Letter to Dalton McGuinty and Michael Bryant

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I sent this letter today to the Premier on Ontario and to the province's Minister of Aboriginal Affairs after receiving an article about the arrests from a co-worker here. I am absolutely disgusted to see something happening in Canada that I see happening here under a dictatorship. I wanted to share the letter with everyone else.


Hon. Dalton McGuinty
Premier
Legislative Building
Queen's Park
Toronto, ON
M7A 1A1

Hon. Michael Bryant
Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs
1407 - 99 Wellesley St W
Toronto ON M7A 1W3

Dear Hon. Members,

I am writing as an Ontario resident to register my protest at over imprisonment of 6 members of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation Band Council.

The Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nations band protested and stopped the Platinex mining company from drilling on land that is subject to Treaty 9, a treaty signed in 1929 between the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nations and the government of Ontario. An injunction was brought against Platinex to stop them from drilling while the two parties negotiated a deal that would allow the company to mine without causing irreparable harm to the First Nations ancestral land. The government of Ontario joined the discussion supposedly in good faith, but it was the same government officials who decided, when an agreement could not be met, that the mining company should be allowed to go ahead and mine however they wish. When 6 leaders of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation band council continued to protest because their treaty rights where being violated they where each sentenced to six months in jail for contempt of court.

I graduated with a degree in human rights from a Canadian university and am currently working in the Philippines with indigenous peoples organizations. They are struggling to protect their ancestral lands, their communities, their health and their livelihood against destructive large scale mining. The indigenous people in the Philippines experience sever state violence ranging from military intimidation to illegal detention to the extra-judicial killing of their leaders when they try to stand up for their rights against large mining companies. In this country it is common knowledge that the government will always side with corporations over their own people. I have previously been proud to tell my co-workers that I come from a country where that it not the case.

I have always been proud to say that I come from a country with a strong human rights culture and a level of protection well above that of most other nations. I came to the Philippines to work with indigenous people organizations because they are experiencing a level of human rights abuse that I believed was not possible in Canada. But when the same situation happens here that has happened to the 6 leaders of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nations I work with them as political prisoners. I am ashamed today to see that Ontario has become a province that puts business above the rights of its people and has arrested and is holding 6 political prisoners. Why am I working internationally for human rights protection when my own province is treating people with the same disrespect and violence as the dictatorial government I am helping to fight?

For the first time since arriving in the Philippines I am ashamed to talk to the people I work with about Canada.

Free the 6 band council members of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nations. Acknowledge that they where held as political prisoners arrested for trying to protect their rights. And return to good faith negotiations between the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nations and the Plantinex mining company. Prove that the Ontario government has more respect for its indigenous peoples them the violent Filipino government I am currently helping fight.


Sincerely,



Nicole Smith
Ottawa, Ontario
Baguio City, Philippines

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Comments

[Rmeekis]

Bravo
Your letter is very well written. Hopefully more people follow suit. I work with the daughter of the Chief of KI, and this whole situation hits home in a personal sense. Thank-you...