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From the Brockville Recorder & Times

Helping the less fortunate 'right in our own backyard'

By Tracey Tong ttong@recorder.ca

While many of their counterparts are leaving Brockville for sun, sand and surf over the March Break, a small group of local students will be freezing in -40 temperatures in an isolated northern Ontario community.

Grenville Christian College teacher Fred Bowen is heading a 10-day mission to Kashechewan, a First Nation community located near James Bay that suffered a water quality crisis in late 2005.

The group - which consists of five students from Grenville Christian College, two Thousand Islands Secondary School students, seven staff and volunteers from GCC and a member of the Centennial Road Standard Church - left for the community of 3,000 Thursday. The purpose of the trip is to build much-needed storage facilities for the elementary school and help out in the classrooms.

It all started when Bowen made a visit to Kashechewan - a community with a high suicide rate and an unemployment rate of 87 per cent - during the water crisis. At the time, talks of relocating the community to other existing communities were underway.

Still thinking about the community upon his return, Bowen had his data management class do a study on the cost of relocation. From there, the project ballooned into the inspiration for the mission.

During the crisis, the local elementary school had moved temporarily into Francine J. Wesley Secondary School. There, Bowen learned that the elementary teachers had to carry their supplies back and forth on a daily basis.

Pulled together in a few short months, the trip is a collaboration between GCC and Centennial Road Standard Church.

Kashechewan is a 3,000-kilometre round trip that includes a bus ride to Cochrane, for which Bowen got his school bus driver's licence.

From there, it gets a little more complicated.

Because there are no roads between Cochrane and Moosonee, the bus will be loaded onto a northern train called The Little Bear. From Moosonee, Bowen and volunteer Bill Bushnell will continue the drive to Kashechewan.

Hours before leaving on Thursday, students and volunteers packed up the bus for departure. Group members brought their own bedding, food, water and other supplies required for the 10 days.

The volunteers raised funds to help come up with the $600 required for each person. They got lots of help from the community, Bowen added.

St. Francis Xavier School donated a sum of money to purchase sports equipment, as well 800 to 1,000 books. The Grolier book company also donated 500 storybooks.

Culligan supplied 180 litres of water. The Community of the Good Shepherd and Home Hardware were also among those who made donations.

"It was really a community effort," said Bowen. "It's amazing how it came together."

Bowen believes part of the reason the community was so supportive is because, unlike other mission trips like ones to Belarus and Africa that have happened in this area, this one reaches out to people in Canada.

"We wanted to do something right in our own backyard," said volunteer Michelle Jones-Bushnell.

Bowen hopes the trip will expose students to cultural differences between their own community and the First Nation lifestyle in northern Ontario.

"It's very difficult to understand the lifestyle unless you see and explore the conditions people are living under," he said. "We are so blessed here."

TISS student Breanna Heine believes the trip will be a great learning experience.

"Instead of just watching the news, we're going to be there experiencing how they live for 10 days," said Heine, a Grade 12 student.

When Grade 11 TISS student Kaylee Hodgeson learned about the trip, she took the opportunity to research Kashechewan.

"I didn't know anything about the town," she admitted, "but I did my own research."

For Nastia Pestava, this trip is a chance for her to pay it forward. Pestava, who grew up at the Chaussy Orphanage in Belarus, is at GCC on scholarship.

Bowen hopes this trip will mark the beginning of a relationship between the people of Kashechewan and Grenville Christian College.

It's all about helping others, said Pestava.

"I can't wait to see the sparkle in the children's eyes when they get their own books," she said. "I got the opportunity. Now I think someone else should have that opportunity. Everyone should have a chance. We're bringing them help and hope and love."

See the press release below this article ...

From Reuters News ...

Canada slammed for treatment of aboriginals - Fri Mar 9, 2007
 
GENEVA (Reuters) - Canada needs to improve social services for its aboriginal population, particularly native women who face persistent and marked inequalities, a United Nations panel said on Friday.

The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination found there was a "lack of substantial progress" in addressing discrimination against native communities within the officially multicultural country.

"The committee remains concerned at the extent of the dramatic inequality in living standards still experienced by aboriginal peoples," it said in a statement.

Stressing that native women make up "a disproportionate number of victims of violent death, rape and domestic violence", it recommended Ottawa improve services, including shelters and counselling, for victims of gender-based violence.

Canada's 1.3 million aboriginal residents make up about 4.4 percent of the population. Many live in abject poverty and their plight is a persistent embarrassment to what is one of the world's most advanced countries.

In Ottawa, the Conservative government blamed the previous Liberal administration, saying it had done little to help aboriginals when in power from 1993 to early 2006.

"For 13 years the Liberals paid lip service to aboriginals ... this (report reflects) an accumulation of years and years of blatant disregard for aboriginal issues," said Deirdra McCracken, a spokeswoman for Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice.

She said the Conservatives were committed to boosting the rights of aboriginal women and children as well as tackling the problem of contaminated water on native Indian reserves.

The U.N. committee periodically reviews all signatory states to the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.

++++++++++++++

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Calls Upon Canada to Immediately Endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Press Release, March 8, 2007

In a ground breaking finding, the CERD Committee today called upon Canada to reverse its position at the General Assembly and support the United Nations Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. The United Nations Treaty Monitoring Body also voiced concerns that trans-national mining companies, registered in Canada negatively impact on the rights of Indigenous Peoples outside of Canada and urged Canada to “take measures” to ensure accountability of Canadian transnational mining companies with regard to Indigenous Peoples human rights in other countries.

The CERD Committee examined Canada’s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) at its 70th session, in Geneva, Switzerland, on February 20th and 21st. Their findings were released today. Canada, like all countries that have ratified this legally-binding International Convention, is required to report on its compliance with the Conventions’ provisions.

In its Conclusions and Recommendations, embargoed for a day on account of objections citing “factual errors” by the Canadian government, the CERD Committee noted Canada’s past support “and positive contributions” to the Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, stating that it “regrets” the recent change in Canada’s position. The Committee called upon Canada to “support the immediate adoption of the Declaration at the United Nations General Assembly”.

NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) “Shadow reports” were submitted by the Indigenous Nations and organizations calling attention to the discriminatory position and actions of Canada in its opposition to the Declaration’s provisions upholding Free, Prior and Informed Consent, Rights to Land and Resources, Self-Determination and Treaty Rights. They pointed out that Canada was one of only two countries which voted against the Declaration when it was adopted last year by the UN Human Rights Council. Canada continues to actively lobby against its adoption at the UN General Assembly unless changes are made to seriously weaken its provisions. This would create "second class rights" for Indigenous Peoples in Canada and around the world.

“Canada has continued to insist on the inclusion of discriminatory language in the Declaration as a requirement for its approval”. This was one of several charges presented to the CERD by the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) and the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations (CT6FN), representing 18 First Nations in Alberta. IITC is an Indigenous Organization with Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council. They were among several organizations representing First Nations of Canada which filed “shadow” or parallel reports to the CERD, challenging the Canadian government’s report.

The reports submitted by these organizations as well as the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), the British Columbia First Nations Leadership Council and the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) addressed a range of policies and practices violating Indigenous Peoples' human rights in and outside of Canada. Indigenous Peoples’ submissions were considered along with the Canadian Government’s report when CERD conducted its review of Canada on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 20th and 21st 2007.

In addition to Canada’s position on the UN Declaration, these submissions addressed a range of other urgent concerns for Indigenous Peoples. Of particular concern of many First Nations and their organizations is Canada’s “modification” and “non-assertion” policies, demanding that First Nations relinquish aboriginal rights to land and natural resources in the settlement of land claims. The Committee voiced concern that these rights are being settled primarily through litigation at a disproportionate cost to Indigenous Peoples. The Committee urged Canada, “to engage, in good faith, in negotiations based on recognition and reconciliation” of Indigenous rights.

Other concerns raised by Indigenous Peoples and addressed by the CERD Committee included institutional racism and discrimination within the criminal justice and court systems, Treaty violations, a range of inequities in social services and living conditions, gender discrimination and lack of protection against violence in particular towards Indigenous women, youth and children. On these issues the CERD Committee also called upon Canada to comply with its internationally binding human rights obligations under the CERD Convention.

The complete findings of the CERD Committee can be found at their official website, http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/cerds70.htm. For more information please contact the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, Edmonton Canada, Mr. Ron Lameman at (780) 944-0334; or the International Indian Treaty Council, Alberto Saldamando, at (415) 641-4482.

From Winnipeg Free Press ...

Study busts myths about aboriginals - New report opens door to new policy options

Sat Mar 10 2007 - By Paul Samyn 

OTTAWA -- The Harper government has a myth-busting report that challenges a number of assumptions about the plight of Canada's aboriginal people and opens the door to new policy options to address native poverty.

The study, obtained by the Free Press, says there is no evidence to support the view that natives are increasingly fleeing reserves to seek a better life in Canada's cities.

The report, commissioned by the Human Resources Department shortly after the Tories took power last year, also finds that in some cases the economic and educational gaps between natives and non-natives are not as great as widely believed.

With the country's aboriginal leaders pressing the Tories to spend billions of dollars more on First Nations, the document may help shed light on both the thinking driving the government's approach to natives and also what may transpire in the March 19 federal budget.

"Misconceptions of aboriginal data are having an impact on policy," says the report, released under the federal Access to Information Act.

"Correcting these misconceptions by careful review of empirical data is an important part of the policy process."

The report's author is Michael Mendelson, a senior scholar at the Caledon Institute of Social Policy in Ottawa and a former Manitoba deputy minister of social services.

Among the surprising facts he uncovered about the country's roughly one million aboriginals:

• the aboriginal participation rate in the workforce is higher than expected and close to the Canadian average;
• aboriginal high school graduates are just as likely to complete post-secondary education as other high school graduates;
• aboriginal people in both Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island are more likely to complete non-university post-secondary education than the non-native population.

In his report, which cost taxpayers $22,470, Mendelson makes clear the government may need to rethink approaches to improving both the education levels of aboriginals and their economic opportunities.

Some other findings from report inlcude:

• There is no mass migration from reserves into cities. Reserves and cities alike both have rapidly increasing aboriginal populations. Population shifts cannot be used as a rationale for moving resources from reserves to cities or vice versa.
• There is no province in which the aboriginal workforce will become half or more of the total workforce, although it will play an increasingly important role in several provinces, especially Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
• The largest urban concentration of aboriginal people is in Winnipeg at a little more than 50,000 -- not Toronto as sometimes claimed.
• When it comes to native education, there is a divide between East and West. In the West, aboriginals are doing even more poorly on several indicators of educational achievement. This is ironic, since demand for workers is so high in the West.

"All the socio-economic indicators we have reviewed, with only a few exceptions, are much worse than for the Canadian population as a whole," says the study, released to Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin.

"The exceptions stand out and are important as they may provide an anchor for successful policy initiative.

"Perhaps the most surprising finding is that the participation rate of aboriginal workers is almost as high as the total population's participation rate. This is particularly surprising in view of the extremely high unemployment rate facing aboriginal workers.

"This has a clear public policy implication: Do not worry so much about incentives to get aboriginal people looking for work. Worry about how to assist aboriginal people to obtain good, well-paying jobs or the skills and knowledge that lead to well-paying jobs."

Mendelson also suggests the government's education focus should be on having aboriginal youth complete high school -- rather than focusing on post-secondary education. Almost 50 per cent of working-age aboriginals did not finish high school.

"Do not worry so much about diverting aboriginal graduates from, for example, arts into sciences or from colleges to universities. Instead concentrate on getting more aboriginal students to complete a good-quality high school education and graduate.

"In some cases this may mean providing accessible, 'second chances' for older aboriginal students that are now ready to take on this challenge. But the main challenge is to get more aboriginal students graduating with a good high school education and a certificate in the normal time that most students complete their high school."

Mendelson also treads on a potentially controversial view by suggesting that part of the problem facing aboriginals is that a larger percentage of their incomes comes from government transfers, unlike non-natives who have access to other forms of money, such as income investments or bequests.

"It may mean that employment per se is not the only solution to persistent poverty and that the accumulation of other forms of wealth and access to income needs to be considered. In other words, wealth may play a more important role."