[R-G] Native Rights Concerns Cloud 2010 Games

[Anthony Fenton]

CANADA:  Native Rights Concerns Cloud 2010 Games
By Jon Elmer
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44930

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)