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 Four...
Filmmaker questions power
One native activist who clearly understands the power of the alliance
between environmentalists and native communities is the Kahniakehaka filmmaker,
and photographer, Ronkwetason. Ronkwetason for the past 14 years has worked
closely with traditional leaders from across North and South America.
In a recent article in the Cree magazine Nation, Ronkwetason wrote
that: "If the northern Cree Nation and others agree to sell their
rivers and territory for profit and agree to more road for construction
companies and buyers, what do they think will happen?
"The Ojibway Nation on Bear Island is surrounded by companies taking,
taking, and taking, while cottages and homes of rich owners are serviced
by colonizers. The animals and fish and birds who we respect and who give
us life do not deserve to be treated badly by construction workers and
developers or people with no spiritual foundation. Pollution, and contamination
are in the cities.
"Motorboats, trains, buses, cars, trucks, planes are now everywhere,
but to agree on the multiplication of these things is suicide to spiritual
people."
Ronkwetason believes that, "In many ways Northern Quebec compares to the Amazon, the way the Amazon used to be. Because it is so rich with animals, amazing animals, beautiful fish and beautiful birds, all with voices of their own; it compares to the Amazon because of its rich magnificent rivers.… The northern Cree Nation has a chance to protect their children's future, their culture and Mother Earth."[6]
Not only do environmentally concerned voters show a growing inclination to support native struggles for cultural survival, but these attitudes are also gaining growing strength in the legal profession, among law scholars and in the courts.
Legal opinion in all the formerly white settler dominated former colonies of British Commonwealth, is casting off authoritarian, racist doctrines of conquest and "discovery" in favour of the recognition to aboriginal title on the basis of functioning governments before the time of European contact.
This had been the basis of the 1888 dogmas of the St. Catharines Milling Case, in which the Imperial Privy Council maintained that aboriginal title was held at the pleasure of the crown.
This was swept away in December 11, 1997, when the Supreme Court of Canada
issued the Delgammuuk decision. This upheld the right of aboriginal nations
to protect sacred lands and environmental features that were the basis
for their subsistence economy.
Here Chief Justice C. J. Lamer stressed that aboriginal title, "encompasses the right to exclusive use and occupation of land in order to engage in those activities which are aboriginal rights themselves."
He indicated that, "if a group claims a special bond with the land based on its ceremonial or cultural significance it may not use the land in such a way to destroy that relationship (example: by developing it in such a way that the bond is destroyed, perhaps by turning it into a parking lot." [7] )
Evolution of Canadian law
The evolution of Canadian law forced the Cree leadership of northern Quebec
to be in a position where they would either use the courts to exclude
industrial extraction from their traditional lands, or become, through
agreements with governments, partners in exploitation.
This stark choice was provided by the strange combination of the growing strength of Canadian law to give native communities the right to protect their traditional subsistence economies, and the political weakness of the environmental movement in Quebec.
While in some provinces, notably Ontario and British Columbia, alliances between environmentalists, native communities and the New Democratic Party, have resulted in the cancellation of major hydro electric projects, such a red-green dynamic which combines native rights with the protection of the environment through social democratic activism is tragically weak in Quebec.
Nowhere else in Canada are such few areas off limits to hydro electrical development and logging.
From the defeat of James Bay Two in November 1994 right up to secret negotiations with Coon Come and Landry in September 2002 following a major Cree court victory, the Cree Nation of Northern Quebec displayed, co-operating with environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, an exemplary single minded determination to use publicity and court battles to protect their old growth boreal forests from industrial exploitation.
This was fiercely contested with Quebec, at one point in the year 2000, involving the cutting off of funds owed to the Cree for education. These payments were authorized under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, (JBNQA) signed in 1973 by the Cree in exchange for dropping their legal challenges to the James Bay One project.
The last dispute was a September 6, 2001 Court of Appeal victory by the Cree of Northern Quebec against the Quebec government's refusal to make such payments. This victory was shortly followed by Quebec's invitation to make a compromise after it lost the ability to blackmail the Crees by the threat of an arbitrary cut off of JBNQA money.
The issue that led to the "Peace of the Brave" was originally
the Cree opposition to clear cut logging. This was still at the time subject
to intense conflict, involving a Cree complaint to the United Nations
Human Rights Committee, to obtain the re-accusation of Justice Corteau.
This was the first time that a judge had been removed from hearing a constitutional case in Canadian history, a decision that emerged from a $700 million lawsuit by the Cree Nation and an individual trapper, Mario Lord.
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