Why I support the aboriginal National Day of Action

Ottawa is wrong to oppose. UN declaration on aboriginal rights

KENNETH DEER

The Gazette

Friday, June 29, 2007

The Harper government has warned aboriginals not to engage in blockades today on the National Day of Action. Yet a Canadian envoy will speak on the floor of the UN General Assembly today to oppose the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as adopted last June by the UN Human Rights Council.

What irony. The government continues to risk destroying more than 20 years of work by indigenous people reflected in the UN declaration. Yet, the government cautions indigenous people against disrupting activities in Canada for a single day.

For more than a year, the federal government has repeatedly ignored its constitutional duty to consult and accommodate Canadian aboriginals in its campaign against indigenous rights in the declaration. Yet the government cites the rule of law in opposing indigenous protests on the National Day of Action.

Ottawa is trying to defuse the anger of the aboriginals by announcing a revamped land-claims process that will be "independent" and "impartial." These are the same two words the government insists on removing from the land-claims article in the UN declaration. The hypocrisy is stunning.

On June 29 last year, only Canada and Russia voted against the declaration at the Human Rights Council. This was a despicable reversal of Canada's previous role of supporting the rights of indigenous peoples. Do aboriginal peoples in Canada have reasons to protest? We certainly do.

Think back to 1990 when the Mohawk community of Kahnawake was surrounded by the Surete du Quebec and the Canadian Forces after an SQ officer was killed. Food was in short supply so a pastor tried to bring a truck of food for the elders, women and children.

When the vehicle approached the police barricade, the truck was stopped to be searched. Demonstrators stormed the truck and destroyed all the food while the police and army stood by and watched. After the truck was emptied, it was allowed to proceed.

Today, in New York, the scene seems to replay itself in the meeting rooms of the United Nations. Instead of a truck of food, there is the UN declaration, a vehicle laden with human rights relating to indigenous peoples. This human rights instrument sets out minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the world's indigenous peoples.

But Canada, as in the demonstrators' blockage of the truck of food in 1990, continues to engage in strategies to block our human rights vehicle - our hope - for a better and more just future. Canada has aggressively lobbied other states to raise concerns and create dissent against the declaration.

With the encouragement of Canada, New Zealand and Australia, the African Group of States reversed its support for the UN declaration at the Human Rights Council. While Canada generally opposes regional bloc strategies to prevent advancement of human rights, the Harper government supported the African Group strategy last fall to block the adoption of the declaration at the General Assembly.

The African Group has recently tabled a document with more than 30 proposed changes to the Declaration. This document is highly discriminatory and inconsistent with international human rights law. Yet Canada, Russia and five other countries with abusive human rights records wrote a letter to the president of the General Assembly characterizing the African proposal as helpful.

Indigenous people continue to place their faith in the UN to obtain justice, because too often we cannot get justice domestically. By undermining the integrity of the declaration, Canada and its allies are hurting more than 370 million indigenous people globally and undermining the international human rights system as a whole.

As an elected member of the council, Canada has the obligation to "uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights." A stated purpose of the council is to eliminate double standards and the politicization of human rights.

So if the human rights of indigenous people are undermined by the Canadian government in such a deceptive and harmful manner, what are aboriginal peoples in Canada to do? If justice is denied both domestically and internationally, what avenues do indigenous peoples have left? If the foreign-affairs minister abdicates his responsibilities on international human rights and allows the Indian affairs minister to take the lead in opposing these same rights of Indians, should no indigenous voices be heard? A National Day of Action for indigenous peoples - and all Canadians - is long overdue. At least it's a modest beginning.

Kenneth Deer is publisher of the Eastern Door newspaper in Kahnawake. For the last 21 years, he has been active in the development of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.