Feds failing on indigenous rights
ITK calls out government for lack of consultation with Inuit
Beth Brown
Northern News Services
Monday, January 30, 2017
OTTAWA
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) says Canada's position on the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is one of inaction.
"We had imagined the federal government was going to work with us very early on, perhaps even a year ago," ITK president Natan Obed told Nunavut News/North.
The UN General Assembly adopted the 46-article declaration in 2007 after 25 years of negotiation between indigenous groups and UN member states.
In May, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada Minister Carolyn Bennett announced during a UN forum on indigenous issues in New York that Canada fully intended to adopt the declaration.
Obed said this is a positive step, but the lack of discussion with indigenous groups since the spring poses a problem.
"As the Canadian government made more statements on its position on implementation of UNDRIP, and (as there was) musing by federal ministers about the limitations of its implementation domestically, we felt it was necessary to articulate the Inuit position within the indigenous position in Canada so the federal government would have a clear understanding of the expectations that Inuit had on this file," said Obed.
Truth and reconciliation
ITK's position paper, issued Jan. 24, provides four recommendations for how it believes the federal government should move forward. These include: national legislation for adopting UNDRIP; partnership with Inuit; rejection of colonialism through the concept of free, prior and informed consent; and the recognition that the international declaration provides a framework for Canada's own Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
"If Canada does not meaningfully implement the (UNDRIP) in partnership with indigenous people in Canada then I don't see how it can make good on its campaign promises of implementing the (TRC's) calls to action."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's November 2015 mandate letter to Indigenous and Northern Affairs states a need to undertake a review of laws, policies, and operational practices in Canada relating to aboriginal and treaty rights.
It also states this should be done in full partnership and consultation with First Nations, Inuit and the Métis Nation. Obed says Inuit, First Nations and Métis groups have yet to sit down with the Crown and discuss what impact the declaration will have on Canadian law and legislation.
Free, prior and informed consent
In line with ITK's call for consultation, free, prior, and informed consent is a primary concern.
"Agreements such as the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (1975), Inuvialuit Final Agreement (1984), and Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement (2005) were negotiated by Inuit under significant pressure in an environment of impending resource development," the paper states.
Tension in the negotiation process from these example cases directly opposes the right to free, prior and informed consent, a concept supported by UNDRIP, states the paper.
While free, prior and informed consent does already exist within some modern treaties and land claim settlements such as the Nunavut Agreement, Obed says the concept has been mistaken as providing indigenous groups with veto over land development.
"We at ITK were concerned that this rhetoric has allowed for people to dismiss the entirety of the UN declaration as a threat to development in Canada and to the relationship of indigenous people with the Crown, or all Canadians."
He said overall the paper is meant to spur conversation, and evoke a sense of urgency.
Obed hopes other parties will use the paper as an example of a defined position of an indigenous group in Canada on the implementation of UNDRIP.
"These are not rights that we are fighting for, these are rights that we already have and that the United Nations has identified and that Canada has signed on to," he said.
