ENVIRONMENT
COVER:
Power
from Rivers Sold to New York
BIOGRAPHY
Danny
Beaton: Earth's Healer
BOOKS
Culture,
Tradition, Heartbreak and Justice
BUSINESS
Tulsequah
Chief Mine Approved Amid Objections
COMMUNITY
400
Come Together at Dinner to Help Build New Longhouse
ENVIRONMENT
Protesters
"Deconstruct" Fish Farm Hatchery at Ocean Falls
Science
Council Seeks Temporary Closure of Fish Farms
HISTORY
New
Scripture Translation Preserves Mohawk Language
HUMOUR
Bee in the Bonnet: The Buckskin Stops Here
Bee in the Bonnet: The Christmas Secret
MODERN
TREATIES
New Consultation Guidelines
Embrace Recent Case Law
MUSIC
Cindy
Scott: This Northern Girl is Going Far
POLITICS
Gordo's
Grin Will Be His Legacy
Notes
From a Skid Row Survivor or Things to be Thankful for This Christmas Season
By Dr. John Bacher
Part Three...
GATT violations
The violation of GATT came about since large power users in Quebec, which
include many highly polluting industries such as aluminum refining, obtain
their power below cost, with prices fluctuating according to commodity
pricing.
Such subsidies are in violation of GATT and are unique. These contracts were kept secret by the Quebec government, but were eventually published because of the courage of a native journalist, of the Kahniakehaka (Mohawk) nation, Kanentioo, (Doug George). Kanentioo at the time was editor of the Akwesasne based paper Indian Times.
The big media in Canada all bowed to the pressure of the Quebec government not to publish the big power contracts. They were instead exposed in a small native community weekly Indian Times, which has a distinguished history of environmental concern and opposition to organized crime and has also featured several articles critical of the AIP and the Rupert diversion.
The ignoring of these contracts and issues associated with changes in Cree politics since September 2002, is a terrible indication of media self-censorship, favourable to corporate interests in logging and hydro electric development [3].
Cree alliance
The alliance between the Cree and environmentalists around the world exposed
the paradoxes and duplicities behind the rhetoric of trade laws and the
reality. Not only were the assaults of Hydro-Quebec a state subsidized
swindle which violated rational market principles for energy which would
favor conservation and renewables, but the logging of the Cree's lands
were and remain unfairly cheapened by the largesse of the state.
The Cree together with the Natural Resources Defense Council, exposed this reality by defending American soft wood lumber tariffs against Canada, based largely on the low fees collected on timber harvested on crown lands.
The reality of the subsidized nature of old growth forest destruction in Canada is ignored by many Canadians in the "anti-globalization" movement, notably such high profile gurus as Naomi Klein and Maude Barlow.
Prominent and outspoken in the Quebec City protests, they have been silent on the issue of the future of the Rupert and environmental issues in the homeland of the northern Cree. Both and their associated institutions, such as the Council of Canadians, have tended to side with efforts to use international trade law to defeat environmental conservation efforts by the U.S. government.
They have never indicated how Canadian government subsidies to logging old growth forests are a violation of both international and continental trade law. Part of the relief in the signing of the AIP expressed in both editorials in the few dailies which gave detailed coverage of it, was that the Cree would no longer confront Canada in the controversial, never ending, softwood lumber dispute with the U.S. [4].
The alliance between the Cree and environmentalists is typical of the potency of similar common causes around the world to defend sustainable human cultures from the assault of industrial resource extraction.
Such successful battles include the recent victory of the U'wa of Columbia against oil exploration, similar victories over oil by the Gwich'in in Alaska and the Yukon and the Haida nation's winning of the South Moresby National Park Reserve against powerful logging lobbies.
Frequently such struggles involve the defense of environmentally sustainable human cultures, such as the Gwich'in way of life based on the abundance of the 180,000 strong Porcupine caribou herd.
The imagery of assisting sustainable cultures to thrive and survive is quite powerful, and has been compared by Gwich'in leader Sarah James, to being able to go back into time to defend the great plains buffalo grazing way of life from the assaults of 19th century colonizing greed.
Indeed, one of the reasons for one of the Gwich'in's many victories, is that they were helped by the release of the film, "Dances with Wolves." It is difficult for even the most powerful corporations to win in such dramatic public relations battles of looters versus Indians, at least in democratic societies. [5]
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