Trust. Integrity. Reputation.
Trust. Integrity. Reputation.
March - 2000
The honeymoon's over!
The honeymoon race, where women pull men on the sleds for a specified distance and then switch places and let the men pull them back to the start, resulted in some serious fun at Bonnyville, Alberta's King and Queen Trappers Day on Feb. 21.Photo Credit: Debora Lockyer-Steel
Deaths point to police racism
Former cop says FBI/RCMP faked Peltier's arrest
Dirty tricks alleged in residential school lawsuits
NASA seeks out Aboriginal people's knowledge on climate change
Forestry fiasco drags on while Crees go hungry
Men honored for heroic river rescue
How do we decide what is fairness in membership policy? - Guest Column
The bad guys - there's plenty ! - Editorial
The above is only a partial list of all the stories featured in the March, 2000 issue of Windspeaker.
If you are not receiving your own copy of Windspeaker, then you have missed out on a great deal of news, information and humour.
Deaths point to police racism
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
SASKATOONTwo significant incidents in Western Canada have pushed the issue of police racism directed towards Aboriginal people into the national spotlight this month.
First, it was revealed that two veteran Saskatoon city police officers have been suspended [with pay] while allegations they dropped a Native man outside the city limits with no jacket in minus 30 degree Celsius weather are under investigation. The bodies of two Native men were found in the Saskatoon area in the first week of February. Several other deaths have been attributed to similar alleged police actions. The investigation began when a third man, Darryl Knight, filed a complaint, saying he had survived that kind of treatment.
Then, in Winnipeg, after police failed to respond to five 911 calls from the same residence, two Aboriginal women were found killed when police finally attended their home eight hours after the first call for help was placed. It has been alleged they failed to respond to the calls because the women were Aboriginal.
Native leaders all over the province of Saskatchewan say their people know it is standard police procedure in the province to take Native people outside the city and make them walk back to town in sub-freezing temperatures.
The RCMP were asked by Saskatoon police chief Dave Scott to conduct an inquiry into the deaths in his city. That inquiry has since spread to the city of Regina.
Saying First Nation/police relations are at a "new and dangerous low," National Chief Phil Fontaine added the incidents add more urgency to his call for a contextual review of the relationship the RCMP has with Aboriginal people. He wrote letters to Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow, RCMP Commissioner Phil Murray and the Saskatoon police chief, demanding action.
"On the one hand, I am encouraged by the decision of the Saskatoon police chief and the Saskatchewan Justice minister to request an independent investigation into the matter," Fontaine wrote to the RCMP commissioner. "On the other hand, the appointment of the RCMP will not engender a whole lot of trust in our communities, given the past history."
He reminded Murray of their Nov. 19 meeting where he said he received assurances of co-operation from the commissioner.
The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations has received hundreds of calls from other Native people who claim to have been subjected to treatment similar to that allegedly received by Knight.
On Feb. 22, the FSIN activated a helpline where people can call and report trouble with police or add to the information already in hand. Sources at the FSIN say the leadership is not completely comfortable with the role the RCMP is playing in investigating the city police service. They say the RCMP have been known to engage in the same kind of activities.
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Former cop says FBI/RCMP faked Peltier's arrestBy Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
VANCOUVERA former Alberta police officer claims the FBI staged a show arrest to make Leonard Peltier look bad so Canadian authorities would agree to extradite him to the United States for trial.
In a letter to the president of the United States, (with copies sent to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, Peltier, Amnesty International and the Assembly of First Nations) Bob Newbrook, 50, claims he arrested Peltier a day before the date when FBI records say he was arrested.
During a Feb. 21 phone interview from Vancouver, he suggested the FBI and RCMP already had Peltier in custody when they re-arrested him the next day.
The claim, although it checks out on many levels, is disputed by the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, based in Lawrence, Kansas. Gina Chiala, a LPDC staffer, said Peltier only remembers being arrested once. Contacted on Feb. 22, Chiala said the LPDC was looking into the allegations by Newbrook and had not had a chance to speak personally to Peltier who is incarcerated nearby in Leavenworth federal prison.
During a phone conversation with the imprisoned American Indian Movement activist, Chiala said Peltier said the version of his arrest as detailed in the book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse is the version he stands by. Chiala also said that phone conversations with Peltier are always conducted in a very careful fashion because it's believed his calls are monitored by prison officials. A face-to-face prison visit was scheduled for Feb. 25, two days after publication deadline.
Newbrook said he saw the movie Incident at Oglala in October and it has changed his life. The former Hinton, Alta. town police department officer told Windspeaker he has always had an interest in the Leonard Peltier case because he believed he was the man who captured Peltier at Chief Smallboy's Camp on Feb. 5, 1976. As the years have passed and Peltier's notoriety has grown, Newbrook said he always felt good that he played a role in the arrest and conviction of a man accused of murdering two FBI agents. It was only when he saw actor/director Robert Redford's documentary that dealt with the inconsistencies during the prosecution of Peltier that he realized there might be a problem.
"I used to watch the occasional news show and see Peltier again and think, 'Why is it everybody in jail these days is innocent? The guy's guilty, for God's sake. Somebody saw him murder these guys in cold blood.' I would have loved to have killed him myself when I grabbed him. I was looking for an excuse. He killed a policeman. A cop doesn't like it when another cop is killed," he said.
When Langley, B.C. martial arts instructor D. J. Mickael Maillet and his wife Jackie heard Newbrook - his former student - claim to have been the man who arrested Peltier, he didn't believe him.
"I had to confirm this with his wife on the side and she said, 'Oh, yeah.'
"I'd seen Incident at Oglala two or three times. I'd taught several Native people and we'd talked about Leonard Peltier a lot. So, I think he bought the tape and we watched it that night," Maillet said. "That was it. He was in tears after that."
"Yeah, I watched it and I cried after," Newbrook admitted.
Maillet saw the reaction as very significant.
"I said, 'What do you want to do about this, Bob?' I was serious," he said. "As I noticed what he was willing to do, that's it. I left it with him. If you're committed to this, help free this man because he shouldn't be in jail."
Newbrook said that evening in October was a defining moment in his life. He is now committed to finding a way to force the authorities to take a look at the evidence and what it appears to reveal about the FBI investigation. The key point in the documentary for the former police officer was the official date of the arrest - Feb. 6, 1976. That date is one day after Newbrook remembers taking Peltier into custody and transporting him to the Hinton lock-up.
Frank and Anne Dreaver head up a Toronto-based social activist group that has been lobbying for Peltier's release for 20 years. Anne Dreaver said her group is looking into the former police officer's claims. She admits it would be a good thing for the movement if his story is verified but said it must be carefully investigated.
The investigation will continue at several levels. It will be a tough exercise in sifting facts and separating them from supposition, determining which are false or erroneous memories and which are accurate recollections, all the while keeping in mind the various conflicting political pressures at work, she said.
Newbrook is willing to believe he made a mistake about his recollection of the arrest, but he doesn't think he did.
"Even if I'm wrong, I still want to see this man freed," he said.
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Dirty tricks alleged in residential school lawsuits
By Paul Barnsley
Windspeaker Staff Writer
REGINATony Merchant sees a pattern in the actions of Department of Justice lawyers as they deal with residential school damage claims and, if the Regina lawyer's charges are accurate, school survivors should know they're under attack.
Published reports in mid-February revealed that the RCMP has been forced to go to court to regain or keep control of records of criminal investigations conducted in response to complaints filed by residential school victims.
On Jan. 7, 1998, then Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart apologized on behalf of the federal government to victims of sexual and physical abuse in the schools. But bureaucrats within the Indian Affairs and Justice departments have gained access to RCMP files and appear to be using the information in the files to help defend the government against civil law suits filed by victims.
Observers say the government is attempting to negate the independence of the national police force for its own purposes, something most law enforcement officials say is a dangerous step. Reform MPs have said the fight between government lawyers and the federal police force raises the spectre of government interference in matters best left to police. Critics say the Liberal government has demonstrated, with the "shovel-gate" scandal in the Human Resources Development department, it isn't above mixing politics with government for its own benefit. Mixing politics with police work is something most commonly associated with dictatorships.
Author/journalist Paul Palango, in his book Above the Law, explored what happened when former Mountie Rod Stamler put together a string of successful investigations of members of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Cabinet. Changes were made that required the RCMP commissioner to report to the attorney general, a move that made it harder for Stamler to investigate corruption. Stamler eventually resigned from the force, saying the police service had been prevented from doing its job for political reasons.
The trouble the RCMP is having in keeping details of its investigations out of the hands of government lawyers is an important sign that the lawyers have crossed the line, Merchant said.
Merchant, the senior partner in Regina's Merchant Law Group, told Windspeaker the conflict between the RCMP and the federal government departments is just another example of an approach that lawyers in his firm have noticed in recent months.
"It appears to be a stiffening by Justice. It seems to be out of the hands of the political and policy side and Justice seems to be functioning separate from the views of the minister of Indian Affairs and the prime minister and the Cabinet as a whole, so you have this inconsistency," he said.
The apology has not been forgotten by Robert Nault, Stewart's replacement at Indian Affairs, Merchant said, but lawyers and bureaucrats have hijacked the process from the elected officials.
A former Liberal member of the provincial legislature, Merchant doesn't believe the prime minister and Cabinet are aware that the legal landscape has taken this shape. He believes there will be a political price for the party to pay if this trend continues. He hopes to get the chance to relay that message to the prime minister in the near future.
"I've talked with a number of chiefs who, at my urging, have raised this issue with Minister Nault. The Indian leadership and the Elders are convinced that his mind is in the right place and he'd like to bring these cases to a conclusion. That's certainly the direction of the prime minister and the direction of the Cabinet as a whole. So you have the government, the elected officials from the government - particularly from the Prairies - believing that we're moving towards a reasonable, fair and rational conclusion of these cases, and then you have the lawyers working for Justice, where in all the provinces they're hiring all sorts of new lawyers, and the lawyers have taken over," he said.
"While they get direction from Ottawa, the direction seems to be very hard-nosed and the direction is no different from some big American insurance company."
Different tactics may be employed in different regions, but Merchant, whose firm is handling thousands of residential school cases in every part of the country, thinks those differing tactics are driven by one basic strategy.
Small firms can be bullied into settling for too little or even into not accepting residential compensation cases by government delays, he said, because they have to lay too much money in advance of a settlement decision in order to survive the delays.
"I believe that's really part of the motive. The motive is more or less three-fold: First, to just create jobs for themselves. These are the government lawyers. Many of them are temporary employees hired for a year or two. They were hired for one or two years and they've turned these jobs into five years or nine. Second, there may be some overall plan that says, 'We can pay less if we intimidate some of the law firms that don't have very many of these [cases] and maybe aren't as experienced in how to handle them.' Some people will die, I guess and that'll save them some money. Some people will be softened up and will be apt to settle for less two years from now or four years from now. Third, why pay now when I can pay a year from now or four years from now. Just like any big insurance company or corporation," he said.
In Alberta, where Merchant Law Group lawyers have filed 1,078 (about half) of the residential school cases, the lawyer said the courts have been fooled into imposing a biased, unfair, collective case management system. Worried that the high number of claims would swamp the court system, Alberta judges have forced all residential school cases to go through one small avenue of access to the courts.
Merchant calculates that each such case in Alberta is allowed just 21 seconds per month under this system.
"If the Royal Bank were suing TransAlta, they'd be furious. They'd say, 'What do you mean 21 seconds.' We are entitled to as much court time, or as much attention by judges, as we need to get this case moving forward. But the judicial system has been taken in by the government to say that these 2,000 cases are going to be treated in Alberta like they're sort of one case," he said. "Well, we do these cases all across Canada and we think Alberta's just going to take forever. This ought to be treated by the court as the most important series of cases they have before them. [At] what other time do you have more than 2,000 individuals who have the right to go to court? And they're being treated like they're unimportant."
The decision to implement the Alberta system is under appeal, but that hasn't stopped Native observers from concluding there is a bias against their claims within the court system.
"I have had many of our clients, including some chiefs and Elders, say the only logical explanation is there's sort of a bias. It's not a front-of-the-mind, understood bias. What's happening is the government has convinced some lawyers and the judiciary that you can't tie up the judicial system with these cases. If we allow these 2,000 cases to go forward on a first-come, first-serve basis, that important lawsuit against TransAlta won't get to court for four years.
"I can fully understand why many of our clients feel as though there's a bias there. It's a bias of misunderstanding, but the effect is still the same."
The result so far has been that the average time required to deal with a case in Saskatchewan is 15 months, whereas in Alberta, statements of claim filed in January 1999 have still to be answered with a statement of defense.
Merchant is convinced the Number 1 priority for Justice lawyers is to delay as long as possible, using whatever means are available.
"I now have a total lack of trust of the methods of the government lawyers," he said. "Let me give you an example from a trial in Saskatchewan. The government delayed and delayed, saying they had to search out all these important documents and they needed time. They told us there were 8,000 documents that they brought forward, that they tracked down at big expense, but of importance to our individual client who was going to trial. We kept saying 'why is this case not going to trial?'"
Of those 8,000 documents, Merchant said, a total of five were introduced at trial. Only two were ruled admissible by the judge.
Other lawyers involved in claims against the federal government have talked of the government's "witness destruction program." Merchant was not willing to say that there is a deliberate strategy of waiting for claimants to die, but he noted the government benefits when that happens.
"When people die, their claim dies with them. We are now up to 16 of our clients who have died and that means they get nothing. I'm not saying the plan is to wait for everybody to die," he said. "Every lawyer working for the government seems to have a schedule of delay, intimidation, the subtle threat - 'I can wear you down, take a long time.'"
In British Columbia, federal lawyers tell the courts they need six weeks of court time for each case. Merchant said his firm has found that it is taking, on average, a week and a half. Small-firm lawyers see the government's six-week estimate, do the math and conclude that residential school cases aren't worth their while. The Regina lawyer said it amounts to a very effective indirect way of denying Native clients legal representation and access to justice.
If the average settlement is $90,000 and the average payment for the lawyer is 35 per cent, when a lawyer mistakenly figures his or her earnings from six weeks of trial and another six weeks of preparation, the final tally [after expenses] comes out to about $15,000 for 12 weeks of work
"That's $55,000 a year. They'll say, 'I earn a lot more money than that. Why am I doing these files?' Or they'll say, 'it's worth $90,000. Maybe the government will [settle for] $50,000. I'll convince my client to take 50 [thousand] because I can't take all these cases to trial for six weeks,'" he said.
"I think it's an important thread in terms of perception. The RCMP has come a long way in the way First Nations people think about them. So there you have a federal institution that's supposed to be independent of government but it isn't, and you have a judiciary that is independent of government but it's looking like it isn't," he said. "Again, it's just what the government wants - intimidation. And then they take the RCMP information. They don't give it back. It's not available to the plaintiff. It's only available to the government. They'll use it if it helps them. They won't if it doesn't."
Merchant believes the fight between the government and the churches involved in the operation of the schools is just another smoke screen for a delaying tactic.
"They additionally hide behind . . . 'we have to decide if the church pays or the government pays.' I don't care if the churches pay or the government pays. First Nations people don't care if the church pays or the government pays. Lots of times, we don't even sue the church. The majority of times we don't sue. Who cares?" he said "The government was responsible. We didn't sign treaties with the church. The church had no moral and legal responsibility to provide an education in most of the treaties.
It wasn't the churches that sent out the Indian agents to round up the children. Maybe some people working for the churches were the agents of the government and if the government wants to go after its agents and say, 'You owe me some money back,' that's up to them. But it doesn't have anything to do with my First Nations clients."
The decision to name the Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan as a co-defendant in a lawsuit filed by residential school victims because members of the community participated in an advisory board for the school reveals just how dirty the government lawyers are willing to play, Merchant said.
"What's the motive of the government for doing that? Is it for money? Of course not. The government gives the Gordon First Nation all of its money. So, if we get a judgment against the government for let's say $500,000 and the government gets a judgment against the Gordon First Nation for $500,000, well then Gordon would just add $500,000 to their financial needs at the end of the year. So, is it about money? Absolutely not. It can only be about one of two things: delay or embarrassing the First Nation. And neither of those things are particularly commendable."
"We're sort of used to thinking that the government is acting fairly. Well, they aren't. We think they aren't," he added.
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NASA seeks out Aboriginal people's knowledge on climate changeBy Cheryl Petten
Windspeaker Staff Writer
ITHACA, N. Y.The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is looking to the Native community for opinions and information regarding global climate change.
NASA began consultation with representatives from the American Native community in 1998. The consultation process is part of NASA's involvement in the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), a program tasked with looking at the impact of climate change in the United States.
Ann Carlson is project manager of NASA's National Assessment program. NASA is one of several American federal department mandated by congress to continuously assess the state of the country regarding climate change. Each government agency, Carlson explained, is responsible for three or four areas of assessment. One of NASA's areas is Native Peoples, Native Homelands. As part of the assessment process, Carlson said, NASA is involved in ongoing consultation with Native representatives from across the U.S. regarding "climate change, and how it affects their lives."
Carlson indicated this consultation was something that would be an ongoing project within NASA.
The consultation process so far has included a climate change workshop, "Circles of Wisdom: Historical Reminders, Contemporary Issues", co-sponsored by NASA and held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the fall of 1998. As well, NASA sponsored a special double issue of the journal, Native Americas, published by the Akwe:kon Press at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The double issue, entitled "Global Warming, Climate Change and Native Lands," featured the articles of 20 Native American writers and scholars on the subject of climate change. The special issue was published in January, and was sent to Native schools, universities, public libraries and media across the U.S., as well as to Congress.
Nancy Maynard is the person at NASA who spearheaded her agency's consultation process with Native Americans. At the time, Maynard was director of application, commercialization and education at NASA's Earth Science Enterprises, but is now at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre, heading up a new initiative on environment and human health.
Maynard said she was attending one of the four regional climate change workshops sponsored by NASA, when she heard a couple of reports by Native Americans on Native issues.
"I had not heard that perspective before. . . .I had not interfaced with Native American issues," she said.
Maynard said by listening to the reports, it became clear to her that the Native American perspective on climate change - a holistic view, was the same as NASA's.
"If you make a change in one part, it affects the entire system. That's how we at NASA approach and study the earth system," she explained.
Maynard said she realized the need to include the Native perspective throughout the whole assessment project, looking not just at the scientific aspect, but also at the socio-economic impact of climate change as well.
"The experience of Native Americans and also the impact on Native Americans are very key and very relevant issues in our assessment project," Maynard said.
She explained that not many scientists have had an opportunity to interact with the Native community.
"It seemed to me this was something we really should consider very seriously," Maynard said.
As a result, Maynard asked the two Native people who spoke at the workshop if they could help her put together a workshop designed to look at the impact of climate change on Native lands, identifying issues and looking at solutions. The result was "Circles of Wisdom" workshop in the fall of 1988.
"It was a really interesting workshop. . . we brought up many, many different issues that are extremely relevant to everybody across the country."
Jose Barreiro is editor in chief of Akwe:kon Press, publishers of Native Americas. Barreiro said he was "very pleasantly surprised" when he learned of NASA's intent to consult with Native people on the topic of climate change. He attended the NASA conference, where Elders suggested Akwe:kon Press be used to get information about climate change out to more of the Native community. He said NASA's involvement in the special publication was to provide funding to produce additional copies, without any impact on the content of the publication.
Barreiro indicated the role of the Native Americas publication has always been to try to create a bridge of understanding between the academic and the cultural and traditional, a role it continued through the special NASA sponsored issue. Climate change is a topic his publication will continue to keep tabs on in the future, he said.
NASA will be hosting another climate change workshop involving the Native community in the fall, Carlson said, with work currently going on to try to address the issues that came out of first workshop.
Although not taking place to quite the extent as it is south of the border, Canadian climate change research projects are including some consultation with Native representatives.
The provincial government of Alberta is one of the governments looking at the issue of climate change. The province hosted the Alberta Climate Change Round Table in the spring of 1999. The final report of the round table listed a total of 98 participants in the consultation process. They included among them representatives from business, industry, labor, health organizations, environmental groups, academics, and municipal leaders, as well as those identified only as representatives from the "general public". No representatives from Native groups were included in the listing.
Elaine McCoy was one of the co-chairs of the Alberta Climate Change Round Table. McCoy also chairs the Task Force on Climate Change for the Alberta Economic Development Authority.
Although no individuals from the Aboriginal community participated in the round table, McCoy indicated individuals from First Nations and Métis settlements were invited to take part in the consultation process. McCoy indicated Native input would also be sought as work to address climate change issues continues.
"The Aboriginal community has not been overlooked at all," she said.
On a national level, climate change consultation is co-ordinated by the Climate Change Secretariat in Ottawa. The secretariat was set up in 1998 to oversee Canada's climate change program nationally. It includes representation from provincial and federal governments. Through the secretariat, 16 working groups were formed to examine climate change issues in various areas, including transportation, electricity, agriculture, forestry, and industry. Membership in the working groups is made up of 450 experts, including representatives from government, industry, academics, environmental groups, scientists and non-governmental organizations. As part of their work, each working group was responsible for consulting with Canadians who have an interest in the sector it was examining.
Chris Walters is senior communications advisor with the Climate Change Secretariat. According to Walters, most of the working groups wrapped up their work last fall, and many have already completed their final reports.
Although Walters indicated the areas examined by the groups did not include one to deal specifically with Native issues and concerns, as was the case in the U.S., some consultation with representatives of the Native community was part of the process. Although he was unsure of the extent of this consultation, he did know that the group looking at the forestry sector did include a representative from the National Aboriginal Forestry Association.
Forestry fiasco drags on while Crees go hungry
By Joan Black
Windspeaker Staff Writer
NEMASKA, Que.The 12,000 member of the James Bay Crees had reason to celebrate Dec. 20 when Justice Jean-Jacques Croteau of the Quebec Superior Court heard a motion and handed down a decision upholding Cree rights under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA).
As a result of his decision, 27 logging and forestry products companies sent a letter to the judge asking him to recuse [disqualify] himself from hearing the main case that is still pending (Mario Lord et al. v. The Attorney General of Quebec et al). The judge refused.
The next move by those aligned against the Crees was to file a motion to have the judge removed.
Associate Chief Justice Deslongchamps was not amused, one of the Crees' lawyers said, that the opposition only served notice of their intent to the Cree side after 11 p.m. on the evening before the matter was to be brought into court. The motion was referred to Chief Justice Lise Lemieux, who heard pleadings for a day and a half, Feb. 16 and 17. Her decision on whether Justice Croteau will continue to hear the forestry case was still pending at press time.
The Crees have filed many pages of complaints since the summer of 1998 and they all come down to one thing: Forestry operations are rapidly clear-cutting Quebec's forests to death, and with that the Indians' traditional way of life. Judge Croteau apparently saw it that way too.
The forestry companies were joined in December by the governments of Canada and Quebec to oppose the Grand Council of the Crees, which was trying to get the court to enforce the JBNQA requirement for an environmental review of Quebec's five-year and 25-year forestry plans. As signatories to the JBNQA, the provincial and federal governments could be expected to perceive themselves in a conflicted position, but apparently they did not.
That motion put forth by the Crees was heard Dec. 6 to 10 in Montreal. Judge Croteau not only decided in the Crees' favor but said Quebec's Forest Act contravened Cree rights that are enshrined in the JBNQA. He said these rights are protected by the Canadian Constitution, which takes precedence over other laws such as the provincial Forest Act. He said further that the forestry operators were violating the Crees' constitutional rights and they had until July 1 to bring their forestry practices into line with the JBNQA.
If they don't, the Crees could shut down forestry operations on their territory.
"The thing has gotten very complicated," Grand Chief Ted Moses said on behalf of the Grand Council of the Crees [Eeyou Istchee]. "Because it involves a 25-year forestry management plan and a five-year forestry management plan. Under the Quebec forestry act, they have to submit those to the minister by the first of April, otherwise the permits don't get renewed. What we're saying is 'listen, wait a minute. The forestry activities are conducted in the territory contemplated under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement - there is a regime.' And that these forestry operations are therefore subject to a full environmental and social review under the regime set up in the agreement."
Specifically, the Crees have accused the companies of using 1987 amendments to the Forest Act, along with the Act respecting Lands in the Public Domain, to circumvent Aboriginal and treaty rights, in direct contravention of the JBNQA. In addition, the Crees' main case states that an amendment made to the Environmental Quality Act is being used to exclude forestry operators from impact assessments.
Their view is that business interests have worked hand in glove with provincial legislators to get laws changed so forestry operations can proceed without regard to Native rights, even though the JBNQA states, according to the unofficial English language translation of Justice Croteau's decision, that amendments to Section 22 of that agreement are prohibited.
"Quebec may not unilaterally abrogate or amend the provisions of Section 22 through its legislation." Subparagraph 22.7.10 says Section 22 can only be changed with the "consent of Canada and the interested Native party in matters of federal jurisdiction, and with the consent of Quebec and the interested Native party, in matters of provincial jurisdiction."
Justice Croteau pointed out that the JBNQA takes precedence over all other legislation.
"Since the amendments made in 1983 to Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the rights under the JBNQ Agreement have received constitutional protection (s. 35(3)) to the same degree as treaty rights. These rights take precedence in the event of conflict with certain legislative and administrative measures."
André Dupras, vice president of communications for Donohue Forestry Products Inc., which is represented by the law firm Ogilvy Renault, said Feb. 18 he had heard nothing about the outcome of the motion to remove Justice Croteau since Feb. 16. He said he would ask a Donohue lawyer to contact Windspeaker to explain their position on this and related matters, but no one did. We attempted to talk to another company's lawyer on the forestry side, but he also did not return our phone calls.
Dupras denied the companies were opposed to full and complete environmental assessments.
"It's not that they don't want that. It's just that what has been done over the last few years is in total agreement with all the papers that have been signed between the companies and the Quebec government, so what we do is in agreement with what we are permitted to do. And I think that these agreements say that the way the environmental effects of cuts or any forest operations, these effects should be evaluated in the same way as the rest of the places where we are allowed to cut wood."
With respect to the move to have Justice Croteau removed from the case, Dupras said, "But you know that the real reason why some companies as well as the Quebec government made this request against Justice Croteau is that he pronounced himself on something else than what he was asked to do."
Justice Croteau isn't the only judge they want disqualified.
"Obviously, the government treaty busters at the so called federal Department of Justice will jump at any opportunity to attack decisions which uphold treaty rights," executive director of the Grand Council of Crees, Bill Namagoose, said in a press release Jan. 28. "Canada was not even a party to the appeal of the decision that had caused Quebec and the companies so much distress. Still Canada actively pursues the dismissal of Justice Croteau from the main case. Canada, Quebec and the companies have already submitted to the court a list of 37 judges, close to half of the judges of the Court in Montreal, who they thought should not hear the case because of some presumed or real impediment. Now, when they have a judge who was first acceptable to them, they take extreme measures to have him removed," Namagoose said.
Grand Chief Ted Moses also commented on the move by their opponents to have Justice Croteau removed from the case.
"Under the law, the judge is required in a circumstance like that to give his reasons as to why he shouldn't step down from the bench. And he did. He submitted a written declaration, basically saying that 'I have reviewed the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, and the evidence before me is substantial proof that the government of Quebec and the forestry companies - and the government of Canada - are violating the constitutionally protected rights of the Crees under the agreement, every time they issue a permit or approve a forestry management plan to a company.' And he said, 'so for that reason, I refuse to step down from the bench.'"
Moses says that the higher court's ruling regarding the recusation issue could come down in a couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, forestry operations continue 24 hours a day. Chief Paul Gull of Waswanipi First Nation, more than eight hours north of Montreal, is worried about the rapidly disappearing forests while the legal battles drag on. He's even more worried about the morale of his community.
"Right now there's a lot of social impacts related to people being deprived of a way of life, in terms of hunting, fishing and trapping," he said. "Last week, a trapper came to see me - a young trapper. He said 'in the old days, all my brothers - there's five brothers - used to be able to hunt. All of us, on the same trapline. Now, based on whatever's left of the land, only one of us can hunt.'
"So [people of Waswanipi] have social problems," Gull continued. "They have a hard time dealing with living in the community when these people came from the land. It deprives people of a way of life.
"Presently we have vouchers for food, so that even people that hunt come and ask for these vouchers."
Gull provided details of the situation that has brought the people to this deplorable state in his community.
"We have about 45 traplines in this territory," Gull said. "Out of those 45 traplines, 80 per cent of the traplines have been cut. And we have about seven left that haven't been touched." He says within five years 100 per cent of their traplines will be cut.
"The old growth forest is all going to be gone, within the next five to 10 years. And all you'll have is the commercial forestry that is regenerated by the forestry companies for their commercial purposes only.
"They don't give it [the forests] the opportunity to grow naturally and let all the wood that grows naturally grow. They replant only what is needed commercially.
"Certain kinds of animals won't live in commercial harvesting areas," Gull added. "Right now what we're losing is the rabbit, the marten, the lynx, parts of the beaver family . . . and most likely the moose will be displaced."
Gull went on to say they had a clause put in the JBNQA that forestry had to be "compatible with the Cree hunting and fishing way of life." But they made the agreement at a time when operations were conducted manually.
"Right now it's the mechanical stuff that is just tearing the land apart," he said. "The people say even when they do go hunt and trap the holes that they fall into is hard to walk on if the machine has gone by there. It changes the whole water system too . . . ."
He says the land stripped of trees doesn't hold water, so it drains too rapidly out to the rivers, which "go up and down a lot faster than they used to. In the fall, we had about three or four close floods because of the changes in the water."
Gull says they would like to resolve these problems before it is too late for the land and their way of life to survive.
"We're presently trying to get into discussions with either the forestry company or Quebec without prejudice basis so that it doesn't go on for another 10 or 15 years while they're cutting. It will get hotter I guess in the summer months. People are discussing other options locally. But that's for the local people to decide what they're going to do. But for us, we're trying to enter into discussions . . . but at the moment it doesn't seem like it's possible. And you've got the non-Native people who are afraid of what the results are going to be and they do discuss it with us."
Gull says he talks with his non-Native neighbors informally to explain the negative effects of the way business is being conducted now so that people will understand why forestry has to change the way it operates in the territory.
"Right now, the forestry law . . . is not compatible with the hunting, fishing or trapping way of life, and we've got to change the forestry regime to make it compatible. . . . And the government has been told you got six months to change it, and they're not budging at the moment."
Men honored for heroic river rescue
By Scott Boyes
Windspeaker Contributor
LA RONGE, Sask.On Nov. 25, 1997, Isiah Halkett woke up to a morning much like any other until his brother John called with an emergency. Some children had fallen through the river ice.
Isiah and his brother ran down to the Montreal River at La Ronge, and saw two young bodies floating in the water. Risking their lives, they and three other men - Stanley Ross, Roy Venne and Hubert Ross - went out on the ice, pulled the children in, and helped resuscitate them.
More than two years later, on Feb. 11, Georgina Isbister and brother Cornelius, are alive and well and giving shy 'thank you's' to their rescuers, but they don't remember much about their ordeal. Isiah remembers the morning, though, and he remembers what was going through his head.
"I was just thinking that it could have been my own kids."
The five men were honored for their lifesaving efforts in a ceremony at the offices of the Lac La Ronge Indian Band office. All five received the Priory Meritorious Certificate Risk of Life from St. John Ambulance, as presented by RCMP Assistant Commissioner Harper Boucher.
Jennifer Isbister remembers looking for her children after they had left a sliding hill, and hearing from a passerby that some children were down by the river.
"I went down there and I noticed my daughter's body, floating."
As she shouted for help, the Halketts arrived, and Isbister went to call an ambulance.
Using a plank, the Halketts tried to get out to the children, but the ice broke under them. Stanley Ross, who was lighter, decided to try.
"Stanley grabbed the stick and jumped in front of me and grabbed the girl," explained Isiah, who with Roy Venne began CPR to revive the child. "When she started making sounds, she started crying, I felt relieved," says Venne. As it turns out, both Isiah and Venne learned CPR as part of their training as forest fire fighters for Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management.
Meanwhile, Stanley Ross jumped into the front of a boat that had been hauled to the river, and he managed to grab the boy as well. He passed Cornelius to John Halkett and Hubert Ross who performed CPR until an ambulance arrived.
Does the word hero fit well? Isiah Halkett, for one, doesn't seem comfortable with the title.
"I fell through the ice once, and Mark Quandt was the guy that saved my life," he said.
Venne, too, knows the feeling of falling through the ice. Twice, he has gone in, and twice he has gotten out. It is very cold, he says, and very scary.
Such thoughts were far from their minds at the Feb. 11 ceremony however. Isiah said he was sweating.
"I'm nervous now," he grinned.
