Corporate clear-cut logging of Asubpeeschoseewagong traditional territory has destroyed hunting, trapping, food, and medicine gathering activities.  Indian Residential Schools have deeply damaged families and communities.  Mercury contamination discovered over forty years ago continues to poison residents. 

Explore what it means to live in right relationship with the earth and each other.  Find out what it means to be an ally to indigenous communities engaged in healing, resisting colonialism, and struggling for sovereignty.  From a base in the city of Kenora, and through visits to Asubpeeschoseewagong traditional lands, the delegations will meet with and learn from Indigenous and non-Indigenous community leaders and residents.
 
Delegates will develop an analysis of colonialism, participate in undoing racism training and plan, and/or participate in events as allies in the struggle for justice and dignity for Indigenous peoples.

 The Algonquin First Nation of Barriere Lake is celebrating the suspension of work on its territory by mining company Cartier Resources Inc.  In March 2011, the community discovered ongoing copper mining exploration on their traditional lands.  When the Algonquins explained their opposition, the workers on site, mostly from Mistassini and Oujebougaou First Nations, stopped work and left.…

A recent community referendum in Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) passed with 96% support for both a Watershed Declaration protecting Big Trout Lake, and a Consultation Protocol detailing the methodology the community will use in assessing development proposals on the rest of KI territory.…

 The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has recently released the results of an independent audit of the Whiskey Jack Forest, identifying numerous areas of concern in the forest's management. The audit is part of a regular monitoring process that tracks how logging companies are abiding by regulations and produces action plans to rectify bad practices and poor results. The Ministry of Natural Resources is engaged in land-use negotiations with Grassy Narrows First Nation (GNFN), whose traditional territory largely coincides with the Whiskey Jack Forest.

 The report reiterates many of GNFN's concerns over the destruction of their territory.  Since 2002, the community has blockaded a road used by logging trucks. CPT was invited to accompany the blockade, which supports a moratorium on clear-cut logging on traditional territory. The report, which covers much of the negotiation period, finds 'significant issues with management of the Whiskey Jack Forest, both in planning and in on-the-ground implementation of the plan' (page ii).  Its primary message is that the MNR has not done enough to repair the damage caused by industrial logging or to help the forest heal.

During my delegation to Treaty #3 Territory in April this year, I saw the continuing effects of the 500-year history of colonization and genocide on this continent. It's a testimony to the effectiveness of white settlement and ethnic cleansing; I had never come face to face with these realities before in a personal way.  I'll share two particular stories with you.

In 2007 the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was adopted by the UN General Assembly. Last year, CPT’s Aboriginal Justice Team (AJT) supported a campaign to press Canada to endorse the declaration.  In November 2010 Canada signed on, followed in December by the last country left, the United States.

The next step is for the declaration to influence law and decision-making. Many of the issues facing communities that the Aboriginal Justice Team have relationship with are addressed by one or more of the 46 articles, and which assert the state’s minimum duty towards indigenous peoples. If the declaration is to have any effect it must be used to inform the government’s position in ongoing and future debates about land, culture and rights.

This summer the CPT Aboriginal Justice team will participate in the inaugural Wild Goose Festival set in North Carolina’s Shakori Hills from 23-26 June 2011.  The gathering will bring together disparate voices in a conversation on the present and future state of Christian faith in North America and around the world.  The organizers have invited Christian Peacemaker Teams to contribute by sharing tales from its work and its dream of a world without violence.  

 On 27 February 2011, Christian Peacemaker Teams, a member of the Six Nations Solidarity Network participated in the Caledonia rally supporting the people of Six Nations against Gary McHale’s so-called “Truth and Reconciliation” Rally.…

The recent rally appropriated the name “Truth and Reconciliation” which in Canada commonly refers to the process of healing from the government and church-run residential schools designed to destroy Indigenous identity and families.  For McHale, the white community's suffering is apparently comparable.  The rally was to feature the placement of a monument on the reclamation site that would feature apologies from the OPP, province, and the Six Nations.

Gary McHale also issued a call for Christian Leaders to be active in their commitment to justice and to support his rally.  In response to McHale’s letter, Julián Gutiérrez Castaño and Peter Haresnape had the following to say at the counter rally supporting the Six Nations.

(For more information, see https://6nsolidarity.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/christians-supporting-six-nations-struggles-for-peace-and-justice/)

Helen Proulx and Byron Desbassige were both shot by police.  Byron died from his injuries, Proulx suffered from a shattered pelvis.  None of the police involved suffered from any injuries but the police charged Proulx, who had been trying to commit suicide, with assault.  All of the police officers were considered justified in their actions and not charged by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU).  * (See ABORIGINAL JUSTICE: Justified use of force, part I)

“Authority to use force separates law enforcement officials from other members of society...”  (“Canada’s National Use-of-Force Framework for Police Officers” The Police Chief magazine August 2010)

Kenora resident Helen Proulx was trying to slit her wrists with a small knife when a neighbour called the police on 7 June 2010.  The lone responding officer commanded Proulx to drop her weapon.  She started to walk towards the officer and the officer fired two shots, wounding Proulx in the arm and shattering her pelvis.  The neighbour saw Proulx fall face first onto the sidewalk.  Police charged Proulx with assault.  Two years earlier, on 16 February 2008, Toronto resident Byron Debassige had been singing and asking for change when the police arrived.  He had stolen three lemons and then pulled out his pocketknife when the shop clerk chased him onto the street.  Two constables confronted him on the path at Oriole Park.  When they commanded him to put down his juice bottle, he tucked it under his arm and pulled the knife out of his pocket.  The officers drew their guns and shouted at him to stop and drop his knife, but Debassige kept walking toward them.  They fired four shots, hitting him twice in the torso.  He died from his injuries.  In both cases, the Special Investigations Unit (SIU)* found the shootings, “justified.”

On 1 February 2011, two Algonquin men, Robert Lovelace and Daniel Bernard, chained themselves to trees in the Beaver Pond Forest near Kanata, Ontario, to block a second day of clear-cut logging from destroying a forest considered sacred by Algonquin First Nations.