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From Cultural Survival ....

UN Body Holds Canada Responsible for Corporations’ Actions Abroad

By Mark Cherrington. April 10, 2007, World Indigenous News

In a groundbreaking decision, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has told Canada that it must rein in Canadian corporations operating on Indian land in the United States.

The finding, issued in early March, was in response to a petition filed by the Western Shoshone Defense Project about the actions of Canadian resource-extraction companies operating on the tribe’s land in the western United States. Among other things, the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which has been ratified by both Canada and the United States, requires states to "guarantee the right of everyone ... in the enjoyment of ... economic, social, and cultural rights ... and the right to public health." The Shoshone petition claimed that these are the areas in which the Canadian companies are affecting them.

The petition especially targets Barrick Gold Corporation, the largest gold mining company in the world. Gold mining uses large amounts of toxic mercury and creates cyanide-laced leaching ponds, both of which threaten Shoshones’ right to health. The blasting used to open mining sites destroys sacred areas, which violates the tribe’s cultural rights to culture, and mining roads disrupt wildlife, undermining their traditional ways of finding food. Gold mining also requires vast amounts of water, which dries up springs and other water sources that the Shoshone need for health. The Betze mine alone uses 70,000 gallons per minute, and it is hardly alone. Western Shoshone lands are the third-largest gold producing region in the world, and there are six other Canadian gold companies besides Barrick operating there, with more applications for leases already under consideration.

The Shoshone have targeted Canada in part because the United States has failed to take any action to protect Shoshone lands. On the contrary, the U.S. government has declared most of Shoshone territory to be federal public land open to resource extraction and other commercial activities. The treaty protecting the original Western Shoshone territory—some 60 million acres from southern Idaho to California’s Mojave Desert—is still valid, but the government has gotten around the treaty by invoking a principle it calls "gradual encroachment." This legal tautology has been discredited by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, but the United States has ignored those findings.

In fact, the government has been seeking ways of making their lands even more available to encroachment. Until now, extraction industries have been operating under a federal lease arrangement, but in 2004 Republican congressman Richard Pombo introduced an amendment to a budget bill that would allow foreign companies to buy this "public" Shoshone land for $1,000 an acre. (The bill was passed by the House of Representatives but defeated in the Senate.) And a second bill, introduced by Republican congressman James Gibbons (now governor of Nevada), would have offered more than 60,000 acres of Shoshone land for sale to the Canadian company Placer Dome, now owned by Barrick Gold.

The racial discrimination treaty is a binding agreement for Canada, which, like all state parties, has to submit to biannual review by the CERD Committee, the treaty’s enforcement body. CERD reviews the country’s report (and any accompanying unofficial "shadow reports" like the Western Shoshones’) and issues observations and recommendations like the one regarding Canada, which read in part: "The committee encourages the state party to take appropriate legislative or administrative measures to prevent acts of transnational corporations registered in Canada which have a negative impact on the enjoyment of rights of indigenous peoples in territories outside Canada. In particular, the committee recommends to the state party that it explore ways to hold transnational corporations registered in Canada accountable."

Will Canada act on that recommendation? One hopeful sign in that regard is a report published on March 29 by Canada’s National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility and Canadian Extractive Industries in Developing Countries. Among many recommendations in this comprehensive government report, are several that stress the need to protect the rights of indigenous peoples in the areas where Canadian companies operate.

Sources and Further Reading:

• The National Roundtables on Corporate Social Responsibility
   
• UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Sandy Lake First Nation is undertaking a review of their governance structure to find out if Sandy lake First Nation Band Members want more involvement in directing the actions of the Chief and Council.

Visit their new web site at http://sandylake.firstnation.ca/governance/ for more information about this exciting undertaking.

The purpose of the Sandy Lake Governance project is to create a system of governance that receives a mandate from, and is accountable to the membership, using traditional and contemporary ideas.

The important part of creating a governance system is to ask the community people what a governance system should look like and what it should include.

So the governance project is holding small group sessions (focus groups) to find out how Sandy Lake membership want the leadership to act.

During the consultation process, community members are asked to consider the following questions:

1. What community values and principles should steer the way leadership operates in Sandy Lake?
    
2. In the past, what worked well in how the leadership governed the people in Sandy Lake?
    
3. What works well now in the way that the Chief and Council govern the community?
    
4. What changes would you like to see made in order to ensure a leadership system that is:
   1. open
   2. accountable
   3. effective for a long time?
       
5. In governing ourselves, how can we include community Youth? Women? Elders?
    
6. How can leadership be:
   1. fair ( being just and equitable)
   2. supportive but not dominating
   3. traditional and yet innovative?
       
7. How should the Chief and Council be:
   1. directed by the community
   2. responsible to the community?

For more information or to provide feeback on the Governance Project, you can reach the Project Coordinator Ennis Fiddler by:

Ennis Fiddler
Box 375
Sandy Lake, Ontario
P0V 1V0
Phone: (807) 774-1098
Email: ennisfiddler@knet.ca

Notice from the Anishninaabe Peace & Justice Coalition...

This is to let you know about important events happening this Wednesday morning April 11.  The family of Max Kakegamic and their lawyers will be making a presentation to the Kenora Police Services Board at 9 a.m., followed by a press conference and a walk down Main St. from City Hall to Matheson St. site of Kakegamic’s death.  As always, the family appreciates the presence and support of Anishinaabe Peace & Justice Coalition supporters and other concerned Treaty 3 and Kenora citizens.

NAN and Aboriginal Legal Services MEDIA ADVISORY ...

PARENTS OF MAX KAKEGAMIC TO ADDRESS KENORA POLICE SERVICES BOARD

THUNDER BAY, ON, Tuesday April 10, 2007: Margaret and Isaac Kakegamic (Kakekagumick), members of Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) together with their legal counsel and NAN Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler will address issues arising from the failures of the Kenora Police Service (KPS) in investigating the death of their son Max Kakegamic during a KPS Board meeting tomorrow morning.

DATE: Wednesday April 11, 2007
TIME: 9:00 a.m.
LOCATION: Kenora City Hall, City Hall Council Chambers, 1 Main Street South, Kenora, ON P9N 3X2

North Spirit Lake First Nation community member Max Kakegamic was killed on the streets of Kenora, ON October 4, 2000. When the case went to trial January 2004, charges against the only suspect were stayed because of irregularities in the investigation. KPS members Lloyd White, Tom Favreau, and Chris Ratchford were cited for police misconduct in a February 2004 ruling by Superior Court Justice Peter Hambly.

KPS confirmed with NAN shortly after the 2004 judgment the investigation into the death of Max Kakegamic would not proceed. In January 2007 Ontario’s Chief Coroner denied the family’s request to hold an inquest.

The Kakagamics will make a statement to media following their presentation to the KPS board at approximately 9:10 a.m. The Board meeting is open to the public.

For more information please contact:

Jenna Young, Director of Communications, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, (807) 625 4952 or (807) 628 3953 mobile

Kimberly Murray, Executive Director, Aboriginal Legal Services, (416) 408 4041 ext. 225 or (416) 219 8569 mobile