CANADA: Native Rights Concerns Cloud 2010 Games
By Jon Elmer
VANCOUVER, Dec 1 (IPS) - A coalition of indigenous elders, social
justice activists and community organisers is voicing opposition to
the upcoming Winter Olympics, promising to continue their protests up
to and throughout the 2010 games.
Taking advantage of a three-day media briefing hosted by the official
Olympic body in late November, the Vancouver Organising Committee
(VANOC), activists and native representatives invited the local and
visiting international media to an office in the heart of the what is
commonly known as Canada's poorest neighbourhood, the Downtown
Eastside, to hear "the other side of the Olympic story".
Rallying under the banner of "No Olympics on stolen native land",
speakers representing nine native and community groups outlined
connections between native poverty, dislocation and homelessness and
the staging of the games in Vancouver and Whistler, 120 kms north of
Vancouver.
Arthur Manuel, a former chief in the Neskonlith Indian Band of the
Secwepemc nation, accused the Canadian government of attempting to
whitewash the structural violations of native sovereignty. "We are the
poorest people in the country," Manuel said. "Not because this country
is poor, but because [the government] continues to violate the human
rights of the indigenous people, by not recognising our Aboriginal
title and our treaty rights."
Nearly all of the province of British Columbia -- including the land
on which the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics will be staged -- is not
subject to any treaty and the land has not been otherwise ceded or
surrendered by its indigenous inhabitants, as Canada's highest court
has recognised.
Manuel cited Canada's refusal to sign on to the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as evidence that the
government does not intend to follow the principles of international
law in dealing with native sovereignty. In September 2007, the U.N.
declaration was passed 143 to four, with the United States, Australia
and New Zealand joining Canada in opposition.
James Louie, a member of the St'at'imc nation whose traditional lands
encompass the rapidly expanding Whistler mountain and resort, said the
expansion of infrastructure and development for the Olympics
undermines the status of his people's case before the Organisation of
American States treaty process.
"Because we have no treaty with Canada, the imposition and
encroachment of Whistler -- their hydro lines, their highways, their
railroad, you name it, anything they do with our territory -- is
illegal," Louie said.
The Olympics have spurred a construction and development boom in
Vancouver and Whistler in particular, and in British Columbia in
general. Between July and September 2007, 843 major capital projects
were planned or underway throughout British Columbia, valued at U.S.
108 billion dollars, according to the provincial government's ministry
of economic development.
A VANOC budget report last year pegged the operating costs for the
games at 1.32 billion dollars. The provincial and federal governments
have provided an additional 468 million dollars, primarily for venue
construction, including ski hill development in St'at'imc territory.
The official Olympics budget does not include major infrastructural
projects undertaken by the government in preparation for the February
2010 games, including the 484-million-dollar expansion of the
Vancouver-to-Whistler highway.
Seislom, a Lil'wat elder who is also known as Glen Williams, addressed
the legacy of the expansion around Whistler and its impact on the
environment. "When my grandfather took me up Whistler mountain, the
land was pure. Now it's polluted, it's desecrated. I ask myself the
question: what will my grandchildren get from all of this?"
According to VANOC, 20.5 million dollars in venue construction and
95,163 dollars in non-venue contracts have been awarded to Aboriginal
businesses through an incorporated native society called the Four Host
First Nations Society (FHFN).
Several speakers challenged the role of FHFN in their communities.
Seislom said the FHFN "choose not to recognise traditional, hereditary
chieftainships" and instead only "recognise their own chieftainships
in terms of corporate development, in terms of the Department of
Indian Affairs, in terms of anything to do with money and power."
Dustin Johnson, a Tsimshian activist and organiser, also questioned
the legitimacy of the FHFN. "It is important to make a distinction
between elected leaders under the Canadian Indian Act system and the
traditional governments, the traditional leaders," he said.
Canada imposed the Indian reserve and band council system through
Indian Act of 1876, nine years after the country was founded. It
wasn't until 1953 that the Act was amended to allow natives to
organise around a land claim, which had previously been illegal.
Johnson characterised the Four Host First Nation Society as a small
group of "elite native capitalists who don't represent the majority of
native people".
"They'll paint the picture that they are trying to create economic
development and self sufficiency, but it's really twisting the logic
of what our people stand for: a lot of our people stand for
sustainable development and protecting what little we have left of our
lands and resources," Johnson said.
Arthur Manuel criticised the government and the FHFN for spending
millions showcasing native arts and culture while ignoring the
structural causes of the poverty. "They are using that money for the
purpose of disguising the violations of human rights of the indigenous
people of this country."
The BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition last week issued a report
that showed BC for the fifth-straight year has the highest rate of
child poverty in Canada, at almost 22 percent. The rate for native
children is 40 percent but, the report notes, "the number would be
significantly higher if the data had included children living on
reserve." Recent statistics from the Canadian government's Department
of Indian and Northern Affairs put the number of natives in BC at
122,000; about half live on reserves.
In Vancouver, the largest urban centre to host a Winter Olympics,
there is likely as many as 8,000 homeless people, according to
researchers at Simon Fraser University's Centre for Applied Research
in Mental Health and Addiction, a disproportionate number of whom are
native.
The rates of child poverty and homelessness continue to increase.
Laura Track, a lawyer with the Downtown Eastside's Pivot Legal
Society, said that over 1,400 units of affordable housing have been
lost since Vancouver was awarded the games in July 2003. Hundreds of
tenants have been evicted from single-room occupancy hotels in the
Downtown Eastside, as the Olympic-borne real estate development boom
has deepened the homelessness crisis.
Outgoing Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan, who presided over a sharp
increase in homelessness during his tenure, has called the crisis "a
civic, and provincial and national shame."
Vancouver is anticipating as many as two million visitors during the
XXI Winter Olympic Games to be held from Feb. 12-28, 2010. According
to VANOC spokesperson Suzanne Walters, more than 10,000 members of the
media are expected for the games, including 2,900 print and photo-
journalists.
(END/2008)
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