] says publicly is that they are committed to nuclear power, and that it would be hypocritical for them to be against uranium mining in our province," says Wolfe Erlichman of CCAMU.

"This government is very committed to mining... and the mining lobby is a very powerful group," says Erlichman.

According to the Ontario government, the province is the world's "mine-financing capital," with over 80 per cent of public financing for the global mining industry in 2006 going through the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"We do whatever we can. We tried to raise the issue during the [federal] election, and when they had the sessions to review the Mining Act, we had a big gathering in Kingston," says Erlichman. Around 200 people attended the public session, hoping to remind provincial representatives that 24 municipalities have asked for a moratorium on uranium exploration until environmental concerns and questions around First Nations land have been resolved.

"What they did at these sessions was, they killed us with kindness. They said, you can talk about whatever you want... but of course a ban on uranium mining wasn't on the table," Erlichman says.

The barricades came down in the spring, and there was little change in the situation for several months, aside from the general economic downturn. "The price of uranium has been going down," says Erlichman. "If the price of uranium had stayed high, I think there'd be more interest on the part of the company."

But in September, FVC filed for Leave to Appeal the Appellant Court decision that freed Robert Lovelace and stayed the fines against him and Sherman. In a statement, Lovelace responded, "We welcome the opportunity to argue the issues before the Supreme Court of Canada. Frontenac Ventures must be mad to have kicked this sleeping dog."

"We expect these to move forward and require a lot of work and funds," Sherman says. "We have initiated another fundraising campaign to support our resistance both within the court and in the region.”

To our knowledge, FVC has continued to pursue exploration work against our wishes on our land. All of the offers we have received from Ontario have had preexisting conditions to allow drilling, which we do not support and which we consider to be a violation of Algonquin law."

As of October, it appears the latest recourse may come from provincial law.

"It has recently come to our attention that while FVC was busy participating in our criminalization in the courts, they neglected to renew some of the permits that they had taken out with the province on our lands," Sherman says.

"These lands are no longer covered under the injunction and under Ontario law. FVC has no legal right to be there doing any work. They have appealed to have their permits renewed after the fact, and Ontario has now come to us with an offer to negotiate those permits. Our council met this past weekend and the prior decision to oppose uranium exploration in that area remains in force."

FVC president George White did not respond to calls for comment.

Erlichman admits that the process is frustrating, but not without hope. "It's been two years – there are some of us who have been literally working on this full-time for that long," he says. "They haven't drilled yet. So in one sense it's been a victory. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it becomes for them.

"Sharbot Lake is a fairly populated area as far as mine sites go," he adds. "If you think there's been an uproar now, it's nothing compared to what would happen if they actually announced there was going to be a mine."

Sara Falconer is a member of Toronto ABCF and co-publisher of 4strugglemag and Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar.

Sharbot Lake

Donna Dilman

Canada's Newest Political Prisoners

dawn — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:03:53 +0000

Indigenous leaders jailed for protesting mining exploration on their lands

TORONTO, ONTARIO–On March 18, 2008, Ontario Superior Court Judge Patrick Smith sentenced Chief Donny Morris and six other council members from the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation, a community of about 1,200 people in northern Ontario, to six months in jail for "contempt of court."

The group had defied a court order to stay away from a part of their land slated for mining by the Platinex Corporation. The judge applied the jail term rather than the fine as he knew the First Nation had gone bankrupt: the community had been fighting Platinex in court for several years after the company sued for $10 billion (later reduced to $10 million) for opposing drilling on KI territory.

Those charged served over two months in prison, eventually having their sentences reduced to time served. By the time they were released, they had exposed Ontario's Mining Act and the displacement of Indigenous Peoples for profit as a simmering issue throughout the country, awaiting its next crisis.

Legal trickery

Ontario's Mining Act is 135 years old and based on a "wild-west" model. It allows anyone to stake a claim anywhere on Crown land. This means that private companies can exploit public land for profit.

The legal question is whether the Mining Act supersedes all other laws and agreements.

In 2005 and 2006 Platinex attempted to explore and exploit land that, according to "Treaty 9," signed in 1929, belongs to KI First Nation. KI says the Mining Act is unconstitutional, bypassing the 'duty to consult,' and that mining on their land would threaten the First Nation's survival by destroying hunting and fishing habitats.

An attempt by Platinex to enter KI territory for drilling was denied by leaders in the community. The court claimed that if these leaders were not jailed, there would be a loss of respect for the law; the creation of two regimes of justice.

The KI have argued there are already two regimes of justice. "The government accuses First Nations of breaking Canadian laws when they defend their lands, but Canada itself is selective about which of its own laws it will abide by," said the Shabot Obaajiwan's spokesperson Earl Badour in a press release on March 18, 2008. "If the law doesn't serve their purposes, they conveniently ignore it."

In his sentencing of KI First Nation leaders, Judge Smith cited as precedent the jailing of Ardoch Algonquin Nation leader Bob Lovelace, who was sentenced on February 15 to six months in jail for trying to stop Frontenac Ventures from mining uranium on Ardoch Algonquin land, about 60km north of Kingston, Ontario.

Frontenac obtained a court order and an injunction rather than filing trespassing charges against Lovelace and other Indigenous protesters. Trespassing charges would have brought into question whose land was being trespassed upon: a can of worms the mining company wanted to avoid.

The Ardoch Algonquin First Nation and neighbouring Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation are also pointing to the disregard of the 'duty to consult' - something the Ontario government is legally bound to do, according to previous Supreme Court rulings and the Canadian constitution. The duty to consult means that Indigenous communities must be meaningfully consulted on resource exploration on their lands, a requirement that clashes with Ontario's Mining Act.

Mining Politics

The mining company Frontenac Ventures is shrouded in mystery. Mining researcher Jamie Kneen told IPS's Chris Arsenault, "Aside from the President and their lawyer, no one knows who they are or where they get their money." Frontenac's President, George White, refused to answer media calls.

The lawyer for Frontenac, Neil Smitheman, is also representing Platinex. The two companies have a lot of the same concerns. Indeed, when the provincial court ruled in 2006 that Platinex was to cease operations while consultations were held with KI, Smitheman said: "There are numerous mining companies and exploration companies that could be in a similar situation if there's a failure to have proper consultation on lands that could be subject to a claim by First Nations people." Apparently the court came to the same conclusion, deciding in 2007 that Platinex could in fact drill on KI's territories – that the Ontario Mining Act overruled the constitutional duty to consult.

For a sense of what KI territory might face if uranium mining does take place, there is precedent. The Elliot Lake uranium mine, also in northern Ontario, left 130 million tons of toxic tailings and destroyed the Serpent Lake ecosystem.

"Uranium mining has no record other than environmental destruction and negative health issues," says Doreen Davis, another Algonquin leader who was also sentenced to jail time.

While the environmental and social costs of mining uranium in Canada's north may be huge, the effect, even if the mine does not go through, is chilling.

"As even the mine promoter's lawyer has admitted in court hearings, there is a vanishingly small chance a uranium mine will ever get built at the headwaters of the Mississippi River northwest of Sharbot Lake," notes
Paul McKay, a friend and neighbour of Lovelace's, in an op-ed in the Kingston Whig-Standard. "Compared to other deposits in Saskatchewan, Australia, South Africa and Asia, the ore is laughably low-grade, and the cost to mine fatally high."

So why is the Ontario government allowing Platinex to push ahead, and jailing those who oppose the mine?

The point of these jailings, McKay argues, is a two-fold political message. One, to the mining companies: the mineral wealth of the north is open to access and the government will clear any Indigenous resistance out of the way. Two, to the Indigenous: any resistance against the latest bonanza of extraction and destruction will be met with criminalization and jail time.

Government games and the Indigenous response

A March 20 press release from First Nations of Sachigo Lake, Bearskin Lake, Muskrat Dam, Kasabonika, Wunnimun, Wapekeka, Kingfisher and Wawakapewin called for sustained opposition to the court's decision to jail KI protesters, and the mining companies' stance.

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs suggested the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) tear up its Memorandum of Understanding with the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, signed on March 4, 2008.

From their press release of March 18, 2008: "The community members have been jailed for protecting their title and rights to their territories and any continued relationship with the mining industry will be indelibly stained by these shocking events...Given the ugly, thuggish approach demonstrated thus far by the courts and by the mining industry, it is of the utmost importance to show our support of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation and refuse to have any relationship with the mining industry."

The Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) suspended mining-related negotiations with the Ontario government the day after the KI leaders were sentenced. "It was a real insult to all First Nations," Alvin Fiddler, Deputy Grand Chief of NAN, told reporters on March 19.

AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine visited some of the jailed leaders in Thunder Bay on March 22 and called the jailing an obstacle to peace. Canada's Anglican Primate, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, wrote a letter on March 25 to Ontario's Premier, saying the jailing arises "out of the continual imposition of the power and values of colonizers."

The Grand Chief of NAN, Stan Beardy, was quoted in the Kingston Whig-Standard, arguing that other political considerations were at work. "The McGuinty government got labelled weak in dealing with Caledonia [Six Nations blockade in Ontario] and now they say, 'We're not weak and we'll show you by throwing these Indians in jail...'"

The federal government has been silent on the issue, sending a message that Indigenous issues are not national issues, but for provincial governments to deal with. The Ontario government is using familiar tactics.

While the Superior Court imposes jail sentences, the provincial government's Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Michael Bryant, offers a ‘compromise': the leaders don't go to jail, pay only some of the fines, and allow the mining to continue. In other words, surrender the land.

"What is happening here is we've been criminalized for practising our way of living," says Beardy. "The government wants to make an example of us. What's being done is, once more, we're being moved out of the way, our valuable resources are being exploited and everybody is benefiting except us."

A version of this article previously appeared in Znet.

Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer and activist, who blogs at killingtrain.

KI Protest

Native Leader Serving Six Months for Opposing Mine

hillarybain — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:22:36 +0000

Supporters call Algonquin leader a "political prisoner"

Algonquin community leader Robert Lovelace had never been charged with an offence, but when a uranium company began prospecting for radioactive ore on unceded First Nations land without engaging in consultation, he decided to take action and organized a non-violent blockade.

On February 15, Judge Cunningham of Ontario's Superior Court sentenced Lovelace to six months in jail for contempt of court and fined him $50,000 for his involvement in the peaceful protest.

Chief Paula Sherman, elected leader of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, a small community about 110 kilometres southwest of Ottawa, where the controversial uranium prospecting is taking place, calls Robert Lovelace "a political prisoner."

"It seems like a very heavy sentence," said Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch Canada, a non-governmental watchdog. "If the court had issued a trespassing charge, there could have been an argument about who was really trespassing."

The territory in question involves mainly Crown land that is subject to ongoing land-claim negotiations between First Nations and the provincial and federal governments.

In September 2007, an Ontario provincial court issued Frontenac Ventures, the mining company, an interlocutory injunction ordering protestors from Ardoch and Sharbot Lake First Nations, along with their non-native allies, to vacate the Robertsville camp. The camp is the only feasible entry point to a 30,000-acre wilderness tract in Frontenac County, where the company has its prospecting license. Lovelace and other activists violated that order.

"The source of this conflict is the Ontario Mining Act, which allows companies to stake land and prospect without consultation with private land owners or other users, including First Nations," said Kneen. Lovelace and other activists argue their constitutional rights were violated by the lack of consultation.

People living on or near the exploration site discovered their land was being taken almost two years ago. There were no community meetings or information sessions about the uranium exploration. "It started on private land when a cottager saw trees being cut and started protesting the development," said Kneen. A few months later it became clear that some of the land being staked was disputed territory.

"Uranium mining has no record other than environmental destruction and negative health issues," said Doreen Davis, chief of the Shabot Lake First Nation. "Uranium can't be stored safely," said Davis, who will be sentenced on March 18 for participating in the blockade. She is under court order not to talk about the dispute with Frontenac.

"I do know that we have communities from Kingston to Ottawa on our side against uranium mining in this district," said Davis. "A huge group of settlers, that's what they call themselves, have been working with us, pounding the pavement and educating people about this. I think it is unique to have aboriginal and non-aboriginal people standing shoulder-to-shoulder like this."

The federal government has yet to get involved in this case and Ontario's provincial government has only been reluctantly and peripherally involved, according to Kneen.

Not much is known about the company at the centre of the dispute. "Frontenac is a private company, so they don't have to file any disclosure," said Kneen. "Aside from the president and their lawyer, no one knows who they are or where they get their money."

The company's website has only one page and a press release. Frontenac's president, George White, did not return calls. The website says the company "is committed to participating in any efforts of Ontario and the First Nations' to consult in good faith," but Ardoch Chief Paula Sherman isn't convinced.

"No consideration was given to the circumstances leading to our actions," said Sherman in a statement following Lovelace's sentencing. "The testimony given under oath by Robert Lovelace outlined Algonquin Law and the corresponding responsibilities of Algonquin people with respect to human activity in our territory," wrote Sherman, who was fined $15,000 during the court case for breaking the injunction that prohibited protests on land being explored by Frontenac.

Because the company obtained a court order against protestors rather than filing trespassing charges, the judge was not required to consider arguments regarding historical precedent or Algonquin legal codes when making the decision. "It's a way of avoiding the core issues," said Kneen.

After a decade of low prices, the spot price of uranium has increased drastically in recent years, from $43 per pound in 2006, to $75 today.

As oil prices rise, countries have re-started old nuclear reactors and countries like South Africa, India and China have ambitious nuclear-power plans on the horizon. UBS, a financial services company, predicts uranium will hit $110 per pound by 2010.

These developments don't sit well with Dr. Mark Winfield, a Canadian nuclear expert. "Existing [uranium] mines in northern Saskatchewan have caused severe contamination through heavy metals like arsenic, and long-lived radionuclides, along with conventional pollutants," said Winfield.

In 2004, Health Canada concluded that effluent from uranium mines meets the definition of a toxic substance under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Canada is the world's largest supplier of uranium and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to increase exports in his bid to transform the country into an "energy superpower."

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was very clear that nuclear [energy] can't compete economically," said Winfield. "The potential health and environmental impacts of uranium mining are not worth the risks."

A version of this article appeared on Inter Press Service

Blockade Gates