Algonquin Paddle Protest attracts Pontiac supporters
On Thursday, September 27, on Victoria Island, more than 100 protesters bowed their heads while 93-year-old Grand Chief William Commanda led a prayer in Algonquin, English and French. Commanda, the most senior elder of the Algonquin Nation of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, Maniwaki, Quebec, is internationally renowned for his work promoting interracial harmony and justice.
The gathering was part of the six-day Algonquin Canoe Protest Against the Proposed Uraniumn Mine in Frontenac County, north of Kingston, Ontario. The paddlers ceremonially descended the headwaters of the Mississippi watershed to Parliament Hill. The water and the message of their demand for a moratorium on uranium mining was poured onto the steps of the Parliament Buildings to demonstrate how the waters of the Mississippi directly flow into the Ottawa River – and affect Ottawa and other residents along its route. On Friday September 28, the Algonquin chiefs delivered a proclamation demanding a moratorium on Uranium Mining to the Government of Canada.
Earlier on Thursday, Chief Randy Cota – Chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nations, near Sharbot Lake – along with other protestors completed the six-day paddle. They started from Frontenac County’s Crotch Lake, paddled down the Mississippi River, then west along the Ottawa River to Victoria Island. This small island is located below the Supreme Court of Canada.
The paddle protest itself was also designed to demonstrate how the Crotch Lake, Sharbot Lake and Mississsippi watershed flows north to join the Ottawa River. The route would also show people, said Ottawa resident and protest organizer David Gill, “how interconnected the watershed really is. Our drinking water from the Ottawa River can be polluted by uranium tailings.”
This interconnectedness – and therefore, the complete interdependency among residents and wildlife along this extensive watershed – was on my mind as Grand Chief William Commanda prayed. He asked all of us, regardless of race or creed, to take greater responsibility for guardianship of the land, water, air – as well as the living creatures with whom we share life on Earth. Forgetting our place in the cycle of life by acting as if there are no consequences to our actions makes us arrogant, he said. Instead, we must remember we are inextricably connected to the delicate web of life.
His message was clear: with humility, improved communication and hence, understanding, we will become better stewards of the land. Will the Conservative Government of Steven Harper listen to the Algonquin chiefs? Will Ontario’s Premier McGuinty agree to a moratorium on uranium mining near Sharbot Lake, and agree to start the process to change the Ontario Mining Act to incorporate more property owners’ rights? And, here on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River, will political leaders agree to a similarly much-needed rewording of the Quebec Mining Act?
Uranium in Frontenac County
But what exactly prompted the entire protest?
The Algonquin paddle protest, including the gathering on Victoria Island, proclamation of the chiefs and march to Parliament Hill was designed to draw public attention to their opposition of test drilling for uranium on land they occupy near Sharbot Lake north of Kingston. Frontenac Ventures Development Corporation is an Ontario mining company which has staked 70 or so uranium claims in the area. Now they want to proceed with test drilling. Just as in Quebec, the 1870 Ontario Mining Act does not require mining companies to seek landowners’ permission before laying claim to sub-surface rights to property. Since June, Algonquin First Nations and non-native protestors stand together in solidarity: they have blockaded the mining company’s access to their properties.
Cease and desist ignored
Last week, a Kingston judge ordered the protestors to cease and desist with the blockade. So far, the protestors have refused. Even though the Ontario Provincial Police now have authority to make arrests so as to remove persons at the blockade, to date, no arrests have been made. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has not entered discussion with the protestors and his non-action serves to uphold the 1870 Ontario Mining Act denying property owners sub-surface rights to their land.
Quebec residents supportive
As West Quebec residents of the Pontiac and Lapêche regions know all too well, the Quebec Mining Act offers no sub-surface rights to property owners in this province, either. Uranium claims have been made throughout Pontiac, specifically at Fort Coulonge and Calumet Island, by two companies: Aldershot Resources Inc. and Hawk Uranium. Therefore, concerned citizens from both sides of the Ottawa River stand united: first, they want the Ontario and Quebec Mining Acts changed so that landowners have sub-surface rights; second, they share opposition to uranium mining.
Right to consultation
In an interview on Wednesday morning, just before he paddled down the Ottawa River from the Mohr’s Landing (Fitzroy Harbour) docks, Chief Cota told me, “It is important to know that the Algonquin are not against mining – for example, at Tetlock, we work with them [the mining company]. But we are opposed to uranium mining. We don’t want our water poisoned. So, the protest continues: we’ve been there [at the blockade] for 91 days because the Ontario government issued permits to Frontenac Ventures without consulting us.”
Chief Cota mentioned the 1763 treaty signed in the time of King George III, where the Algonquin people were given title to their land.
Therefore, because the Algonquin are a nation, Chief Cota says, the current Sharbot Lake mining issue, “is outrageous. We are a nation and we have the right to be consulted. But politicians operate on a four-year vision of the future based on elections. We have a different view. The Algonquin have a seven-generation window: we believe we have an obligation to the land, to our children, and to our children’s children.”
The important message, he emphasized, is that governments and mining companies, “can’t just come on our land and run over us. We’re not going away. This mining act is archaic. We are morally and ethically right. This protest is not about power, it is about respect and doing the right thing.”
Rights and guardianship
The Algonquin and “settlers” who are leading this protest ask us all to reflect upon what we believe in. Where do individual rights stand in the face of the “common good” that governments supposedly champion – not to mention these archaic mining acts? If uranium claims, drilling and mining can happen with government sanction, on landowners’ property without their permission, what does that say about individual’s rights vs. the (supposed) “common good”? As the mining acts now stand, they make a mockery of individual rights to land ownership and guardianship.
Thanks to the protestors on both sides of the Ottawa River, we all have an opportunity to consider our rights. Thanks to Grand Chief Commanda’s prayer to mindfulness, we have an opportunity to consider how best we can be true stewards of our land.
©2007, Katharine Fletcher. Previously published in Katharine Fletcher’s weekly Environment Forum, The Equity. To read more of Katharine’s environment columns, check www.theequity.ca/te_page04.htm
Katharine Fletcher is an award-winning author who telecommutes from Spiritwood Farm north of Quyon, Quebec. Look for her regional historical and ecological guides at Ottawa-area bookshops such as Leishman’s and outfitters such as MEC, or view them at www.chesleyhouse.com/Books/OurBooks.htm
Contact Katharine at chesley@allstream.net
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