Page 5 Chatter [November]

THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS REPORTS
that Aboriginal populations are vulnerable to H1N1 because Canada hasn’t made improving Aboriginal living conditions a priority. Or so says the chair of Canada’s provincial chief medical officers of health Dr. Isaac Sobol.He is Nunavut’s chief medical officer of health. Sobol was speaking to a Senate committee discussing Canada’s pandemic preparedness when he made the remark.

The session was set aside to hear from aboriginal leaders and health providers about the impact H1N1 had in their communities and what lessons were learned. He said abject poverty, overcrowded housing, poor access to health care and a lack of access to food caused the Aboriginal community to be more vulnerable to H1N1 last year. “This is an issue I feel, speaking personally, is very shameful for Canada to have accepted the status quo of this type of living standard for First Nations, Métis and Inuit in general,” Sobol said.

One in 10 recorded cases of H1N1 during the first wave of the outbreak in 2009 were Aboriginal people, with one in five H1N1 hospitalizations, one in six intensive care cases and more than one in 10 H1N1-related deaths. “To respond to H1N1 appropriately really would have meant many years before responding to the current living situation of First Nations, Métis and Inuit in Canada,” Sobol said. “I am always distressed to see the lack of urgency and the lack of priority placed by Canada on this, I think, shameful blot on our country,” he said.

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CATHERINE SAEZ OF
International Property Watch is following negotiations at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan. She said Indigenous peoples “are being left with a bitter taste” from the text of a protocol that should protect them from misappropriation of genetic resources. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) held its 10th high-level Convention of the Parties from Oct. 18 to 29. They are negotiating the Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) protocol, which is meant to set new international rules for transparent access to biological resources and a fair sharing of any benefits arising from their use. Debra Harry, executive director of the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism, told a press briefing “the CBD was enacted at a time when it became obvious that genetic resources held tremendous value. Later she said that the states involved in negotiations are “asserting sovereignty over genetic resources, without acknowledging that sovereignty is not absolute. In reality, Indigenous Peoples are the holders and owners of much of the world’s biological resources, and traditional knowledge.”

Saez writes that Harry has a problem with an article in the current draft of the protocol, “access to traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources.” The article requires the parties to ensure that access to traditional knowledge associated with genetic resources be in accordance with domestic law. Harry said that this is a problem. “Any attempt to subject our rights to domestic law is beyond the mandate of the CBD.” This was, she said, an attempt to circumvent the states’ existing international human rights obligations.

Also important is a paragraph in the preambular, which remains bracketed. There are two options being considered: The first reads “noting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” and the second reads “Taking into account the significance of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” and both refer to circumstances when states are dealing with the implementation of the rights of Indigenous and local communities.

Canada’s position is to oppose the latter option, but Harry protests this position.

“The protocol must meet standards consistent with the internationally accepted rights of Indigenous Peoples,” said Harry. “If it does not, the ... protocol will facilitate the misappropriation of genetic resources from Indigenous lands and territories, and alienate the traditional knowledge implicated in benefit sharing schemes,” she said, adding it would further impoverish the “world’s most vulnerable peoples.”

Indigenous peoples from Canada are taking issue with a statement from the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. They say John Duncan is undermining biodiversity negotiations when he claimed that the ABS issue was a diversion.

“What is being discussed in Japan is about intellectual property, so to think that has anything really significant to do with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is inappropriate,” he is reported to have said during a television interview.

“It is shocking that the Indian Affairs minister would misinform the public on issues that are critical to Indigenous Peoples globally,” said Armand MacKenzie, executive director of the Innu Council of Nittassinan.

A group of indigenous people from Canada believe there are two dangers facing Indigenous peoples in the ABS negotiations: “States may abandon support for inclusion of the Declaration (on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) in the preamble of the protocol,” and “Indigenous peoples’ inherent right to genetic resources may be deemed to be contingent upon recognition by national legislation in each state.”