Finding out what it feels like to lose land, resources and people, and taking a limited peek behind the door of the Export Development Corporation -- these were the highlights of the November 4th workshop sponsored by the Ottawa Jubilee Coalition as part of this year's Jubilee theme "Renewal of the Earth" The call to Jubilee in Leviticus challenges us to establish a more respectful relationship with the earth and with its original inhabitants. Debts are to be paid and ancestral lands restored to those who lost them during the previous generation. The Jubilee Petition Campaign on Aboriginal Land Rights, in the spirit of Leviticus, calls on the federal government to establish an independent commission to implement Aboriginal land rights. Ed Bianchi, National Coordinator of the Aboriginal Rights Coalition (ARC), and Richard Renshaw, the Assistant General Secretary of the Canadian Religious Conference, conducted a workshop at Dominion Chalmers United Church to explain the campaign.
"When the Europeans arrived in Canada, they had no doubt they were the masters of the new land they had found but in fact they needed the help of the Aboriginal peoples to survive" explained. Richard. "Thus they entered into a partnership to develop the fur trade - a partnership recognized by the Crown in a Royal Proclamation in 1763 which told the colonizers they must respect the rights of the Aboriginal peoples to draw a living from the land and live peaceably on it." But this is not exactly what happened, as participants discovered during the blanket exercise where they were asked to stand on a blanket -- representing the land of North America -- and imagine they were native people.
As Treaty promises are broken, small pox decimates communities and game disappears the blanket gets smaller and smaller. Modern statistics of high unemployment and incarceration rates coupled with low education and poor health cause the blanket to get even smaller until only two people remain, a graphic demonstration of how Aboriginal peoples lost access to their land and the effect it had and still has on their communities. While we are often proud of the fact that the United Nations Human Development Index considers Canadians have the highest quality of life on the planet, it is a different story if you use this index to measure the quality of life of Aboriginal people living in Canada -- they are in a shocking sixty-third place. The exercise is profoundly moving and it becomes very evident why Christians are calling on the government to remedy past wrongs and help Aboriginal peoples build a better future -- a future that gives them a sufficient land base to become economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.
Is there a connection between this campaign and the residential schools issue? Ed said the residential schools were part of the federal government's policy of assimilation, a policy which included dispossessing Aboriginal peoples of their land. "There cannot be healing and reconciliation without resolving the land rights issue," he says. He also warned us that there are vested interests who would love to create enmity between Aboriginal peoples and other Canadians on the "divide and conquer" principle. "Don't let anyone drive a wedge between Aboriginal peoples and the churches" he pleaded, a message consistently endorsed by Archbishop Michael Peers.
Take Action: Sign the Jubilee Petition on Aboriginal Land Rights
Respecting the land and its peoples does not only apply to Canada, and the Jubilee Initiative also sponsors Global Land Rights Action, which calls for more transparency and accountability in the way Canadian companies do business abroad. Joan Kuyek, National Coordinator of Mining Watch Canada explained that some Canadian mining companies are causing problems for Aboriginal peoples in Brazil, Colombia, Kazakhstan and the Sudan. "Many of these companies behave like the worst of the earliest settlers", she said, "trespassing, removing ores, exerting influence on government officials, and lying about their intentions to restore land and keep the water clean. If challenged they declare bankruptcy and go on their merry way".
These companies often get tax breaks in Canada and some of the risk of their operations is assumed by the federal government's Export Development Corporation. As a crown corporation sheltering under the "commercial confidentiality"clause, it is exempt from many of the checks and balances that apply elsewhere in the government. While most G8 countries, including the U.S., have similar export credit agencies, their books and activities are much more regulated and transparent than those of the EDC.
At present the Export Development Corporation is under a periodic review and the Global Land Rights Action campaign is using this opportunity to pressure the government to open it to public scrutiny.
Take Action: Send a copy of the Global Land Rights Action Letter to the federal government.
To find out more about the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative campagins at www.web.net/~jubilee, or by contacting the Ottawa Jubilee Coalition through Pat Bonell at the Diocese of Ottawa 233-7166 ext.222 or email her at Pat Bonell@ottawa.anglican.ca.