May 27, 2008 Tuesday
Inaction on native issues not helping government or jailed protester
BYLINE: MURRAY CAMPBELL, mcampbell@globeandmail.com
SECTION: COLUMN; QUEEN'S PARK; Pg. A10
LENGTH: 621 words
Donny Morris has had 68 days in jail to contemplate how the Ontario
government is dealing with its native population. And he's concluded
that it is falling short of the pledge it made last fall "to forge a
stronger, more positive relationship" with the dozens of native
communities scattered across the province.
This isn't a total surprise, of course. Mr. Morris, chief of the remote
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation north of Thunder Bay, has
been slapped around lately by the provincial justice system. Along with
five other KI residents, he was sentenced in March to six months in
jail for civil contempt of court after disobeying a court order to
allow a mining company to work their traditional territory.
But his disenchantment goes further and it suggests that the energy
Michael Bryant has brought to the newly created Aboriginal Affairs
Ministry hasn't completely brought the positive relationship the
Liberal government is seeking.
"I would say we've been misled, misled to believe things were being
done on our behalf here," Mr. Morris said before a rally for the
so-called KI-6 and for Robert Lovelace, who has also been jailed for
six months for protesting against uranium exploration on Ardoch
Algonquin First Nation territory in Eastern Ontario.
These aren't the words that the energetic and ambitious Aboriginal
Affairs Minister wants to hear as Thursday's nationwide aboriginal "day
of action" nears. (Neither is the contention in an Ardoch Algonquin
news release last week that "to put it bluntly, Michael Bryant is a
liar.") Indeed, the minister rejects the characterization that the
government has been indifferent to aboriginal concerns.
He points to the continuing implementation of the recommendations of
the judicial inquiry into the Ipperwash tragedy and a move to share
casino and lottery earnings with native communities as evidence that
"we've made progress on a number of fronts."
But the KI controversy and the continuing standoff between natives and
non-natives at Caledonia are casting a shadow over the progress made on
the Ipperwash file.
The Caledonia dispute, which began with a botched police attack on a
native occupation of a subdivision under construction, shows no sign of
ending.
Mr. Bryant showed his frustration recently when he suggested that a
deadline ought to be imposed for resolution of the land claims of the
Six Nations reserve. The federal government, seemingly content with the
glacial pace of such talks, laughed it off.
Things are so gloomy that nearby Brantford is asking for the Canadian
Forces to be put on standby in preparation for trouble. "A physical
confrontation and disturbance of the peace or riot is inevitable and
imminent," the city's legal brief argued.
But while the Caledonia issue seems intractable, the KI controversy is
not and that's what is fuelling the native protest and attracting
increasing numbers of non-native supporters. Mr. Morris, Mr. Lovelace
and the others went to jail not because they opposed mining per se but
because they wanted the government to adhere to numerous Supreme Court
of Canada decisions that said governments have a duty to consult over
development on native lands.
It's a dispute between rights granted exploration firms under the
Mining Act and treaty rights for natives. The solution - a revision of
the century-old mining law that gives firms "free entry" to any land in
search of minerals - has evaded the government for a number of years
and it doesn't look like it's coming in any hurry.
"It's not the kind of thing that we can instantly undo," Premier Dalton
McGuinty said.
The inaction is not encouraging news for Mr. Morris. It's not doing Mr.
Bryant and the government any good either.
