Commentary: Aboriginal Peoples score 200 legal wins in Canada’s … – The Northern Miner
Mar 4, 2015
Commentary: Aboriginal Peoples score 200 legal wins in Canada’s resources sector
Pipelines, energy exports, fracking, clear-cuts, tailings ponds and access to resources are daily in the news as the industry faces pushback on traditional lands from natives who feel that their way of life is threatened. But what’s different now is that the tone of the dialogue is changing — and not necessarily for the better.
For example, here is a quote from Northern News of Gino Chitaroni, president of the Northern Prospectors Association, recently speaking in Kirkland Lake, Ont.: “We are now at a crossroads, where our whole industry and way of life is completely threatened … the empowerment of First Nations at the expense of the mining and exploration industry … this is a massive sleeper problem that nobody wants to talk about in the press, because those who do may be targeted for reprisals and branded bigots and racists.”
We’ve seen a lot of court-bashing in the Canadian media from think tanks, former politicos and a former media tycoon. But the fact is that the native legal winning streak has rolled out in a highly consistent fashion. Indeed, it’s the courts themselves that have promoted the need for constructive dialogue for over 15 years now, based on the poignant closing in Delgamuukw, wherein the Supreme Court admonished one and all by writing: “Let us face it: we are all here to stay.”
