The Dominion - Kim Petersen

July Books

Moira Peters — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 09:19:39 +0000

Non-fiction by Prince, graphic novel by Hill

The Politics of Black Women’s Hair
Althea Prince
Insomniac Press: London, ON, 2009

Black women’s hair has always possessed a certain sort of magnetism that attracts (often unsolicited) pats and tugs, as well as inquiries about its properties and care. However, recently the hair of Black sistas has been drawing unusual attention, and not just on The View. Between Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair, Tyra Banks reveal of the hair that lies beneath her weaves, and general fascination with Michelle Obama’s fashion sense—hairdos included—Black women’s hair has become quite a “hot topic.”

To provide further insight into the phenomenon of “Black women’s hair”, sociologist and novelist Althea Prince presents readers with The Politics of Black Women’s Hair, a brief anthology that analyzes the complex relationship that women of African descent have with their tresses, through the use of the personal essay form, interviews, excerpts from the media, and observations.

Prince begins by tracing the subject back to the negative historical depictions of Black people, as seen in the late nineteenth-century Golliwog and Little Black Sambo storybooks, which caricatured stereotypical “Black” features, such as pitch-black skin, huge red lips, and woolly hair. She argues that the mainstream beauty ideal, reinforced by such imagery, was internalized by Black women and girls and has “dictated” their hairstyle choices ever since. Natural black hair has thus been equated with “political” hair. This notion, which is addressed throughout the book, is highlighted in a chapter dedicated to the significance of the “relaxed,” and therefore relaxing, nature of Michelle Obama’s hair.

Prince also features personal essays by Black mothers and daughters from Canada, the US, the UK, the Caribbean and South America, providing a glimpse into the Black female hair experience from a diasporic perspective. Their stories illustrate the psychological and sociological impact that attempting to measure-up to the “yardstick of mainstream beauty”, namely the European aesthetic, has had on Black women. The essayists speak about how their efforts to attain the beauty ideal (by straightening their hair with chemicals and hot combs), or their lack of desire to do so (by opting to go shaven or wearing it in its natural state), has affected both their personal and professional lives.

The Politics of Black Women’s Hair could have benefited from expanding its scope to include the perspectives of African women and Black men (whose perceived views are mentioned frequently in the text). Given the author's intention to write a "little book," Prince successfully outlines the complexities of a topic that can get rather hairy. The Politics of Black Women’s Hair achieves its purpose: to establish that Black hair is beautiful and assist Black girls and women with learning how to embrace that fact.

—Ndija Anderson

The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book
Gord Hill
Arsenal Pulp Press: Vancouver, 2010

Comics aren't always known for treating serious subjects, but Gord Hill's The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book adds a dose of reality to the genre.

Hill, of the Kwakwaka'wakw nation, has taken the topics of dispossession, genocide, and the colonization of First Nations in the western hemisphere and, surprisingly, pulled off a rendering in comic book form. The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, published by Arsenal Pulp Press, presents in black-and-white panels the history of the overseas invasion by Europeans and the resistance of Indigenous peoples.

As a medium, comics have many attractions. They engage visually. They give information in bite-sized chunks—ideal for the modern reader's short attention span. They are fun.

Much of colonial history in the Americas has been sanitized—indeed, current Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper denies colonization ever occurred in Canada. Today, the European invasion of Indigenous territories is often depicted in popular culture as the settlement of an untamed wilderness, a terra nullius, not the homeland of sophisticated civilizations who often fiercely contested Europeans' claims to their lands.

Hill seeks to visually combat this narrative. “The story of our ancestors' resistance is minimized, or erased entirely," he writes in the preface. "This strategy has been used to impose capitalist ideology on people, to pacify them, and to portray their struggle as doomed to failure.”

Knowledge is key to fighting an oppressive system. “When we know and understand this history of oppression, we will be better able to fight the system it created,” he writes.

One way to counter the colonial depiction of history is to “always call things by their right name" as enjoined by Philip Deere, a Muskogee-Creek involved with the American Indian Movement. For instance, Hill places British Columbia within quotation marks, thereby questioning the legitimacy and morality of so-naming unceded First Nations territory. 500 Years of Resistance does this unevenly, though; Hill and Ward Churchill in his introduction use inaccurate designations for Indigenous peoples: “American Indian,” “Mohawk” instead of “Kanienkehaka,” “Huron” instead of “Wyandot.”

500 Years of Resistance roots invasion in the voyage of Genovese navigator Christopher Columbus, who encountered the Taino people in the Caribbean during his infamous 1492 voyage from Europe. It continues through to 1890—describing the Incan Mapuche, Pueblo, Pontiac, Seminole, Apache, Lakota, and Pacific Northwest Indigenous resistances to the colonists—and the fight to maintain their lifeways on their territories—at which point Hill signals the end of military Indigenous resistance. Millions of Original Peoples had been wiped out, many by warfare, but mostly by European-introduced diseases. The treaty process then picked up (a process noticeably absent from much of "BC"), and assimilation took over.

Hill tells of colonizers imposing slave labour, of barbarity, of disease epidemics, of greed for gold, of land theft and of the insinuation and imposition of the capitalist system during settling of the "New World." To maintain the dispossession of their land and resources, the invaders tried to assimilate the remaining Original Peoples into European ways of being through religious conversion, the Indian Residential School system, and the imposition of the capitalist economic system.

Despite diligent colonial efforts to break them away from their identities—so closely tied to their land—Indigenous peoples persist in struggles for self-determination. Hill captures this graphically—from war on the Pacific Northwest coast, to the '68 rebellion and Wounded Knee, Oka, Chiapas, Ts'peten, and Aazhoodena. 500 Years of Resistance is a well-drawn comic book that resurrects the history “erased, replaced by the occupying nation.”

—Kim Petersen

Kim Petersen is Original Peoples editor with The Dominion.

Ndija Anderson, a law student at McGill University, was a 2006-2007 Thomas J. Watson Fellow, which allowed her to travel to seven countries to research the practice and aesthetic of hair braiding and locking in various cultures.

The Politics of Black Women's Hair

500 Years

Can There Be a Salmon People Without Wild Salmon?

Moira Peters — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 05:19:48 +0000

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, BC)—On May 8, 2010, thousands of people flowed across the lawns of BC's legislature in Victoria to protest open-net salmon farming, which Indigenous communities and others are blaming for catastrophic declines in the wild salmon population.

Calling for wild salmon to take priority over farmed salmon, a contingent led by First Nations set off on April 23 from Sointula, at the north end of Vancouver Farms, and walked for two weeks to Victoria.

Two local dailies, The Vancouver Sun and The Province, both gave a figure of about 1,000 at the legislature, while The Globe and Mail estimated 4,000, but Alexander Morton, one of the organizers of the “Get Out Migration” march, counted many more.

“The Parliament lawns reportedly hold 20,000 people and looking out over the sea of people less than one-third of the lawn was visible,” said Morton.

The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest were historically referred to as the Salmon People—their communities, stales, and culture thrived in unison with the salmon, which provided sustenance for humans and much of the ecosystem.

But the increasing number of commercial fish farms, which raise salmon in open-net cages in the ocean, poses a threat to First Nations.

Farmed salmon have been blamed for increasing parasitic sea lice and causing viral epidemics among wild salmon.

“The fish farms operating in our territories are killing wild salmon, the lifeblood of all life that reside in our territories and the lifeblood of our culture,” said Bob Chamberlin, Chief of the Kwicksutaineuk Ah-kwa-mish First Nation (KAFN) on northeastern Vancouver Island, near Alert Bay.

In a February 18, 2010 press release, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) stated, “The UBCIC has long-held the opinion that salmon fish farms has proven to have had a lethal and irreversibly toxic impact on indigenous runs of wild salmon. Especially where there is a concentration of fish farms in waters used by juvenile salmon exposed to the high concentrations of sea-lice from these fish farms.”

During the Vancouver Olympics, the UBCIC Executive joined 45 people who participated in a fast that supported the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council’s (MTTC) opposition to fish farm tenures in the Broughton Archipelago, in northwest Vancouver Island. They fasted for 29 hours, one hour each for the 29 salmon farms operating in the traditional territory of coastal MTTC.

The UBCIC took aim at Norway, home to most of BC's salmon-farming corporations.

“Norway voted to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It was an historical vote and to Indigenous peoples it is regarded as a solemn commitment to universal human rights,” said Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo. “Companies headquartered in countries who voted to adopt the Declaration, such as Norway, should apply the standards of the Declaration in all of their relationships with Indigenous Peoples domestically and internationally.”

“Norwegian-owned salmon farms operating in our traditional territorial waters are killing wild salmon and strangling the lifeblood of our whole culture,” said Chief Chamberlin.

The plight of the salmon has been linked with the poor health of the First Nations. In 1997, Chief Simon Lucas of the BC Aboriginal Fisheries Commission issued a warning about the negative impact of salmon farming on wild salmon.

“The issue for us is about home, about how we're dying,” he said. “If you affect in any way the clams and the other marine life, you're going to affect us.”

In The Salmon People: The Story of Canada's West Coast Salmon Fishing Industry, author Hugh W. McKervill writes about the integral role salmon play in Indigenous cultures of the North Pacific Coast.

“The people of the North Pacific Coast were and still are 'The Salmon People,'” he writes. The capture of first salmon is celebrated as if the salmon were an “honoured guest of the rank of a visiting chief.” But colonists changed the Indigenous peoples' relationship with salmon.

"Native peoples controlled their fisheries through right of use and exclusion that predated non-Native interference," writes University of British Columbia law professor Douglas C. Harris. "The Native's claim was a moral and ultimately legal claim, based not only on efficient management or material need but also on a sense of right that originated within their cultures.”

But the moral and legal claim of the Indigenous peoples was not triumphant.

“After 1894, no part of the Native fishery was exempt under Canadian law from state regulation; in this sense the legal capture of the resource was complete,” Harris writes.

Harris describes the law as an instrument of cultural domination used by colonial powers to take and justify control of other territories and peoples.

More recently, First Nations have begun attempting to use the law to their advantage, to stop salmon farming.

On February 4, 2010, KAFN filed a class-action lawsuit against the BC government’s regulation of open net-cage salmon farms.

Chief Chamberlin said the lawsuit was a last resort.

“We have been patient and respectful, attending countless meetings while damage continues to be inflicted on the wild salmon by open net-cage salmon farms,” he said. “Wild salmon stocks throughout the entire Broughton are in a sustained and serious decline; some salmon runs may become extinct and never be replaced. The salmon have existed here as long as we have, and it is essential to the survival of our distinct aboriginal culture that plentiful stocks of wild salmon survive.”

Harris told The Dominion that the KAFN civil suit says much about the status quo.

“The fact that this dispute is being deliberated, argued, and decided in a Canadian court is revealing of the longer ongoing colonial control,” Harris said.

Turning to the BC courts might be interpreted as recognition of colonial jurisdiction, Harris said. With an independent court option closed to First Nations, weighing the survival of wild salmon against Indigenous rights becomes a “strategic decision.”

Among the crowd of wild salmon advocates gathered at Centennial Square behind Victoria City Hall—prior to the final march to the Parliament Buildings—was John Haughen of the Nlaka'pamux Nation.

“[Legal action] is the only tool we have since we've been allowed to hire lawyers and use the courts,” he said.

Deata Taylor of the Dzawada'eneuw First Nation on Kingcombe Inlet supports Chief Chamberlin's lawsuit. She does not, however, recognize the jurisdiction of the BC courts in First Nation territories.

“We should decide whether fish farms should be in our territories,” she said.

For more than a decade, a broad coalition of groups has been advocating a solution. In 1997, the Salmon Aquaculture Review alliance—whose members included First Nations, environmental groups, fishers unions, and legal advocacy groups—called for replacing net-pens with closed containment systems. These systems are closed off from and do not disrupt natural ocean environments.

Not all First Nations eschew salmon farming.

In 1987, Larry Greba of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans started aquaculture work for the Kitasoo/Xai'xais Nation on Klemtu Island in the Broughton Archipelago. He noted a collapse in commercial salmon fishing in the late 1980s, which caused the Kitasoo/Xaixais to turn to salmon farming and form a partnership with Marine Harvest. The Kitasoo/Xai'xais retained control over the development of the aquaculture sites so they could ensure a sustainable operation.

Greba focused on the economic impact for the community.

“The current situation for Kitasoo economically from salmon farming are 60 full time jobs, of which 18 are year round at the farm and 42 are with fish harvesting/transport and processing for 7–9 months per year at the processing plant in Klemtu,” he wrote in an email. “Total annual wages are about $1.5M to Kitasoo members and when the plant is operating the band has about a 60 per cent employment rate.”

When the plant is not operating, Greba says the employment dropped to about 40 per cent, but he added this was ameliorated by a long, steady processing season that qualified most workers for unemployment benefits.

Even the formerly anti-salmon farming Ahousaht First Nation on eastern Vancouver Island have switched sides and are engaging in salmon farming to create economic opportunities in a sustainable manner.

On May 5, 2010, the “Get Out Migration” marchers arrived at Nanaimo's Maffeo Sutton Park. Chief Doug White of the Snuneymuxw First Nation described the sacred relationship of his people to the salmon, the tradition of the salmon ceremony and the revered salmon petroglyph.

“The Snuneymuxw worldview ... is one that has salmon at the center,” White said.

White stated that the 1854 Douglas Treaty, signed by British Columbia's first governor with some First Nations, ceded Indigenous rights to some land but also recognized the way of life of the Snuneymuxw people, including the Snuneymuxw’s relationship to salmon and the right of engagement.

Morton criticized Norway and its multinational aquaculture.

“For 20 years, Norwegians have done this [salmon farming]. It is time to admit it was a mistake.” Salmon farms need to be pulled out of the seas, she said. She called on people to be firm with the government.

“Salmon are dying because of politics.”

People from the Pacific Northwest First Nations have long been the Salmon People. However, the multitude that turned out in Victoria on May 7, 2010, demonstrates that Salmon People comprise a broad swath of society—both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Kim Petersen is the Original Peoples editor with The Dominion.

Salmon rock

Norwegian Farms Poison the Wild Run

Moira Peters — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:14:47 +0000

BC's salmon stocks plunge; sea lice, salmon farms to blame

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, BC)—In the late 1980s, as Norway's Consul General in Vancouver was paving the way for Norwegian salmon farming operations in BC, Norway's former Prime Minister Gro Harlem headed the United Nations commission that produced the 1987 report, "Our Common Future," popularizing the concept of sustainable development.

Two decades have passed, and the salmon-farming industry, dominated by Norwegian multinationals, is charged with imperilling ecosystems worldwide, including in Norway.

In 2002, the spawning run of pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago off northeast Vancouver Island decreased from 3.6 million to 147,000—four per cent of its population the year before. Biologists pointed to sea lice from salmon farms as the culprit. Juvenile salmon, called smolts, leave the rivers where they are born and are forced to run a gauntlet of salmon farms once they reach the archipelago, where they are exposed to high numbers of sea lice.

“Everywhere there are salmon farms and wild salmon, the wild salmon are eaten to death by sea lice,” said Alexandra Morton, following the pink salmon collapse. Morton is a biologist and founder of the Raincoast Research Society which studies ecosystems and aquatic life on the BC coast.

Last summer, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) forecast over 10 million sockeye salmon spawners would return to Sto:lo (Fraser River). Fewer than 10 per cent returned. Morton again implicated sea lice from salmon farms in the Broughton Archipelago as the cause of the 90 per cent collapse in sockeye spawners.

Sockeye runs elsewhere did comparably well, Morton noted, such as in N'ch-iwana (Columbia River), Somass River and Heydon Creek—the latter situated north of the Campbell River fish farm cluster.

Morton sees a bigger threat to wild salmon than sea lice. “I know sea lice are on the Fraser sockeye—I first found this in 2005—but I think the issue is farm disease in this case.”

“The biggest threat is the virus ISA [Infectious Salmon Anaemia],” said Morton, “but sea lice are a problem enough that they [the sea lice] can destroy [wild salmon].”

Salmon in Chile, Norway, Scotland and New Brunswick have all suffered ISA outbreaks.

“What Alexandra means is that ISA is a serious imminent threat because wild Pacific salmon may not be immune to strains of ISA present in farm salmon eggs imported from Atlantic waters," geophysist Dr. Neil Frazer told The Dominion.

"If a wild population suffers a very large decline, recovery is uncertain because the ecological niche of the devastated species may be filled by other species,” he said.

A myriad of factors impact the viability of wild salmon in BC: clearcut logging, global warming, agricultural runoff and dam construction. According to the BC Salmon Farmers Association, salmon farming began in BC in the early 1970s. In 1984, it was introduced into the seascape of Broughton Archipelago. The Broughton Archipelago now supports 29 salmon-farming operations, BC’s highest concentration of salmon farms.

In their 2006 book, An Upstream Battle, Karl K. English, Glova J. Gordon, and Anita C. Blakely reported a 70-93 per cent decline in salmon stocks in 10 areas in BC since the early 1990s.

Wild salmon advocacy circles have recently begun to pressure Norway—where multi-national salmon-farming headquarters of the likes of Marine Harvest, Cremaq and Grieg Seafood own 92 per cent of BC's salmon farms.

“Norway is the key to solving the salmon-farming problem and [is] still home to healthy wild Atlantic salmon populations,” said Don Staniford of Pure Salmon Campaign, a global salmon advocacy project. “There is still time to save Atlantic wild salmon by moving the farms out of the path of migrating smolts. And in the Pacific, the solution is equally as simple.”

Even Norway's richest man, John Fredriksen, an avid fisherman and majority owner of the world's largest salmon-farming corporation, Marine Harvest, was alarmed: “I am worried for the wild salmon’s future. Fish farming should not be allowed in fjords with salmon rivers,” said Fredricksen in 2007 to Norway's Altaposten.

Staniford, who was in Norway last May, reported sympathy among Norwegians, whose own wild salmon are plagued by infestations of sea lice, and who support an end to open-water net salmon farming.

“Norwegians are now rising up and standing up for wild salmon,” said Staniford. “Over the last year there has been a sea change in public perception of the salmon farming industry in Norway." Staniford sees Norwegian fishermen, river owners, politicians, environmentalists and citizens as increasingly critical of the salmon-farming industry plagued with sea lice and escapes of farmed salmon.

The Vancouver Olympics brought another opportunity to pressure the Norwegian government: Norway's King Harald V was in attendance at the Games. On a sunny Saturday, February 20, the eighth day of the 2010 Winter Olympics, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) and Wild Salmon Circle held a rally in Vancouver’s Vanier Park. Although Harold V was not among them, about 200 people turned out to hear featured speakers Morton, Staniford, ex-DFO biologist Otto Langer, and Kwicksutaineuk Ah-kwa-mish First Nation Chief Bob Chamberlin.

“Considering the Olympics were on—a big distraction and the reason we held the rally now—there was a great turnout,” said Maria Morlin, biology professor and emcee at the rally. “I hope our message gets through to the Norwegian government loud and clear: don’t mess up our waters; you have enough problems with your own Atlantic salmon escapees and wild salmon collapses.”

“We have a long tradition of salmon in our culture, and to be unable to pass this tradition to our children is unthinkable,” said hereditary Chief Chamberlin, emphasizing the issue was not a short-term one.

Langer argued that moving the salmon to closed-containment was an unsatisfactory solution because of negative protein production. Langer said feeding the salmon would still require 5 to 10 kilograms of other fish to produce one kilogram of food pellets. Farming carnivorous fish in open net-cages or in closed containment facilities, he held, is simply not sustainable.

For those proud of the Brundtland Commission's work on sustainability, the unsustainability of Norwegian-owned salmon farms is a stark contradiction.

"I am not talking about all aquaculture. I am referring specifically to the massive scale Norwegian feedlots," said Morton on March 15.

"There are Canadian fish farmers who know how to use tanks on land who are not impacting our wild salmon and herring. This is about saving wild salmon and all of us who depend on them."

Morton announced Get Out Migration which will promote the cause of wild salmon through a walk, open to all the public, from Sointula to Victoria.

"We hold salmon as sacred because they so generously feed our world," said Morton. "They built the soil of this province with their flesh, they grow our children, they feed the trees that make the oxygen we breath, they are food security in a world losing ability to even pollinate flowers."

Kim Petersen is Original People's editor at The Dominion.

Salmon

Unceded, British Columbia

dawn — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 10:00:24 +0000

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, BC)—On 2 July, 2003, a gathering of the International Olympic Committee in Prague awarded the 2010 Winter Olympics to Vancouver-Whistler. The Canadian entry beat out competing bids from Salzburg, Austria and Pyeongchang, South Korea. The IOC decision has provided a venue for international attention on sovereignty in “British Columbia.”

Vancouver is situated in the traditional territories of Coast Salish First Nations, specifically the Skwxwú7mesh, Xwméthkwyiem and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. This land has never been surrendered. According to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, it is the "hunting grounds" "reserved" for the "Indians" where they "should not be molested or disturbed."

The same unceded status holds for Whistler. “Because we have no treaty with Canada, the imposition and encroachment of Whistler—their hydro lines, their highways, their railroad, in fact all infrastructure development for the 2010 Games—in our territory is illegal,” said James Louie of the Interior Salish St’at’imc Nation, in a press package put out by the Olympics Resistance Network.

Out of these contradictions, a slogan arose: “No Olympics on stolen native land!”

The Olympic Games is "an energy grab, it's a land grab, and it disrespects inherent Aboriginal rights and title to the land and water," Mel Bazil of the Wet'suwet'en and Gitxsan nations told The Dominion.

Vancouver is named after the British seafarer Captain George Vancouver whose cartography, according to University of St. Andrews professor Dan Clayton, helped lay the foundation for the settlement and colonization of BC. “Colonization is as much an ongoing, arbitrary and vacuously conceived process of inscription as it is a process of physical occupation, resettlement, and domination,” wrote Clayton in his book Islands of Truth: The Imperial Fashioning of Vancouver Island.

Contact disrupted Indigenous lifeways and trade with Europeans became dominant. “Native-Western interaction was circumscribed by the capitalist logic of creative destruction,” wrote Clayton.

Later, securing land for the outnumbered colonialists was prioritized by Vancouver Island Governor James Douglas. In the early 1850s, he entered into 14 treaties with First Nations, where land was sold to “the white people for ever” for cash, blankets and clothing.

Subsequent to the Douglas Treaties, Treaty 8 in northeastern BC, the Nisga'a treaty, and Tsawwassen First Nation treaty have been concluded. Officially, 60 First Nations are said to be negotiating land claims in the BC Treaty Process.

Traditionally, Coast Salish peoples inhabited an area extending from the N'ch-ĩwana (Columbia River) in Oregon to Bute Inlet in BC that includes the important waterways of the Salish Sea (Juan de Fuca Strait, Georgia Strait, and Puget Sound). Whistler is in the Coast Mountains range, 125 km north of Vancouver — the traditional territory of the Lil'wat Nation (an Interior Salish people).

The Skwxwú7mesh, Xwméthkwyiem and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, along with the Lil’wat Nation, comprise the Four Host First Nations for the 2010 Olympics. This casts the appearance of a First Nations welcome for the 2010 Olympics.

Indigenous rights activist, Elder Harriet Nahanee of the Pacheenaht Nation on southeast Vancouver Island, fought that appearance. In February, 2007, Nahanee, aged 71, died one week after she was released from prison for protesting the destruction of Eagleridge Bluffs, an area considered unique in biodiversity. The bluffs were being clear cut for the Olympics related expansion of the Sea-to-Sky highway, which connects Vancouver to Whistler.

“The Four Host Nations is a corporate body made up primarily of government-funded Indian Act band council chiefs, not hereditary chieftainships," stated Lil’wat Elder, Seislom, in a press package provided by the Olympics Resistance Network.

"An overwhelming number of Indigenous people in these territories and in the interior are opposed to the Olympics because of the long-term impact including destruction of the land, commodification of Native art and culture, and the creation of long-term poverty once the few token jobs are gone," he continued.

“We're raising the issue of colonialism and lack of legal jurisdiction by the government in addition to the issue of land and exploitation of Indigenous culture,” Gord Hill of the Kwakwakwak'w nation told The Dominion.

Hill pointed to 2010 Olympics sponsor Hudson's Bay Company's recent decision to refuse a bid from the Quw'utsun' First Nation, a Coast Salish people on lower Vancouver Island, who founded and made the famous Cowichan sweaters for over a century. Instead the Olympic sweater will be made in China.

The Quw'utsun' are upset over the loss of jobs and an allegedly mock sweater. Quw'utsun' Chief Lydia Hwitsum said the Cowichan sweater is a registered trademark. HBC in a press release claims its sweater design is an original.

“It is the reality of strong opposition to the Olympic Games by Native peoples that has forced VANOC to desperately try and create the perception of Native support for the Olympics by throwing a lot of money to a few select people," according to No 2010 Resistance.

With files from Dawn Paley. Kim Peterson is the Original Peoples editor for The Dominion.

For up-to-the-minute Olympics resistance coverage, check out the Vancouver Media Co-op, and the Convergence website. Follow the VMC on twitter!

Unceded, British Columbia

From Potlatch to Welfare

Moira Peters — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 06:18:09 +0000

Lutz on historical "dialogue" and the subordination of Indigenous economies in the Pacific Northwest

Makuk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations
John Sutton Lutz
Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, B.C.)—Captain James Cook and the crew of the HMS Resolution encountered the Mowachat people and Chief Maquinna at Yuquot. The Mowachat said to the visitors, “Makuk.” Makuk conveyed various meanings. It was an invitation to trade; it was an indication of confidence; and it signified a request for communication between cultures. University of Victoria history professor John Sutton Lutz chose makúk as the starting point to examine how dialogue, or lack of it, could explain the history of the relationship between Europeans and the Original Peoples of the Pacific Northwest.

The story, according to Lutz, is one of “an international process—the displacement of Aboriginal Peoples from control of resources, the resettlement of land by people of European descent, and the partial incorporation of Aboriginal peoples into the new Euro-Canadian economy and into the modern welfare state.” The Europeans would later settle on the territories of First Nations, sometimes with their approval (as with the Lekwungen), at other times without (as with the Tsilhqot'in). The colonies became a basis for extraterritorial encroachments by the colonists which eventually led them to claim all First Nations territories, waterways and resources.

****

Labour, writes Lutz, is how Europeans “valued themselves.” Eurocentric views about labour were seized upon to create the myth of the “lazy Indian”—and justified the Europeans in dispossessing of the Original Peoples of their land.

BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Allen McEachern echoed this stereotype in his 1991 judgment of the Delgamuukw case. He held that Original Peoples were unable to compete with the “relentless energy” of conquering Europeans.

Some fur traders called Indians “indolent” because they didn't need European goods and they enjoyed much leisure, “meaning a lack of interest in a European form of labour subordination.”

Many colonists contradict this portrayal. Lutz quotes fur trader Gabriele Franchere: “They possess, to an eminent degree, the qualities opposed to indolence, improvidence, and stupidity...” He draws upon many examples from Original Peoples demonstrating that laziness was anathema to them, noting their heavy involvement in the capitalist economy across myriad occupations, drawing on colonial accounts that contradict the myth, and explaining First Nations culture, where “everyone was expected to contribute in accordance with their abilities and place in society.”

Historical media accounts complained of Indians being too industrious and thus preventing White men from getting work. Moreover, Lutz points out that leisure time was essential to the Original Peoples's economy—spirituality and economy were not separate. Wsanec Chief David Latasse, who lived to be well past 100, revealed the secret of his long life: “I like work.”

****

Around the estuary of the N'ch-ĩwana (Columbia River) lived the Chinook people. A patois form of their language, known as Chinook, or wawa, became the basis for trade and communication among the peoples of the Pacific Northwest, offshore traders, and colonists. The Original Peoples, relates Lutz, considered wawa a White man's language, and colonists thought of it as “speaking Indian.”

Despite participating in the capitalist economy, Original Peoples maintained their subsistence and prestige economies, forming an interdependence among these systems. By selling their labour Original Peoples could expand their prestige economy. Lutz calls this combination of capitalist, subsistence and prestige economies a “moditional economy.”

However, Lutz points to a power imbalance in the dialogue between colonists and Original Peoples, expressed through wage work and dependence on welfare. With the dispossession of territory and resources from Original Peoples, they were cut off from their subsistence economy. Racist hiring practices locked Original Peoples outside the workforce. Alienated from their own economies and the wage economy, Original Peoples were forced onto welfare. Reports of Indian agents, persons granted fiduciary power over First Nations by the federal government, classify working Indians as “good” and non-working or Potlatching Indians as “some good” or “no good.”

By incorporating Original Peoples in their Eurocentric economy of labour, colonists often successfully dispossessed them of their territory and their culture. Lutz calls this dispossession a “peaceable subordination”—a subordination without subjugation.

****

Lutz notes that Original Peoples vanished from historical records between 1885 and 1970. He tries to explain this by looking at the Lekwungen (Songhees and Esquimalt peoples near present-day Victoria) and the Tsilhqot'in, situated in the remote Chilcotin plateau in the province of British Columbia.

Lekwungen society was hierarchical, with a gender-based division of labor, slavery, property ownership and wealth accumulation. Wealth was not hoarded for oneself; it was to be given away in Potlatch (wawa for “giving away”)—an important part of Pacific Northwest First Nations culture, particular to each nation. Potlaches were gatherings which celebrated special occasions (rights of passage, marriages, funerals, etc), repaid debts and declared status.

Most of “British Columbia" is still unceded, unsurrendered Indigenous territory. Only a few treaties have been signed; some of those by Vancouver Island Governor James Douglas when he started a “new regime of property relations” by signing treaties with six Lekwungen families for land. Initially, the Lekwungen became very wealthy from the sale of land. They helped build Fort Victoria and believed their assistance had given them a stake in the fort. Lutz notes, “In light of the consequences for the Lekwungen, it seems ironic that they welcomed, and assisted with, the building of Fort Victoria.”

The Lekwungen “participated in the capitalist economy...to participate more fully in their own.” Potlatches grew more elaborate. But a demise was nearing. The Potlatch would be outlawed by the federal government in 1885. This targeted the heart of Indigenous culture and society, with the intention of assimilation. Without Potlatch, there was little incentive to work.

Then came hitherto-unknown deadly infectious diseases, the scourge of alcoholism, racism, joblessness, the disempowering Indian Act, and the specter of starvation. The Lekwungen came to be seen by prominent colonists as a blight to be removed from the city core. The Lekwungen staunchly resisted for many years.

With the completion of CP Railway, a surfeit of Chinese workers came onto the labour market, which, along with a preference for White workers, displaced Original Peoples from jobs.

Original Peoples began to work in less skilled jobs, were paid less, received less in relief payments, and had a “disturbingly high rate of unemployment.” Kathleen Mooney's research of 1952-71 shows Indigenous men to be eight times more likely to be unemployed than non-Indigenous men.

The situation became so bad that in 1961 the Colonist warned of imminent starvation to a people who had never known hunger. Surrounded by abundant game, it was, in fact, legislated starvation.

****

The Tsilhqot'in were a “poorer,” egalitarian, non-hierarchical society. Remotely situated, the Tsilhqot'in had less contact with Europeans, resisted European encroachment onto their territory, and retained much more of their culture longer than did the Lekwungen.

In 1862, politician-turned-businessman Alfred Waddington led a push to build a road from the Bute Inlet across Tsilhqot'in territory into the goldfields at Barkerville. The Tsilhqot'in opposed the road through their territory, and in one incident, eight Tsilhqot'in men attacked one of Waddington's work camps, killing 14 road workers.

The colonial administration sent a militia after the defenders of Tsilhqot'in sovereignty. Lutz notes: “The only way the colony captured any Tsilhqot'in was by luring them to a peace talk and then clapping them in irons and trying them as murderers—a practice so unethical it made the presiding officials squirm.” Presiding Judge Matthew Begbie (to be remembered by his nickname 'The Hanging Judge') found that the captured Tsilhqot'in had been “most injudiciously treated.” He concluded that if the Tsilhqot'in people had been treated well, the “outrage would not have been perpetrated.” Nevertheless, six Tsilhqot'in were hanged for attacks on the work crew and others, leaving a black mark on BC history.

Despite the formidable growing conditions on the plateau, the province sought to “civilize” the Tsilhqot'in by turning them away from game hunting and toward farming. Authorities wanted to limit their traditional subsistence economy by enacting game laws. Eventually, the Tsilhqot'in—unable to hunt game, and displaced by White ranchers—migrated and became fishers of salmon. But the government also sought to protect commercial fisheries, and the salmon season was was eventually closed. This was even though Indian Agent E. McCleod had warned that a closed season on salmon created such a hardship that it sent a number of Tsilhqot'in into their graves.

Finally, a lack of jobs and available capital or collateral to receive financing, along with the crash of the cash economy after WWII, brought the welfare economy to the Original Peoples.

****

Lutz notes that “European 'settlement' was, in fact, a period of depopulation.” There was a great drop in population of Original Peoples between 1861 and 1871 (from 60,000 people to 37,000). Even so, 73.6 per cent of BC's population was Indigenous. These “lazy Indians” had been involved in many industries, such as trapping, mining, fishing, sealing, forestry, hop picking and the fish canneries.

During these years, trapping and fur trade became regulated by authorities; traditional Tsilhqot'in traplines were registered to non-Indigenous people. In the coal mines Original Peoples were displaced by Chinese; in the canneries they were displaced by Japanese. In forestry, Original Peoples were denied harvesting rights in 1910. The BC Forest Service's unwritten policy allocated only marginal timber lands to Original Peoples. Traditional methods of reef net fishing were outlawed. Original Peoples required permission from colonists to fish for food. The BC government sought to limit the size of the commercial fishery through a small boat buyback, disadvantaging the Original Peoples and favoring corporate fishers. As Lutz writes, the province “attempt[ed] to make fishing a 'white man's' industry.” After confederation, the federal government claimed the sea and the resources in it.

Original Peoples were prohibited from holding purse seiner—the most lucrative form of commercial fishing—licenses. Nuu-chah-nulth Peter Webster commented, “I think a lot of us became 'criminals' without really knowing the reason.”

During the years 1885-1970, Original Peoples were “vanished” from censuses, voting lists, annual reports, and other records. Statistics focused on formal capitalist economies. Massive immigration of other Europeans, Japanese, and Chinese to BC caused even further displacement. Game and fishing regulations pressured Original Peoples out of their subsistence economies and forced them into the wage economy and to eat White man's food, “as that was the only way to stay alive.” This caused Nuu-chah-nulth Charles Jones to lament in 1976: “I think all they do is dream up new laws against the Indians.”

****

Lutz writes that it was settlement, not contact, which marked the demise of Indigenous culture and history. History, he contends, has mainly been the monologue of colonists. “What histories would have been written had we asked Aboriginal People?” he asks.

Original Peoples talked about a “White Problem.” That "Problem" outlawed their Potlatches; instituted racism in hiring; enacted legislation that disenfranchised them; treated them as minors under law; declared their reserves to be crown land, unmortgageable; deprived them of their land and resources despite no surrender, and despite treaty rights; forbade their entrance into restaurants and other public facilities in the 1960s; sought labour solidarity along racial lines as unions were white-dominated; instituted compulsory schooling that broke up family economy; and forced Original Peoples onto relief.

Even relief (at a far lower level that that for Whites) was a Catch 22; Lutz writes: “That relief was based on the principle that it would be supplemented by subsistence foods, which they could no longer obtain!”

“By 1936, per capita relief spending for registered Indians was one-third that for other Canadians.” And still, Indians had to beg for relief cheques. Relief was not shameful; the Lekwungen called the Indian Agent “siem/leader of the Indian people” and it was the “siem's responsibility ...[of] providing for his/her people.”

Stó:lō Rena Peters said, “I'm going to take the welfare but I'm not going to call it welfare, I'm going to call it spirit money.” Some people might call it reparations.

Makúk was originally a way for Original Peoples to enrich their own economies. Lutz reminds us that “Prior to the establishment of white settlement, the Aboriginal peoples of present day British Columbia were among the richest and best-fed societies in the world.”

* In October 1999, the BC government officially apologized for the hangings of the Tsilhqot'in chiefs defending their territory, and erected a plaque describing the injustice and honoring the hanged. Judge Begbie is honored eponymously with buildings, mountains, a street, a school and a larger-than-life sized statue at the entrance to the BC Parliament buildings.

Kim Petersen is Original Peoples editor at The Dominion.

OP Makuk Cover

Sea Fare

Moira Peters — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:26:08 +0000

Cooking, Nuu-chah-nulth style

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, B.C.)–At first glance, despite its unfamiliar title, Čamus looks like most other cookbooks. However, Čamus is a cookbook that is about more than just cooking. Čamus is about food, nature and language; it is a reflection of a culture, a way of life, and about preserving that way of life.

On the cover is a slice of moist salmon fillet arranged on a bed of leeks, celery leaves and the leaf of a skunk cabbage. A few sprigs of green onions are laid across the fish. Below, photos of berries, crab, sea urchin and mussels indicate that seafood and nature’s foods will be prominent in the Nuu-chah-nulth style cookbook. Good taste is also important. Čamus (chum-us) is an adjective meaning the satisfaction of being well-fed.

The cookbook contains recipes from the 17 Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations found on the west coast of Vancouver Island and the Makah First Nation of Washington State. In addition to the Indigenous cuisine, the reader is also introduced to the culture, language, and philosophy of the Nuu-chah-nulth.

Tom Happynook, President of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, laments the drift away from the traditional foods. Although many elders still value the nutritional and medicinal benefits of the traditional Nuu-chah-nulth diet, eating traditionally is less common among young people.

There is scientific research linking eating traditional foods with eliminating obesity, heart disease, diabetes and other afflictions that plague Indigenous Peoples. This, says Happynook, “should be enough incentive to turn to our customary foods. Healthy people equals healthy communities.”

Happynook holds that eating is part of one’s cultural identity: “If we are to preserve our Nuu-chah-nulth-ness we must eat Nuu-chah-nulth foods.”

Dawn Foxcroft, spokeswoman for Uu-a-thluk (Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council Fisheries), sees “a lot of movement [projects, identified needs] in the communities towards a more traditional diet, eating foods from our territories and learning how to harvest and manage these resources.”

“With the cookbook we are also trying to promote the use of the resources—their use in a sustainable and respectful way—so that Nuu-chah-nulth people will go out into our territories and learn about harvesting, learn about management and the value of who they are and where they are from," says Foxcroft. "Also, we want people to go out with their families and learn how to harvest and where to harvest; this is one of the ways that keeps the culture alive and strong.”

Čamus includes a Nuu-chah-nulth Seasonal Round, a wheel that explains the territorial locales, months of the year and foods that are available for harvesting.

The cookbook cautions shellfish harvesters to check for water closures and never to harvest from water suspected of containing pollution.

Good food comes from a cared-for environment. Uu-a-thluk is devoted to the sustainability and management of the aquatic environment.

Each recipe in Čamus has a list of ingredients with instructions for combining and cooking. The cookbook is divided into three sections: ocean (with 39 fish-based recipes), beach (11 recipes) and land (15 recipes). The ocean-based recipes are tilted toward salmon (there are 15 salmon recipes); predictable, given the west coast locale and the long-intertwined history of the Nuu-chah-nulth people and salmon.

Many salmon lovers hold strong preferences between wild Pacific salmon and farmed salmon. Foxcroft finds, however, that consensus is lacking among the different Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations on this issue.

Consensus is not lacking about seafood. Fish, chiton, clam, oyster, mussel, barnacle and sea urchin recipes are found in Čamus. The land section carries recipes for duck, elk and deer. There are also recipes for the popular fried bread bannock (sapnin).

There are some meatless recipes, but Čamus is not a cookbook geared to vegetarians.

The book is an invitation to the adventurous. Some of the ingredients will be outside the average person's food repertoire—for example, salal, fish head, chitons, marinated alaria and gooseneck barnacles. Two recipes even feature whale meat: whale jerk candy and whale in the middle.

Like berries? There is also a seasonal berry chart for salmonberries, salal berries, bog cranberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries, wild strawberries, raspberries and blackberries.

The cookbook is peppered with tips like: “Salal berry leaves make a good antacid. Chew the leaf and suck juice from it.”

For the sun-dried berry candy recipe, Mamie Charles of the Hesquiaht First Nation remembers, “We used to use skunk cabbage [timuut] leaves for drying the berries, instead of cardboard.”

The Nuu-chah-nulth recipes indicate a non-wasteful, conservation ethic.

Says Foxcroft, “Nuu-chah-nulth people, like many other First Nations people, traditionally use all of an animal. I think that it is about respect for the animal and the connection to food and where the food is from. For example, when you prepare salmon, people use all of it; people eat the head, eyes, cheeks and skin. Where other people may throw away the salmon head, for many Nuu-chah-nulth it is a treat. Traditionally, the bones were put back in the river or ocean where they came from.”

Čamus offers much: from photos (black-and-white and colour) and illustrations to Nuu-chah-nulth vocabulary with each recipe and a phonetic alphabet at the back of the cookbook; there are sections devoted to canning salmon and underground baking; there is a recipe for kelp chips and a page devoted to kelp facts.

If the aphorism “you are what you eat” is valid, then Čamus is a great way to gain insight into the Nuu-chah-nulth people and at the same time reward one’s health and palate.

Bon appétit!

Kim Petersen is the Original Peoples Editor at The Dominion.

Gooseneck Barnacles

The Right to Whale

Moira Peters — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:32:28 +0000

First Nations encounter barriers to traditional whaling

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, B.C.)-On the Pacific Northwest coast, the nations of the Makah in Washington State and Nuu-chah-nulth on western Vancouver Island are struggling to engage once again with their heritage of whaling, which was suspended decades ago due to depleted whale populations.

On March 19, University of Washington American Indian Studies Professor Charlotte Coté was in Nanaimo to present a lecture entitled, “The Cultural, Societal, Spiritual and Dietary Importance of Putting Whales back on Our Dinner Tables: The Revitalization of Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth Whaling.”

Whaling, said Coté, is central to the identity of the Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth; it appears in their storytelling, art, and songs, and was also an essential part of their diet. The Makah and Nuu-chah-nulth are trying to reconnect with their traditional lifeways and the resumption of sustainable whaling is considered an important part of this.

Public opposition to hunting is strong for an iconic species such as whales. Moreover, the Makah face legal and bureaucratic barriers in the United States. In Canada, the Makah kinfolk—the Nuu-chah-nulth&mdashface lengthy treaty negotiations.

Article 4 of the 1885 Treaty of Neah Bay secured the right for the Makah (who call themselves Kwih-dich-chuh-ahtx: “The people who live by the rocks and seagulls”) to catch salmon, and hunt whales and seals. For this right and money, the treaty holds that the Makah relinquished “their right, title, and interest in” about 121,000 timbered hectares of Olympic Peninsula land in what is now Washington State.

Coté explained that the smallpox-decimated Makah Nation had little choice but to sign the treaty “to protect what they could protect.”

But even what was "protected" is now under threat.

Gray whales were plentiful before “Yankee whalers” decimated the stocks, says Coté. In 1937, the US banned gray whale hunting and in 1972, the gray whale was placed on the endangered species list.

The Makah and the Nuu-chah-nulth honoured the ban on whaling.

Coté said the number of gray whales had dropped to 1,500, but now about 24,000 ply the Pacific coastline. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (FOC) states the gray whale population peaked in 1998 at 27,000. Up to one-third died from a food shortage between 1998 and 2002, but the population has since stabilized and is possibly growing, according to FOC.

After the gray whale was removed from the endangered species list in 1994, the Makah were given permission from the International Whaling Commission to hunt 20 gray whales (a maximum of five per year) until 2004.

In May 1999, a 9-metre gray whale gave itself to the Makah. Coté explained that in the Indigenous parlance and belief system, they do not kill creatures; rather the creatures give themselves to the people.

The taking of the gray whale was a major cultural event and the Makah community shared its meat. Eating whale, says Coté, is “an example of self-determination"; it’s important for both the cultural health of the community and the physical health of many Indigenous peoples, she said.

“Canada takes approximately 1,000 whales per year for food," said Kathy Happynook, author of Whaling around the World and Whaling for Food. This is hunting solely by Indigenous peoples.

Happynook, of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation, noted that whaling has a long tradition among many Indigenous peoples in Canada: “[The Canadian government] pulled out of the International Whaling Commission in 1982 in order to protect the Inuit’s right to hunt whales. Until recently, Canada was one of the largest whaling nations in the world[in terms of the number of whales killed each year]. More than 50 communities still hunt whales in Canada.”

Not all First Nations in Canada are able to whale, however. The federal government has prolonged the whaling moratorium in the Maa-nulth (“villages along the coast”) Agreement—despite the gray whale population having reached a size where sustainable hunting can occur.

The Maa-nulth Agreement is a six-stage treaty negotiation process that started in 1994 to address First Nations aspirations and Indigenous rights to self-governance, which were recognized and affirmed under the 1982 Constitution Act. It involves the B.C. provincial government, the federal government and five Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations whose communities approved the draft Agreement in Principle: Huu-ay-aht First Nation, Ka:’yu:’k’t’h’/Che:k’tles7et’h First Nation, Toquaht Nation, Uchucklesaht Tribe and Ucluelet First Nation. The treaty, signed by the Maa-nulth First Nations and the B.C. provincial government on April 9, 2009, still awaits federal government ratification.

Whaling was dropped from the Maa-nulth Agreement language in 2006; however, there was a side-agreement where the Maa-nulth First Nations agreed, for 25 years effective from date of the treaty, to hold off exercising their traditional right to hunt gray whales and sei whales in return for other benefits. Kathy Happynook explained, "That was the only way Maa-nulth could get grey and sei whales in the [side-] agreement."

The side-agreement acknowledges the Maa-nulth First Nations to be "historic whaling nations" with the right to harvest Fish for domestic purposes. The definition of fish includes marine animals. Moreover, it was stated that, "The grey and sei whales have recovered from industrial exploitation and are no longer considered by Canada to be endangered species" and the "Maa-nulth First Nations have the ability to propose an allocation for harvest of grey and sei whales in an annual fishing plan."

Hereditary Huu-ay-aht Chief Tom Mexsis Happynook, grandson of a whaler and supporter of Indigenous rights, was pleased that the right to future whaling is preserved by the side-agreement, despite the fact that traditional whaling by the Nuu-chah-nulth people will not be possible for some decades to come.

For the Makah in the US, their treaty right remains, but court cases have kept exercising that right in abeyance.

In Anderson v. Evans (2004), the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Makah Nation must obtain a waiver from government regulatory bodies if they wish to whale. The Makah have applied for a waiver and await a decision.

According to the Makah Whaling Commission, the whaling is to be conducted humanely and is to be non-commercial, with meat being shared among all people in the Makah Nation. Moreover, the Makah Whaling Commission stated, “We will only permit whaling if there is an unmet traditional subsistence or cultural need for whale in the community.”

The Makah Nation seeks understanding in their quest to hold onto their culture and way of life: “We ask the public to remember that throughout the history of the United States there has been a sad record of intolerance of Indian culture. We hope that thoughtful Americans will ask themselves whether they can and should respect the efforts of a small Tribe which is trying to preserve its culture in ways that are consistent with the conservation of natural resources.”

Kim Petersen is Original Peoples Editor for The Dominion.

Makah Whaling

Land & Jail Part III

Moira Peters — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:00:21 +0000

Challenging the disproportionate incarceration of First Nations in Canada

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, B.C.)–“It is a scandal that Chief Nottaway spent Christmas in jail for peaceful civil disobedience to demand governments live up to their responsibilities,” said Federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May at a January 7 rally in support of the jailed Customary Chief in Ottawa.

Chief Benjamin Nottaway of the Barriere Lake First Nation was sentenced to two months' imprisonment for peacefully proclaiming rights to traditional territories in Western Quebec.

In 2001, the government of Canada reneged on the binding 1991 Trilateral Agreement, a sustainable development and resource co-management agreement between Canada and the Barriere Lake First Nation.

The Algonquins of Barriere Lake First Nation are demanding that the government uphold signed agreements and the right to choose their Customary Chief and council.

In March 2008, the federal government imposed a council on the Barriere Lake First Nation and, in November, Customary Chief Nottaway was sentenced to jail.

Although the incarceration of Nottaway may be a scandal, it is not out of the ordinary in Canada. According to many Indigenous people, the disproportionate incarceration of First Nations people is part of an ongoing racist colonization process. There is a movement in Quebec to revive the traditional Native court.

In 1999, the Supreme Court judgement R. v. Gladue noted that a 1976-77 study of admissions to Saskatchewan’s correctional system “contains findings that should shock the conscience of everyone in Canada.”

The Office of the Correctional Investigator Canada reported on November 16, 2006, that whereas the number of federal prisoners in Canada decreased by 12.5 per cent, the number of Indigenous peoples in federal prisons increased by 21.7 per cent. During the same period, the number of Indigenous women imprisoned federally shot up by 74.2 per cent.

Furthermore, it reported that Indigenous Peoples were overrepresented in maximum security, placed in segregation more often than non-Indigenous prisoners, were more likely to be turned down for parole and endure longer periods of incarceration.

At Vancouver Island University's Shq'apthut (a gathering place), all Indigenous Peoples I spoke with saw racism underlying the disproportionate incarceration of Indigenous Peoples in comparison to other Canadians.

Winston Wuttunee, a Nehiyaw (Cree), identified institutionalization fostered by the Indian Residential School System and wardship as linked to high incarceration rates.

Douglas Blanchard, an advocate for the Metis Nation, pointed to the carry-over effect from the foster care system (“the child grab of the '60s”), which he sees as having morphed from the Indian Residential School program. He said many incarcerated Indigenous Peoples had gone through the foster-care system.

Auditor General Sheila Fraser found in her May 2008 report that children on reserves across Canada are at very high risk to wind up in under-funded, poorly tracked foster care.

Jaime Seaweed, an aspiring lawyer from the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nation, views the justice system as archaic and needing change. “The whole system is corrupt.” Seaweed calls for traditional healing—for everyone, she adds—restorative justice within communities and better access to lawyers.

R. v. Gladue did acknowledge the “principles of restorative justice and the needs of the parties involved.” It noted the importance of community-based sanctions for Indigenous Peoples and called on sentencing judges to take into account “the unique circumstances of Aboriginal offenders.”

"There are too many of our people in the prison institutions," Hereditary Mig'maq Chief Gary Metallic in Quebec told The Dominion.

"My life work has been in the reviving and reassertion of our ancient traditional governments and our jurisdictions," he said. "One very important area that we identified is the need to revive our Native courts to counter the newcomers' courts that have been responsible for the illegal colonization of our lands and resources, and...incarceration of our peoples during the colonization process.

"The Mig'maq of our 7th District in Gaspe were fortunate in the '90s to have Dr. Bruce Clark work with us in the revival of our traditional Native court, called the Confederated Native Court, which consisted of four nations: the Mig'maq, Algonquin, Passamaquoddy and the Mohegan Nation; together we sat and deliberated on the illegal takeover of our lands and resources, and passed judgement which was titled The Confederated Native Court Judgement."

Chief Metallic says his group is closely watching the Barriere Lake First Nation case and had informed the judge and court that they “had no legal jurisdiction over unceded Algonquin territory and therefore the traditional people charged in the blockades had in fact never broken any laws when protecting their traditional territory.”

Metallic expects chicanery from the Quebec legal system, but the Confederated Native Court intends to reveal Quebec's “pretended jurisdiction” upon unceded Algonquin territory. The next step will be an impartial, third-party adjudication process in a neutral international forum to render “an unbiased ruling based on the evidence before it.”

"We will no longer be on the receiving end of their racist and foreign judicial systems that have been responsible for the illegal colonization of our peoples," says Metallic.

"Perhaps by reintroducing our Native courts we can stop the over-incarceration of our peoples within the prison system."

Read parts I and II of this series.

Kim Petersen is the Original People's Editor at The Dominion.

Benjamin Nottaway

Home, Moldy Home

Moira Peters — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Victoria paper investigates West Coast Indigenous housing crisis

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, BC)–Coming quickly on the heels of a seven-part exposé of an Indigenous housing crisis in Victoria-based newspaper Times Colonist, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) Minister Chuck Strahl promised $50 million for Indigenous housing on British Columbia reserves. It is part of the $400 million over the next two years already committed to on-reserve housing.

Stahl noted, "Some communities can't access enough capital to build and renovate homes while others lack the capacity to manage the housing stock effectively." He added, "We are far from finished with this task."

Assembly of First Nations BC Chief Sean Atleo responded to the annoucement cautiously: "What this means is we're moving from talk."

He alluded to the informative "Native Housing Crisis" series from February 8-14 as having spurred the action.

****

The West Coast of BC is a very rainy, moist climate. This presents challenges for healthful housing. Poorly constructed houses, overcrowding, and lack of proper sanitation provide prime conditions for the growth of molds that pose health risks to the occupants.

Reporters Judith Lavoie and Lindsay Kines of the Times Colonist compellingly wrote that a glaring number of homes on reserves are ill-suited for habitation. In "Native Housing Crisis," they did convey a crisis; however, the series was scant on background information and presented a 'mainstream' perspective, stating that reserves are Crown land. It did not delve deeply into the fact that most of BC is unceded First Nations territory.

The series identified a shortage of on-reserve land for housing as a problem. The federal government has a fiduciary responsibility for First Nations as well as a responsibility for Indigenous housing. Does the crisis compel the federal government to act?

"Native Housing Crisis" dispelled the myth that Indigenous peoples receive free housing. It noted that they receive a "grant" of between $20,000 and $40,000 per house.

On February 9, Times Colonist ran "Ugly reality of many reserves: Dirt and neglect" as a headline. Despite the "ugly reality" of "mess and uncleanliness on some reserves," the series pointed out how this overshadows serious issues, such as lack of incentives to maintain clean homes.

Lillian Jones of Snaw-Naw-As First Nation said, "There are run-down homes, and there are great homes. Unfortunately, run-down homes are more common. Dirty – now, that is a standard. Whose standard are we talking about and why is that an issue?

"The bigger picture," she said, "Is that First Nation people weren't born the way most are today. Today’s is a condition that is a result of gradual genocide. And, there are so many lies out there that First Nation people have their houses paid for, everything is paid for. Well, I'd love to invite the media out to say, hey, this is what is being paid for!"

"Native Housing Crisis" identified the reserve system to be at the core of the housing problem. It pointed to other contributing factors, such as the disrupted lifeways of Indigenous peoples; that assimilationist pressures are in place; and that the State fosters dependence in Indigenous peoples.

One solution the series pointed to is instilling a pride of ownership. However, the push to ownership might be contentious. KAIROS – a Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiative – finds the federal government promoting a municipalization of First Nation communities "designed to release the federal government from its fiduciary responsibility to maintain reserve infrastructure and housing."

Health complications such as allergies, asthma, respiratory illnesses and tuberculosis were cited as results of poor housing. BC's Indigenous health physician adviser, Dr. Evans, found substandard housing to be a major reason Indigenous peoples’ health is poor compared to other Canadians. "Poor housing means poor health," said Dr. Evans.

Access to funding is necessary. Repairs are necessary. Better-built housing is necessary. Tang Lee, an architecture professor in the faculty of environmental design at the University of Calgary, commented that government bodies are not responding adequately to recommendations made to improve shoddy, overcrowded housing and acknowledge its direct impact on the health of residents.

There was also bright news emerging from the Indigenous housing crisis. Kines reported how government money and a unique partnership between an Indigenous community, government, and contractor led to the construction of 30 new low-rent, mildew-resistant houses in Nanoose Bay. Snaw-Naw-As First Nation fronted $3 million for the project that rents for less than $400 a month. Jones praised her community and the integrity of the builder.

Also identified was the need for good housing inspectors. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) currently does not provide a list of recommended local housing inspectors for First Nations, nor does the department train community members to do housing inspections.

Jones said, "I guess that the government continues to be the way it's being because they hope that First Nations people will clean up their mess, and there will be no government accountability called to question."

In the final part of the series, solutions were proposed to the First Nations' housing crisis. John Duncan, parliamentary secretary to the minister for INAC, talked about an investment "to assist the transition of market-based housing." This sounds like acculturation. He announced a Conservative Party pledge of 25,000 new housing units over 10 years. Yet, Grand Chief Stewart Philips, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, stated the on-reserve housing shortage is now 20,000 units and growing at 4,500 units per year.

Doing the math, this solution does not augur the end of the Indigenous housing crisis anytime soon.

Kim Petersen is the Original Peoples editor at The Dominion.

Land & Jail Part II

Moira Peters — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 10:45:19 +0000

Canada's incarceration strategy

NANAIMO, BRITISH COLUMBIA–Armed Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) entered the Six Nations Territory of Douglas Creek in Caledonia, Ontario – about 20 kilometres east of Hamilton - on September 19 of this year. According to witnesses, the OPP jumped a resident, “beat him down,” and arrested him while threatening other residents not to interfere.

The Crown, after repeated arrests and jailings, reached a deal with the defense on September 29 to have activist Shawn Brant plead guilty to involvement in two blockades in Desoronto, Ontario, in April 2007. The Crown agreed to drop all but three of the mischief charges, with Brant to receive a sentence of time already served pretrial, a 90-day conditional sentence, and one year of probation.

Brant cited familial considerations behind his agreement with the Crown. However, OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino still faces scrutiny over his controversial threats to Brant. Ontario New Democrat MP Peter Kormos chided Fantino for his “pugnacious and bellicose” remarks and his “Rambo-style policing.”

Brant challenged Fantino afterwards: “Commissioner Fantino has always said he couldn’t comment because [the case is] before the courts. Well, now it’s settled, and it's time the public hears from Mr. Fantino.”

****

Incarceration of First Nations people has been the long-standing strategy for Canadian authorities.

The Supreme Court of Canada stated on April 23, 1999, in R v. Gladue: “If overreliance on incarceration is a problem with the general population, it is of much greater concern in the sentencing of aboriginal Canadians.”

R v. Gladue referred to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples which held that the “crushing failure” of justice meted out to Original Peoples was due to “the fundamentally different world views of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people” and that it “emphasize[d] the importance of an understanding of history.”

In the vein of this recommendation, it is important to note that culturally insensitive and racist proclamations have long been a part of the Canadian criminal justice and political establishment’s make-up. Meanwhile, provincial authorities continue the use of aggressive strategies in disputes with Original Peoples. At Barriere Lake First Nation, in October of this year, the Quebec police used tear gas and “pain compliance” techniques against peaceful demonstrators, including elders and children, said witnesses.

Canada’s first prime minister, John A Macdonald, exposed an animus toward the Métis in writings to his London agent: “These impulsive half-breeds have got spoilt by their emeute," he wrote, "and must be kept down by a strong hand until they are swamped by the influx of settlers.”

The controversial deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott, testified before a Special Committee of the House of Commons examining the Indian Act amendments of 1920:

I want to get rid of the Indian problem.
...
Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.

In 1991, the Kanienkehaka community of Kanesatake was at odds with the township of Oka, ON over the township’s proposal for a golf course expansion and condo development on land claimed by the Kanienkehaka. The Sûreté du Québec, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and the Royal 22nd Regiment were brought in to break up the Kanienkehaka blockade.

Racism was heightened by the Oka Crisis. Warrior Publications informed of “white mobs” burning and hanging effigies of Kanienkehaka warriors from lamp posts.

In 1995, a group of Original Peoples had gathered to hold the previously banned Sundance ceremony at Ts’peten (Gustafsen Lake) in central British Columbia. There the celebrants were accosted by ranch hands and told to vacate the land. This led to a major standoff over the unceded Secwepemc land of the Canoe Creek First Nation.

Prior to the mobilization of the RCMP at Ts’peten, Bruce Clark, legal counsel for the Ts’peten Defenders (as the defenders of indigenous title were called), informed the RCMP that action against the Sundancers would be illegal according to international and constitutional law.

Clark reminded the RCMP of their duty “to respect and to defend the rule of law” that he insisted was "clear and plain.”

Clark applied logic to remediate the crimes committed against the Original Peoples: “Legal justice requires that the rights usurped be restored, and that reasonable compensation be made for past transgressions. Territory should be restored where it has been illegally taken away. And the existing aboriginal right to govern upon that territory should be respected.”

Fifteen of the 18 Sundancers at Ts’peten were found guilty, including Secwepemc Elder Wolverine (William Jones Ignace), who was found guilty of mischief to property and other crimes.

Wolverine contended that ranch “owner” Lyall James was a squatter on indigenous land.

“It’s the real criminals who are in control here. The judges," he said. "The lawyers. The politicians. And in the enforcement arm, the RCMP and its agencies. These are the real criminals because they're covering up the theft of native land.”

Clark stated that the treaty process is designed to “extinguish the Indians’ natural law, international law and constitutional law right of jurisdiction that otherwise is not supposed to be ‘molested or disturbed’ by domestic crown governments, their courts or their police.” Clark implicated the judiciary in the “theft of jurisdiction” and cover up of genocide. An RCMP management team video depicted Ryan relaying orders from Superintendent Len Olfert: "Kill this Clark and smear the prick and everyone with him," and, "Clark is a goddamned snake."

The Law Society of Upper Canada v. Bruce Clark acknowledged on June 19, 1996, that “the ‘genocide’ of which Mr. Clark speaks is real” and inescapable. Despite this, Clark was disbarred in 1999 for being “ungovernable.”

Clark does not flinch from indicting many of his peers in the genocide. He contends that the judiciary is running the “perfect scam,” “the absolute quintessence of crime personified” by preventing an impartial third party from ruling on the genocide perpetrated on the Original Peoples in Canada. Wrote Clark, “The moment you get third party adjudication, it’s game over for these criminals.”

Kim Petersen is the Original Peoples Editor for The Dominion.

For more on Canada's strategy of incarceration, see "Land & Jail: Ipperwash, official racism, and the future of Ontario," also by Kim Petersen.

Six Nations Cops

Land & Jail

hillarybain — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:57:44 +0000

Ipperwash, official racism and the future of Ontario

On May 31, 2007, nearly 12 years after Dudley George was shot by an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officer, Sidney Linden released the four-volume Ipperwash Report.

In his remarks when he released the report, Linden, the commissioner of the Ipperwash Inquiry, noted that George was the “First aboriginal person to be killed in a land-rights dispute in Canada since the 19th century,” and stated: “If the governments of Ontario and Canada want to avoid future confrontations, they will have to deal with land and treaty claims effectively and fairly.”

At this time Linden also noted, “The single biggest source of frustration, distrust, and ill-feeling among aboriginal people in Ontario is our failure to deal in a just and expeditious way with breaches of treaty and other legal obligations to First Nations.” The Ipperwash Report explores the events that led to George's killing and makes a number of recommendations to the provincial government.

Recent police actions against Indigenous defenders of the land and provocative statements by government officials contradict the recommendations of the Ipperwash Inquiry, as well as the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which called for a restructuring of the relationship between indigenous peoples and non-indigenous peoples through “a comprehensive agenda for change.”

Origins of the Ipperwash conflict

In 1942, the federal government expropriated land belonging to the Stony Point First Nation under the War Measures Act to build a military training facility called Camp Ipperwash. The Department of National Defence offered a conditional return of most of the land after the war, but later rescinded the offer. The dispute simmered until 1995, when approximately 30 frustrated defenders of Indigenous title barricaded the park.

The OPP faced off against the defenders. In a tragic series of events now referred to simply as Ipperwash, OPP Sergeant Kenneth Deane shot and killed 38-year-old Stony Point activist Dudley George. Deane was sentenced to 180 hours of community service.

In the Ipperwash Report, Linden ruled that the OPP, the government of Ontario, Premier Mike Harris and the federal government were responsible for the Ipperwash tragedy. He identified the number one priority as the “return of the former army camp to the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation immediately, with an apology and appropriate compensation.”

On December 20, 2007, Ontario Aboriginal Affairs Minister Michael Bryant announced that Ipperwash Provincial Park, located on the former army base about 40 kilometres northeast of Sarnia in southwestern Ontario, would be returned to the Ojibwas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation. “In doing so, we are sending a clear signal that the McGuinty government is acting on the premier's ambitious agenda on aboriginal affairs,” said Bryant.

A closer look at the issue and the report reveals that the Ontario government still has a long way to go, however. Linden presented an understanding of the “frustration” of the Kettle and Stony Point First Nation that precedes the occupation of the park in 1995. In fact, he held, the grievance goes even further back than the federal government expropriation of Stony Point land in 1942:

The roots of the Ipperwash occupation go back as far as 1763, when King George III made the protection of Aboriginal land an official crown policy. The 1763 Royal Proclamation established an "Indian Country," as it was then referred to, where aboriginal land was protected from encroachment or settlement. When Sir William Johnson came to Niagara Falls to explain the Royal Proclamation to 1,500 Anishinabek Chiefs and Warriors, he consummated the alliance by presenting two wampum belts, which embodied the promises contained in the proclamation.

Indeed, an understanding of history seems crucial to overcoming the division between Original Peoples and non-indigenous peoples.

Racism, from Mike Harris on down

On February 16, 2006, the Ipperwash Inquiry heard testimony from ex-Attorney General Charles Harnick who related what then-Premier Mike Harris had said: "I want the fucking Indians out of the park."

Although Harris denied this accusation, Linden maintained that the comments were made.

First broadcast in 2004, tapes obtained through an access to information request by the CBC’s The Fifth Estate revealed racist banter among OPP officers as well:

“Is there still a lot of press down there?”

“No, there's no one down there. Just a great big fat fuck Indian.”

“The camera's rolling, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“We had this plan, you know. We thought if we could get five or six cases of Labatt's 50 [beer], we could bait them.”

“Yeah.”

"Then we’d have this big net at a pit.”

“Creative thinking.”

“Works in the [US] South with watermelon.”

The day before George was killed, Sergeant Stan Korosec of the OPP emergency response team at Ipperwash was recorded on tape saying: “We want to amass a fucking army. A real fucking army and do this. Do these fuckers bigtime.”

“Cultural insensitivity and racism,” Linden says, was “not an isolated incident” within the OPP. However, Linden found it was politicians who had pressured the OPP away from its initial “go-slow” approach to the stand-off.

OPP Inspector Ron Fox was recorded saying, “We're dealing with a real redneck government...They just are in love with guns. There’s no question. They don't give a shit less about Indians.”

The criminalization continues

When Original Peoples have fought, demonstrated for, or pursued legal routes, they have been, for the most part, unsuccessful in securing control over their traditional lands. The federal and provincial governments, for their part, have long resorted to the criminalization and incarceration of Original Peoples defending their land claims.

This strategy has been used by the OPP in the case of Tyendinaga Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) leader Shawn Brant-–as evidenced by repeat arrests against him without conviction.

Brant is a long-time activist, having demonstrated at Oka and Ipperwash. During the November 2006 Tyendinaga reclamation of a gravel quarry-–allegedly stolen by the Canadian government-–Brant was charged with making death threats to Canadian army personnel. On April 14, 2008, Brant was cleared of the charge by Justice Charles Anderson, who, according to Sue Collis, Brant’s wife, described the police and provincial roles in the affair as “problematic” and “troubling.”

On April 25, 2007, Brant was arrested for alleged involvement in organizing a blockade of a Via Rail line to stop construction on land in Tyendinaga Territory, a community situated on the Bay of Quinte in southeastern Ontario. Brant, arrested during an interview with the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, said:

"This is it. Justice for First Nations communities: lock us up. Anybody who speaks out, lock ‘em up. KI6, Bob Lovelace, lock ’em up. That’s what it’s about: lock ‘em up. Don’t fix the problems, lock ’em up."

On June 29, 2007, the Aboriginal Day of Action, Brant organized the blockade of a CN rail line and Highway 2, running through Tyendinaga Territory. According to CBC’s The Current, the OPP had deployed “heavily armed units” to the sites of the blockades, and OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino allegedly warned Tyendinaga that, “The OPP would go in with everything they had, whether or not there were women and children.”

These actions were contrary to the recommendations of the Ipperwash Inquiry and, as activist group No One is Illegal pointed out, “...disregarded their common practice of obtaining injunctions before considering using force against indigenous occupations.”

Brant was charged with mischief and breach of bail conditions.

On April 25, 2008, Brant was arrested and detained for assault and possession of a weapon (a fishing spear) in a confrontation precipitated by James Lalonde and Mike Lalonde-–two residents of Deseronto-–against Tyendinaga women and girls.

Brant has become emblematic of federal and provincial policing against Original Peoples: if they struggle for their land, they will be thrown in jail. According to some observers, the OPP is involved in a disinformation campaign and trumped-up charges that undermine the very basis of the Ipperwash Inquiry recommendations.

On July 30, the Toronto Star online headlined: “OPP forgets lessons of Ipperwash.” The political and legal persecution of Brant was exposed through comments made to Brant by Commissioner Fantino during an illegal wiretap of Brant’s phone between July and August 2007.

Brant’s lawyer, Peter Rosenthal, criticized Fantino for the wiretap and his controversial statements. Rosenthal called on Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to investigate whether Fantino was appropriate for the commissioner’s post (which Fantino continues to hold at time of writing).

Among the statements Fantino made to Brant, as revealed by transcripts of the OPP wiretaps, are:

“I don’t wanna get on your bad side but you’re gonna force me to do...everything I can within your community and everywhere else to destroy your...reputation” and, “Your whole world’s gonna come crashing down on this issue."

Fantino also urged Brant to “pull the plug” on the blockades or “suffer grave consequences." At a news conference, Rosenthal said Fantino threatened Brant "with premature death at the hands of [an OPP] sniper."

Rosenthal warned, “If somebody does read that transcript, who’s aware of Ipperwash, they would recognize that there's danger in allowing Fantino to be head of OPP and the danger we talk about is life and death.”

Fantino issued the following statement in response: "Consistent with the recommendations from the Ipperwash Inquiry, the OPP continues to work collectively with legitimate First Nations leadership and communities to ensure that both the interests of participants during lawful protests and public safety can be served in the best way possible."

This is part one in a series of articles about the systemic incarceration of indigenous peoples in Canada.

Dudley George Memorial

Mike Harris testifies

Boiling Point!

hillarybain — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:31:48 +0000

Polaris report finds water in First Nations communities a “violation of fundamental human rights”

In May, the Polaris Institute, a citizen-focused think tank, released Boiling Point!, a report about the “violation of fundamental human rights” occurring in First Nation communities across Canada.

“For many, water has become a source of fear and people have good reason to believe that what comes out of their taps may be making them sick,” reads the report. This reality is not a new one for First Nations in Canada, and it’s getting worse, not better.

In May 2007, The Dominion reported that 88 First Nations were under a Health Canada drinking water advisory. As of April 18, 2008, almost 100 First Nations are on a drinking water advisory, according to the Polaris Report. Health Canada put the figure at 97 as of July 11, 2008.

Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, believes the lack of progress on obtaining clean water for First Nations “...clearly demonstrates that access to clean water for First Nation citizens is not a priority for Canada.”

“First Nations have always viewed water as a sacred trust. From time immemorial, First Nations have centred their existence on water,” says Fontaine. “Today, it is unacceptable that many of our First Nations should be subjected to conditions where there is no access to safe, potable water...These conditions would not be tolerated in any municipal setting and if they are to occur, swift and decisive action is the norm and is expected.”

Boiling Point! investigated the situation in six First Nations communities across Canada:

Neskantaga First Nation is situated 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay in northern Ontario. The community of 282 has been under a boil water advisory since 1995. Polaris asks: “What other community do you know of in Canada that has been on boil water advisory for 13 years? Would this be acceptable for you, your family, friends and colleagues? What does this say about the federal government’s fiduciary responsibility to First Nations health and safety?”

Boil water advisories only hint at the problems for Neskantaga First Nation. On September 29, 2004, the presence of gasoline and a high level of the suspected carcinogen trihalomethane caused the water supply to be shut down entirely.

The cost of bottled water ($6/litre) is beyond the community’s means. Following the shut down, the department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) provided five litres of water a day per person (insufficient for daily needs, according to Polaris), then, because of the cost, decreased the ration to two litres.

“INAC has a fiduciary and financial responsibility to take care of the people of Neskantaga and to honour our Treaty rights in an adequate standard of living and health care,” says Neskantaga Chief Moonias. “The right to a safe and useable water supply is a right of every person living in this country for the health and well-being of himself and his family.”

“Nowhere else in Canada would anyone accept this,” Moonias continues. “It’s a violation of our fundamental human rights...We’re being treated as second-class citizens.”

“I wonder how different the response would be if the residents of Toronto were without access to water,” he says.

Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg is located in Quebec, 130 kilometres north of Ottawa. The community has been advised to refrain from drinking its well water since 1999, after uranium and other toxic-heavy chemicals were detected. Polaris notes “some progress” for the community’s water situation since 2006, but emphasizes that, “This comes after years of people drinking water that most Canadians would deem undrinkable.”

On the eastern shores of Pikangikum Lake, about 100 kilometres north of Red Lake in northwestern Ontario, is the remote Ojibway community of Pikangikum First Nation. It is a self-sufficient community of 2,300 keen on preserving their culture and language. Indeed, it has the highest rate of indigenous language retention in northern Ontario. Polaris argues, “The case of Pikangikum underscores why Canada must recognize water as a human right and ecological trust.”

Boiling Point! also describes the extreme poverty of Pikangikum First Nation. Juliette Turtle, a 58-year-old woman, and her family of eight live in a 65-square-metre house with no toilet and no running water. In the backyard is an outhouse. When the hole is full, a new hole is dug and the outhouse moved over top. In the same backyard, seven of Turtle’s 12 children are buried. All seven committed suicide.

Particularly frustrating, according to Polaris, is a water treatment plant built in 1995, which is capable of producing enough potable water for the entire community. However, in 2007, 90 per cent of homes were still unconnected.

Despite the clear reality that Pikangikum is in crisis, it is not considered one of the 21 priority communities identified under the federal government’s Plan of Action for Drinking Water in First Nations Communities.

On the southwestern tip of Lake Athabasca, 200 kilometres from Fort McMurray, in the middle of the Alberta tar sands, is the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.

In February 2008, chiefs from Treaties 6, 7 and 8, including Chipewyan First Nation, unanimously urged the Alberta government to enact a moratorium on all new oil sands projects until watershed and resource development plans have been approved by First Nations.

Dr. John O’Connor blew the whistle on unchecked tar sands development after noticing high rates of illnesses, in particular, cholangiocarcinoma, a rare bile duct cancer, in residents of Fort Chipewyan in late 2000. According to the Polaris report, there is a belief among physicians of an effort on the part of the Alberta government to silence O’Connor.

Along the Yukon River lies Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation. The community’s water is supplied by upwards of 90 individual wells and truck delivery. The wells, installed by INAC, are poorly situated and as a result the water is unsafe to drink and the community has been under a boil water advisory for over three years.

Currently, there is a joint initiative between the Canadian Auto Workers and the Assembly of First Nations to help provide clean drinking water in Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation.

In northeastern Saskatchewan, the Yellow Quill First Nation was under a boil water advisory from 1995 until 2004. During that time the community got its water from Pipestone Creek, which flows between just five and 15 days every spring. In addition, a town located upstream empties its sewage lagoon into the creek. “[O]ur water was worse than what they had in Walkerton,” says the community’s chief, Robert Whitehead.

Since then, Yellow Quill First Nation’s water source has been switched to an underground well that is being successfully treated through a process developed by Dr. Hans Peterson of the Safe Drinking Water Foundation.

Yellow Quill provides the one sanguine account in the Polaris report. According to Trevor Sutter, communications manager at INAC, the treated water at Yellow Quill is now "very good, very good water."

Peterson reports that, “Two more communities, Pasqua and George Gordon, have now had full-scale Yellow Quill systems for 2.5 years and they are all running flawlessly.”

Peterson is surprised there aren’t more examples of successful water systems in First Nations communities. “For all the hundreds of millions the federal government has spent on researching water through Canada's many universities, Canada's federal research departments, Health Canada, Environment Canada and the National Research Council, would you not have thought that the head of the Assembly of First Nations would have some examples of what those agencies have done in terms of water in aboriginal communities?” he asks. “The fact is a couple of years ago the director general of INAC, Gilles Rochon, told me he had no example of research agencies having done research on aboriginal water issues and then having come up with solutions that could be implemented."

The Safe Drinking Water Foundation is currently working on a Framework for Safe Drinking Water, for which Peterson is hoping to receive funding.

To overcome the disparity between indigenous communities and other Canadian communities, Polaris identifies the need for federal government implementation of long-term solutions based on “equality and respect, including ensuring access to safe drinking water, source water and sanitation.”

Boiling Water

South Koreans Have a Beef

hillarybain — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:07:05 +0000

Crackdown on demonstrations against US beef imports

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -- On June 28, a crowd of at least 13,000 (some estimates report 30,000) gathered near the city hall in Seoul to protest the government’s decision to allow US imports of beef to South Korea. The issue is huge in South Korea, where a June 10 demonstration-–which coincided with the 21st anniversary of the demonstrations that toppled the country's military dictatorship-–drew out up to half a million protesters.

The latest demonstration came on the heels of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Seoul. Rice vouched, “I can only say that American beef is safe and that we hope in time the South Korean people will listen to that, and will be willing to listen to what their government is saying and what we are saying.”

On June 2, the thoroughfare of Sedong Street, which ends at the landmark gate of Gwanghwamun, was lined with over 100 buses that had been converted to transport vehicles with barricaded windows for riot gear-clad police. The fleet of buses, many marked with graffiti, were arranged to impede access to sections of Sejong Street, where the US embassy is located.

Later that night, when people tried to break through the bus barricades, the police used water cannons and reportedly detained more than 130 demonstrators.

President Lee Myung-bak of the Grand National Party, elected with 48.7 per cent of the vote in December 2007, has borne the brunt of South Korean anger during a growing number of demonstrations.

In April 2008, Myung-bak proposed lifting prohibitions on US beef imports, prohibitions that had been imposed in 2003 after a case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) was discovered in the US. Many South Koreans have reacted strongly against the perceived risks of BSE, which have been inflamed by Korean media.

In June, the pressure was such that Myung-bak's entire cabinet offered to resign in response to the street protests.

A senior policeman who wished to remain anonymous said, “The demonstration is okay if it is done in the proper manner with permission, not in the middle of the street, stopping cars and causing problems.”

The organizers, who addressed the milling crowd throughout the evening, emphasized that the demonstration should remain peaceful. Dozens of young men wearing military fatigues were present at the demonstration. Having completed their compulsory military service, they now call themselves the Guardians of the Citizens. They say they’re protecting the people from the state.

One of the Guardians, Kim Jin-kang, said the protestors were there “because the president has been lying...about the Great Canal and American beef.”

Much of the media has portrayed the protests as being solely about imports of US beef, but many voiced concern about the Great Canal project. The project proposes the construction of three great canals connecting four large rivers, and the city of Busan in the southeast with Seoul in the northwest.

A slim military officer, who wished to remain anonymous, manned an information table about the Great Canal project and said he was opposed to the project because of the environmental destruction it would entail. He saw Korean conglomerates as the only winners from the project.

Pak Jong-ju, who manned a table for the Korea Socialist Party, said he was at the demonstrations because of injustice. “The US and Korea alliance is a critical issue in Korea,” said Pak, who saw the protests rooted in a great polarization in South Korean society among those who support an alliance with the US and those who seek independence from the US.

Jong-ju is opposed to the “free trade” agreement between South Korea and the US. “There are a lot of rules with FTA [Free Trade Agreement] that oppress freedom of human beings, and favour business over government,” he said.

An elderly man who called himself “Mr. Korea” said the Great Canal had been added to the backside of the FTA. He believed that although most Koreans opposed the canal project, they would support the FTA if it was along the same terms as NAFTA.

Standing in the crowd was Kim Ji-hyun. She said she was against both US beef imports and the Great Canal project. She saw beef as a “life and death” issue and expressed contempt for the president.

Many demonstrators could be seen carrying slogan-bearing red cards printed by the Candlelight Movement of Korea that echoed these sentiment: “Who are you protecting with the power that we give you?” and “How can you let us down like this?”

A large white banner with blue lettering that hung high across the wide expanse of Sejong Street proclaimed: “Someday, this road will surely demonstrate the last days of a man who denied [that the] Republic of Korea’s state power originates from its people, but foolishly believed it comes from America, dirty richs [sic] and crap newspapers. Therefore, we will resist until our last breath to his idiotic ignorance, incompetence, irresponsible subterfuge, reckless beliefs, and ensure not to be victims of such.”

One Korean woman spoke of a Korean proverb that says a pot which boils quickly also cools quickly--something that the Myung-bak government is hoping for.

According to Agence France-Press, police blocked the rally planned for June 29 at Seoul Plaza before it could start, detaining 130 people and blocking nearby roads.

On June 30, investigators raided the office of the People's Association for Measures Against Mad Cow Disease and the office of the People's Solidarity for Korean Progress, seizing computers and other items, as well as arresting one organizer.

The following two weekends were relatively quiet and wet around Seoul city hall. The grass lawn has been replaced with new turf, and the vendors have disappeared. The season has changed. Middle- and high-school students who began the demonstrations are now out of school and an intense rainy period has deluged Seoul.

It seems that in the face of increasing government and police crackdowns, the boiling pot has cooled for now.

Police Crackdown

Candlelight Vigil

Corporate Rights Trump Indigenous Rights in Ontario

Moira Peters — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

In attempts to skirt constitutionally required consultations with First Nations, mining corporations are seeking access to territory by dragging the process through the Ontario legal system long enough to bankrupt cash-strapped First Nations.

Situated about 580 km north of Thunder Bay is Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation (KIFN; Big Trout Lake). Despite winning an important legal victory on July 28, 2006, in the Ontario Superior Court – a victory that forced Ontario mining exploration company Platinex Incorporated to cease drilling operations in the territory claimed by the Cree community of 1,300 – KIFN eventually found itself, according to its press release of April 9, $700,000 poorer. Moreover, Platinex had been granted a court injunction permitting it to drill on KIFN land and forbidding residents to obstruct the company’s operations.

KIFN has withdrawn from the judicial route and stressed the necessity of a political solution. The First Nation is concerned about the impact mining operations will have on their treaty-guaranteed traditional way of life – hunting and fishing – which is dependent upon the health of the environment.

In a letter to James Trusler of Platinex dated November 2, 2007, leaders from KIFN cautioned:

“Be advised that even as we write this letter there are Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug persons on those Customary Lands carrying out their trapping, hunting and fishing activities. Any other land use activity will be an absolute interference in their pursuit of their livelihood.”

No response has been forthcoming from Platinex to confirm whether the community’s “no entry” position will be respected. Platinex had not responded to an email inquiry prior to publication of this article.

Attempts by Platinex to enter their traditional territory were denied by KIFN, and six leaders from the KIFN community – chief Donny Morris, deputy chief Jack McKay and four councilors: Samuel Mckay, Bruce Sakakeep, Darryl Sainnawap and Cecelia Begg – were sentenced on March 17 by Ontario Superior Court justice Patrick Smith in Thunder Bay to six months imprisonment for contempt of court.

The same sentence was meted out on February 15 by the Ontario Superior Court in Kingston to the former chief of the Ardoch Anishinabek First Nation (AAFN), Robert Lovelace, who defied a court order giving privately owned Frontenac Ventures Corporation access to unceded AAFN territory at a potential uranium mining site near Sharbot Lake, about 30 km west of Perth in Ontario. KIFN and AAFN say they stand in solidarity along with other First Nations against unwelcome corporate intrusion on First Nation territory.

In its February 19 press release, AAFN described the sentencing of Lovelace as “a travesty of justice.” The sentence had a chilling effect on indigenous protest: co-protesting Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation subsequently ended its protest, and AAFN chief Paula Sherman – a single mother of three, wanting to avoid jail time – ended her protest against the mine. For AAFN, it is one in a series of struggles against interference by the province of Ontario in AAFN affairs.

In 1979, AAFN fought the province of Ontario to preserve indigenous rights to manomin (wild rice) in the Ardoch area. In 1995, the First Nation clashed with Ontario over restricting indigenous rights to hunting. The jurisdictional struggle continues. Ontario refuses to recognize Anishnabek law.

University of Victoria Law School professor John Borrows, who teaches Anishinabek Law, holds that Canada is a multi-juridical country where “Indigenous legal traditions shape and are embedded in our national legal structure.”

At the Fifth John C. Tait Memorial Lecture at McGill University in 1996, Borrows identified a “real crisis in the rule of law in Aboriginal communities. And it is not a crisis because Aboriginal peoples don’t have the rule of law; it is a crisis of legitimacy about the rule of law and Aboriginal communities. If Aboriginal peoples were able to start to see themselves and their normative values reflected in how they conduct their day-to-day affairs, I believe that would go at least some distance to diminishing some of the problems that we have.”

Since 2007, Anishinabek chiefs representing 42 First Nations in Ontario have begun to develop Anishinabek law through the incorporation of grassroots principles. Grand Council Chief John Beaucage stated, “The principles contained in the Anishinabek Nation law will have come from our engagement and consultation with our leadership and citizens.”

The AAFN claims that Lovelace is being punished for upholding Anishinabek law on AAFN territory. On top of imprisonment, the Ontario Superior Court judgment applied additional fines of $2,000 for each day that Lovelace continues to obey AAFN law rather than the court order. The AAFN community was fined $10,000 and Chief Paula Sherman $15,000, and, according to AAFN, their statement of defense, in which they challenge the constitutional validity of Ontario’s Mining Act, was ruled out. KIFN accuses Ontario Aboriginal Affairs minister Michael Bryant of actively colluding with mining corporations against First Nations: “Contrary to what Minister Bryant has been saying in the media, Ontario did not support KIFN in any way. On virtually every issue they support Platinex.”

In a March 31 prison interview with Nation Talk TV, KIFN chief Donny Morris said, “Something is definitely wrong when Ontario sits back while their [treaty] partner is to be thrown in jail.”

Uranium mining is the source of another conflict between Anishinabek, the Province of Ontario and private interests. Isadore Day (Wiindawtegowinini), elected Chief of Serpent River First Nation, situated between Sault Saint Marie and Sudbury on Highway 17, frets over the pace of private-sector development compared with the government-required consultation with First Nations: “It poses real challenges between industry and First Nations when government moves slower in First Nation negotiations than it does when pushing through proponent approvals for expropriation of Crown lands." Even worse, according to Day, “is that Consultation and Accommodation requirements are not even in the form of mutually agreed policy between the Crown and the First Nations, and yet government is approving land expropriation in favor of development in traditional lands.”

The KIFN actions, while confrontational, are hardly radical. The financially debilitating court system has required that KIFN instead call for First Nation-to-government talks.

First Nations in Ontario identify the source of the dissension as lying within Ontario government legislation. Ontario has a “free entry” system to mining claims, opening all lands claimed by the Crown – including those subject to Indigenous title claims – to staking, exploration and mining without any required consultation or permission. In other words, anyone with a prospector’s license may stake and record claims and prospect for minerals on any Crown land.

KIFN seeks talks and has offered proposals to end the confrontation, stating, “Although Mr. Bryant has not yet responded to the proposal, both communities have told him that we are still prepared to work with Ontario to set up the Joint Panel, as soon as all of the prisoners are released from jail and a moratorium on mining and exploration in the disputed territories is implemented.”

No reply was forthcoming from minister Bryant before publication of this article.

On April 30, delegates to the United Nations Seventh Session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York emphasized the need for national governments to protect people over profits. Implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was viewed as crucial to this end. The Conservative Party government of Canada has been excoriated by the opposition, Indigenous peoples, and supporters of Indigenous rights for its failure to sign on to the Declaration.

Grand Council Chief Beaucage argued that the jailing KIFN leaders iterates to the world that the rights of Original Peoples are not equal to the rights of other Canadian citizens. “This,” he said, “is precisely why Canada should have been a signatory to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

Assembly of First Nations Women's Council chair Kathleen McHugh deplored the arrests of Indigenous peoples:

What is being implied in this case? That economic interests trump First Nation rights? Or that economic interests trump constitutionally protected rights? This is a slippery slope, not only for First Nations but for all Canadians. This should never have gotten to the point where it went to court. The corporations involved can still do the right thing: sit down and negotiate fairly and openly with the community and their leadership. We also call on the federal government to end its silence and act responsibly by following its legal duty to ensure First Nations are properly consulted when development takes place on their lands.

On April 23, Anishinabek Nation leaders and citizens rallied at Queen's Park in Toronto to spotlight the deficiencies of the Ontario Mining Act.

Beaucage called for inclusion: "Our citizens do not want to block economic progress; we want to be part of it. However,” he added, “the rule of law in Canada – as outlined by the Constitution and the Courts – and Anishinabek Traditional Law indeed support our aboriginal right to protect our traditional territories, as well as our treaty rights to share in the wealth derived from them. As far as we're concerned, human rights will always trump mineral rights.”

On April 30, 2008, Anishinabek from Grassy Narrows First Nation began a 1,850-km Protecting Our Mother walk from Kenora to Queens Park. According to spokeswoman Chrissy Swain, the walk arose out of long frustration at the way “our people have been criminalized and imprisoned for protecting the Earth, our future generations and our rights as Anishinabek and First Peoples of this land.” The walkers hope to raise awareness of the ongoing theft and plunder of Indigenous lands and repression of Indigenous people.

The Ontario provincial government's agenda for traditional First Nations territory has maintained its allegiance to the "rights" of mining corporations instead of to the Indigenous People's millennial ties to the land. Yet, just as this article was going to publication, the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs in Ontario announced in a press release the release of KIFN leadership from jail on May 23, pending the appeal of their sentence. Also pending the appeal, Platinex, for its part, has agreed not to enter the exploration site, and the KIFN leadership has agreed to curtail it's protests of Platinex's exploration activities.

queens park protest

Indigenous Rights and the Mayan Victory in Belize

dru — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 07:35:48 +0000

Implications for Indigenous Title Rights in Canada

On 18 October 2007, the Supreme Court of Belize ruled in Cal v. Attorney General that the national government must recognize the indigenous Mayans’ customary tenure to land and refrain from any act that might prejudice their use or enjoyment of this land. The landmark Supreme Court ruling which recognizes the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their land was a great victory for Mayan communities in Belize.

The decision is the first judgment rendered with reference to United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP), adopted on 13 September 2007 by the UN General Assembly. As such, the Belizean Supreme Court judgement could have legal repercussions abroad.

In 2001, the Belize government began giving rights to logging, oil, and hydro-electric concerns on traditional Mayan lands, denying Mayan farmers access to their ancestral land.

The Chief Justice of Belize, Abdulai Conteh, stated that British colonial and subsequent acquisition of land in Belize did not abrogate the Mayan people’s primordial rights to their land.

In his judgement, Conteh upheld that “the Maya people live, farm, hunt and fish; collect medicinal plants, construction materials and other forest resources; and engage in ceremonies and other activities on land within and around their communities; and that these practices have evolved over centuries from patterns of land use and occupancy of the Maya people.”

Conteh found the Maya had a “complex traditional set of land tenure regulations.” Furthermore, “all attempts to divide up the customary village land into arbitrary-sized parcels are doomed to fail to establish a stable land-tenure regime” because the Mayan lifestyle “requires access to a variety of land types in order to grow and gather all the crops and resources they need to survive in any given year.”

Conteh held that Mayan rights to occupy their lands, farm, hunt and fish pre-date European colonization and remain in force today. Conteh noted, “[A] mere change in sovereignty does not extinguish native title to land. … Extinguishment or rights to or interests in land is not to be lightly inferred.”

Referring to Delgamuukw v British Columbia, Conteh said, “Indigenous title is now correctly regarded as sui generis.” In other words, the very fact of Original Peoples having inhabited a land over time confers land title rights to the Original Peoples.

In his decision, Conteh cited the Belizean Constitution and several international legal precedents that affirmed the existence of Indigenous Peoples’ collective rights to their land, resources, and environment.

While agreeing the DRIP is non-binding, Conteh argued that principles of general international law contained in the declaration should be respected. Moreover, he noted, the DRIP was adopted by an “overwhelming number” of states thus reflecting “the growing consensus and the general principles of international law on indigenous peoples and their lands and resources.”

Conteh focused on Article 26-1 of DRIP, which states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.”

Based on this and other legal law and precedents, he ordered the government of Belize to “determine, demarcate and provide official documentation of Santa Cruz’s and Conejo’s [two Mayan villages] title and rights in accordance with Maya customary law and practices.” He also ordered the government to desist from any logging, mining or other resource exploitation projects on Mayan land.

Although the Canadian government -- along with Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, and the United States -- rejected the DRIP, law students and faculty from the University of Toronto had a hand in Cal v. Attorney General. The UT group worked on behalf of the Mayan farmers researching, gathering evidence, and considering external comparative law. Toronto lawyer Paul Schabas also contributed his expertise pro bono to the Mayan case in 2006.

UT Faculty of Law Dean Mayo Moran gushed, “The faculty of law is proud of the extraordinary commitment that faculty, students, and our law firm partner, Blakes, have made to this case … The Supreme Court of Belize will now have the opportunity to set an important precedent in the area of indigenous rights of the Maya of Belize and U of T’s Human Rights Clinic will play an important role in the court’s deliberations.”

Also involved were the faculty and law students at the University of Arizona. The UA law professors held that landmark case would probably aid the cause of indigenous peoples elsewhere.

UA College of Law Dean Toni Massaro, like her UT counterpart was proud of UA’s connection to Cal v. Attorney General. Massaro said:

“Ideas that take root in one place can -- and often do -- migrate. This suit was based on a concept of property rights that has possible theoretical and practical implications for people across the globe, and here in the United States, who analyze property across time, across cultures, across legal systems. I expect many to take notice of the Belize case in the years ahead.”

Belize