PRESS RELEASE
Groups Rally in Queen’s Park to Demand Just Resolution to Native Land Rights Disputes
For Immediate Release: September 21, 2007
TORONTO – More than 200 human rights and environmental advocates and First Nation leaders demonstrated at Queen’s Park this afternoon to demand that the Ontario provincial government take immediate, concrete action to resolve longstanding Native land rights disputes stemming from unrestrained logging and mining in the boreal forest when the legislature resumes after the October 10 election.
The public demonstration was organized by Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and Christian Peacemaker Teams. Shortly after noon, participants pointed a 75-meter, arrow-shaped banner reading “Native Land Rights Now” at the legislature while First Nation leaders spoke and a helicopter captured the scene overhead.
Native groups in attendance – which included the Grassy Narrows, Ardoch Algonquin and Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nations, and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation representing 49 First Nations in northern Ontario – are demanding a moratorium on industrial activities being carried out on their traditional territories without their free, prior and informed consent.
Over the objections of Grassy Narrows and other First Nations communities, the province continues to issue permits for logging, mining and other large-scale industrial projects on their lands. First Nation representatives at the event described how such projects degrade the land, disrupt traditional cultural practices, and reverse economic rights guaranteed to them under the Canadian Constitution (see statements below).
The province recently appointed former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci to negotiate with Grassy Narrows but it has not agreed to enforce the community’s moratorium on clear-cutting.
RAN is campaigning to get U.S. lumber giant Weyerhaeuser to stop buying wood products obtained by clear-cutting forests on the traditional territory of Grassy Narrows First Nation.
Supporting Statements
Judy Da Silva, Lynx Clan, Grassy Narrows First Nation, (807) 466-6517
“We, the grassroots people of the Anishnabeg, have an obligation to protect the land and the culture and our way of life for the future of our children, and grandchildren.”
John Cutfeet, Spokesperson and Councilor, KI First Nation, (807) 627- 9062
“This government continues to disregard Supreme Court rulings that direct consultation and accommodations prior to issuing permits. By issuing these permits they create an illegal presence in our territories. Our efforts to get them to observe the law as it pertains to our people create economic hardships. This is a continued disrespect to all First Peoples and to the people of Ontario whom the government claims to represent in these actions. These actions are not fair, nor just, and they are not right.”
Jim Loney, Christian Peacemaker Teams Canada program coordinator, (647) 409-0965
“Ontario’s refusal to respect the wishes and homelands of First Nations is a major violation of human rights that needs to be resolved immediately.”
Brant Olson, director of Rainforest Action Network’s Old Growth Campaign, (415) 596-6581
“Profiting from the devastation of public health and the environment should be a thing of the distant past for these industries but for Grassy Narrows and other First Nations represented today, it’s a daily reality.”
