[Indigsol] URANIUM NEWS SPECIAL May 21st: Toronto Rally

[Ben Powless]

-----Original Message-----From: Uranium News [mailto:
uraniumnews at mail.ccamu.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 8:49 PM
To: greenlynndaniluk at yahoo.ca
Subject: [SPAM] URANIUM NEWS SPECIAL May 21st: Toronto Rally
Importance: Low




URANIUM NEWS SPECIAL
MAY 21, 2008

IN THIS ISSUE:

1)      BUSING TO THE TORONTO RALLY
2)      EVENT UPDATE: GATHERING OF MOTHER EARTH PROTECTORS QUEEN'S PARK
RALLY
3)      JUNE 1ST & 2ND AT THE KINGSTON COURTHOUSE
4)      ROBERT LOVELACE: A CASE AGAINST COLONIALISM
5)      CITIZENS' INQUIRY SUBMISSION: ALGONQUIN ELDER WILLIAM COMMANDA


1) BUSING TO THE TORONTO RALLY

EVENT: Gathering of Mother Earth Protectors/Sovereignty Sleepover/RALLY
at Queen's Park in Toronto from May 26th to the 29th.

BUSING: On the 26th there is a big rally from 5pm until DUSK.  We will
have a bus (free of charge) leaving Kingston in an effort to arrive in
TO around 3 pm for some preliminary training and information before the
Rally. This means we should be leaving around 11 am on the morning of
the 26th. After DUSK, a bus will return to Kingston for those who would
like to go for only the one day. However, all those who wish to remain
for the Sovereignty sleepover are free to do so. A bus will again come
from Kingston on the 29th and will deliver us home at the end of the
4-day event. Individuals need to bring a tent/sleeping bag and a bit of
food. As AAFNA supporters some food will be provided.

If there is enough interest locally, there will be a bus leaving from
the Perth/Sharbot Lake area but we must have enough people to make this
worthwhile.

ANYONE WISHING TO HAVE A SEAT ON THE BUS PLEASE CONTACT ME ASAP at
sdelisle at kingston.net or 613-483-6608.

------

2) EVENT UPDATE: GATHERING OF MOTHER EARTH PROTECTORS QUEEN'S PARK RALLY

Rally to be held at Queen's Park in support of Bob Lovelace and KI Six

WHAT: Indigenous communities (KI, Ardoch Algonquins and
Grassy Narrows) joined by a broad network of student, religious, social
justice, union, and environmental groups will be calling on Premier
McGuinty to respect the right of First Nation communities to say NO to
mining and forestry on their lands.

This rally represents an unprecedented coming together of natives and
non-natives around economic exploitation and environmental destruction
of First Nation traditional territories.

WHO: Thomas King, celebrated author and Cathy Jones of CBC Television's
This Hour has 22 Minutes will be the Masters of Ceremony.

Speakers, musicians and other special guests to be announced.

WHERE:   Queen's Park

WHEN:    Monday, May 26, 5pm till dusk

FURTHER EVENTS:

May 27th - Ongoing rally at Queen's Park

May 28th - Appeal of the Bob Lovelace/AAFN and KI council sentences (6
months incarceration and in Bob's case, fines)

May 29th - Aboriginal Day of Action

The rally is co-sponsored by Canadian Federation of Students, CAIA,
Canadian Labour Congress, CAW Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and
Democracy, Ryerson University, CPAWS Wildlands League, Christian
Peacemaker Teams, Defence for Children International, ForestEthics,
Mining Watch Canada, No One is Illegal Toronto, NOW Magazine, Ontario
Coalition Against Poverty,
OPSEU, and Rainforest Action Network.

For further information:
To pre-arrange interviews with communities or celebrities please
contact:

 Anna Baggio, (416) 971-9453 x 47, (416) 453-3285,
anna at wildlandsleague.org;

To speak to the KI Six or Bob Lovelace in jail please contact:
Chris Reid, lawyer for KI and Ardoch Algonquins at (416) 466-9928

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3) JUNE 1ST & 2ND AT THE KINGSTON COURTHOUSE

The second round of contempt charges are scheduled to take place on June
2nd at the Kingston courthouse.

Right now, the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation is planning to have a
gathering at the Kingston courthouse grounds on June 1st. They will have
a TeePee, activities and an information booth and petitions.  They then
want to hold an all night VIGIL followed by a rally on the morning of
June 2nd (Monday). All are invited to attend this 2-day event.

More information will follow. Please contact Susan Delisle, for updates
sdelisle at kingston.net or 613-483-6608.

-------

4) ROBERT LOVELACE: A CASE AGAINST COLONIALISM

Letter to the Legislators of Ontario

May 11, 2008

I am writing this letter to you from the Central East Correctional
Centre in Lindsay, Ontario. I have been imprisoned here during the last
three months for contempt of court because I said I cannot obey an
injunction which conflicts with my duty under Algonquin law to protect
our land.

I am writing because I believe you are honest men and women who work in
the best interests of your constituents and for the betterment of
Ontario. Is it to your intelligence and compassion that this letter is
addressed.  What I write may shock and anger you. It will certainly
cause embarrassment. My hope is that what you read here will engender in
you the same commitment to justice that I have felt within these prison
walls and throughout my life.

On February 15th of this year, I was sentenced to six months in prison
and fined $25,000.  Co-Chief Paula Sherman was also fined $15,000.  She
is a single mother and a grandmother and the sole supporter for three
dependents. She cannot and will not pay the fine and will have to report
to jail on May 15 to serve a 90 day prison sentence.  Our offence was
declaring our intention to peacefully protect our homeland after 30,000
acres had been staked for uranium exploration. The staking had been done
without our knowledge or consent and the claims were registered by
Ontario's Ministry of Mines without notification. Extensive deep core
drilling was planned for last summer without consultation or
accommodation.

In June of last year, the Council of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation
requested the exploration company remove their personnel and equipment.
When they complied, we secured the area with the help of our
non-Algonquin neighbours. In July, the company, Frontenac Ventures
Corporation, sued us for $77 million, and in August obtained an
injunction ordering unfettered access to our lands. Since their still
had not been any consultation, as required by Supreme Court decisions,
we refused to remove the security barrier, and found ourselves convicted
of "contempt" by your court.

Although the context behind my imprisonment is useful, this letter is
not about mining or the out-dated Ontario Mining Act. There is already
much public discussion now going on about toxic mining and the need to
protect citizens' rights. This letter as well is not about Aboriginal
rights or the protection of our homeland, although our Indigenous rights
and responsibilities contribute to the discourse. This letter is a case
against colonialism, the dysfunctional heritage that we share; the
colonialism that informs every aspect of our current relationship and
will undo our security and undermine the future for all citizens in this
province. Democracy and colonialism can not walk hand-in-hand for long
before the disparity in justice, economic opportunities and morality so
sickens human spirits that we will all live without hope of becoming the
nations we wish to be.

For many years in my intellectual life I tried to understand why, as
Indigenous people, we were destined to suffer under the oppression of
colonialism. I wanted to know if some natural law at the beginning of
time had proclaimed it so, or if it were an accident of conditioning, or
if it were essential to social order that made such suffering a
necessity. I believed that if I could only know how it had come to be
then I would be satisfied with the justification, or understand how you
fix the mechanics.

As the years have carved away my curiosity, I have at last concluded
that it does not matter how colonialism came to be or who is at fault. I
do not care if I ever know how colonialism took root in this world. Now,
I just want to be free of it. I want to know that succeeding generations
of First Nations children will not be looked upon as inferior, that
their birthright and home will not be stolen, that they will have the
advantage of dreaming their own dreams and following their own visions.
And as much as I want my own children to be free, I want your children
not to suffer the moral uncertainty that comes with living well because
others are oppressed.

You are legislators. You have the responsibility for writing the laws
and policies that frame colonialism and give it social and political
structure in Ontario.  Unwriting colonialism is not a political process.
One party or coalition can not do it alone. Ending legal colonialism is
not for partisans. It requires a consensus among law makers who regard
justice and humanity above competition for popularity. Those of you who
will work for just change will believe in the rightness of your laws as
strongly as I believe in the rightness of Algonquin law. When you decide
to erase colonialism from your laws you will be risking your future as
much as I have risked mine. They are your laws that embody colonial
oppression of Aboriginal people and although we can offer guidance, it
will be you as legislators who will choose to be, or choose not to be,
the burden of innocent generations of come.

The present and accepted course of de-colonization has failed. It has
failed both in letter and in spirit. We are living an illusion that
Canada and the Provinces no longer oppress First Nations. Nothing in
this lie could be further from the truth. If it was so, when did this
reversal take place? Was it with Confederation? No - Confederation
marked the transition from an ambivalent British Crown to a purposeful
extermination of everything Indian. Was it during the Canadian centre of
repressive laws that alienated Aboriginal people from their lands and
customs?  No. Did revisions of the federal Indian Act reverse the
national strategy of "taking the Indian out of the Indian child" or save
thousands of Indian children from the "sixties scoop"? No.

Have decisions of the Supreme Course recognized original jurisdiction or
simply redefined domination in more tolerable terms? Did the Royal
Commission on Aboriginal People and hundreds of other studies inform the
Nation and change public attitudes? No. Did patriating the Constitution
in 1982 succeed in defining the rights and jurisdiction of Aboriginal
Nations as it did for the Federal and Provincial governments? No!
Please, honestly, ask yourselves, when such a historical turn around
occurred and when substantial changes in legislation were written which
would have allowed the transition to take place.

Freedom does not come in increments. Colonialism will not give way
through wishful thinking or half-measures. In the past, politicians,
clergy and intellectuals argued that Aboriginal people were not ready
for "civilization" and needed the guiding hand of the colonizer. This
ideology is nothing more than self-serving paternalism. Freedom is not
something that Aboriginal people should have to earn. If freedom were to
be bought, then we have paid for it a thousand fold. Freedom comes when
the gate is opened wide or broken down. If there is anyone who has not
been ready for Aboriginal people to take their rightful place in Canada,
it is you, the colonizer. Until you actively and explicitly make
colonialism illegal then it will always be you who are not ready.

The forces that guard colonialism are large. The federal and provincial
governments employ hundreds of lawyers, bureaucrats and academics to
discredit Aboriginal claims and put Aboriginal people in their place.
They work on land claims, court cases and public policy in an effort to
limit the Crown's obligations and liability to Aboriginal people. When
have Ontario lawyers defended an Aboriginal right or vigorously advanced
Aboriginal claims? They just don't do that.

Colonialism will remain firmly entrenched as long as we work in an
adversarial system in which communities that have been undermined
socially, economically and politically for over two centuries must play
by their opponents' rules on a field with a precipitous incline. I have
watched as a generation of great minds have been squandered on both
sides of this rivalry because intransigent bureaucrats and partisan
politicians have been afraid to let "the thin edge of the wedge" change
public policy and institutionalize just treatment of Aboriginal
citizens. It is not for want of informed and competent negotiators that
Canada and Ontario have a slew of unsettled claims and associated
conflicts; rather it is the law makers' lack of political will, fairness
and honesty in putting an end to the immoral advantage of colonialism.
Let me give you a clear and recent example of how Aboriginal people
experience negotiations. In October of last year, Judge Cunningham of
the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, who presides in the suit brought
by Frontenac Ventures against my community, suspended the hearing for
twelve weeks in an effort to get all the parties talking. Ontario,
Frontenac Ventures and the two First Nations agreed to a prioritized
list of issues and to jointly choose a mediator. At that point, we
removed our security barrier and permitted Frontenac Ventures to carry
out unobtrusive survey work.
When the discussions began, the corporation did not attend or send a
representative. Instead they installed security guards at the site.
Ontario's representatives consistently refused to discuss the issues
outlined in the predetermined agenda which included as the first item,
Ontario's legal responsibility to consult with First Nations communities
before development of a resource begins. Ontario negotiators rejected
out of hand three comprehensive settlement proposals put forward by
Ardoch. Ontario negotiators demanded that we inventory our "values" for
the staked land, but refused to accept the description of these "values"
when expressed in cultural context or with their meanings in
Anishnabemowin, our language.
When it was apparent that time was running out in the 12 week process,
the lead Ontario negotiator, who had been a former Deputy Minister of
Northern Development and Mines, conceded that Ontario's duty to consult
should be met. He agreed with Ardoch that a broad range of possible
outcomes should be considered. He also agreed that the consultation
process could conclude with an end to uranium exploration. Ardoch had
favoured such an open consultation from the beginning of negotiations.
Having arrived at an agreement that a plan of "appropriate consultation"
would be submitted to Judge Cunningham we proceeded to discuss the
framework for the consultation process.
A week later, after substantial collaboration on the framework,
Ontario's lead negotiator advised us that there had never been an
intention to halt exploration and that exploratory drilling would be
taking place during the proposed consultation process. We could either
agree or face the court and charges of contempt.
This experience seems to be universal across the country. It has not
changed much since the starvation tactics used by Sir John A. Macdonald
in negotiating the early numbered treaties. While Aboriginal people
cling to the hope that the Crown administrators will be merciful and
accept some limited fashion of constitutionally protected rights,
bureaucrats and their Ministerial masters do everything in their power
to extinguish those rights and uphold the colonial state.
Legislators and governments are not solely responsible for maintaining
the immoral practice of colonialism. Even the Supreme Court of Canada,
often praised for its progressive decisions on Aboriginal rights, is a
principle defender of the sovereign privilege of domination. Supreme
Court decisions, while recognizing the historical and legal validity of
Aboriginal rights, limit the scope and practice of those rights in
favour of "larger" Canadian interests. An analogy of the dilemma is
listening to the stories of an abused child in an Indian residential
school, patting her on the head and then telling her not to disobey the
priest. Such is the sanctimonious hypocrisy of your highest court. These
same courts permit Canada's governments to ponder for years on the
policy implications reflecting these half-hearted concessions, rendering
the entire legal process of protecting Aboriginal rights an exercise in
"too little, too late".
Ontario has been consistently guilty of regarding Aboriginal rights as
an inconvenient demand on the moral character of a tolerant society. But
Aboriginal rights are your laws, not ours. They originate in English law
as the doctrine of "continuity" and find substance in such documents as
the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Section 35 rights in the Canadian
Constitution are an attempt to address the fundamental denial of the
existing laws of Aboriginal Nations and to bring into sovereign Canada a
sense of Aboriginal belonging. But we have had our own laws and
governance and the Crown, through the doctrine of "continuity" has never
had the right to overrule them.
Our laws do not involve a concept of "rights". In our cultures, mutual
respect and benefit are understood as imperatives for survival.
Aboriginal cultures regard law as a complex set of responsibilities to
the land and in human relations. The emphasis is on protecting
sustainability and avoiding conflict. When Europeans first came to
settle in the Ottawa valley in 1800, this is what our ancestors asked of
them: to share the land and get along. Through 150 years of French and
100 years of English contact, the doctrine of "continuity" was
practiced. We must be clear that recent constitutional commitments in
section 35 to "recognize and affirm" Aboriginal and treaty rights are
Canadian law. Our leaders at the time asked for much more.
The disparity between your laws and ours' represents the gap between lip
service and Aboriginal peoples' ambition to restore our homelands and
cultures. Without a sense of moral clarity and comprehensive
entitlements, section 35 of your Constitution is almost meaningless. It
gives you as legislators no standard or instruction upon which to write
anti-colonial legislation. As such, it gives Canadian courts nothing
with which to reconcile the past and even less with which to arbitrate
the future. Courts will continue to define Aboriginal rights as
subservient and Aboriginal title as third class.
As a colonized people we must accept a share of the responsibility for
our condition. Like you, we have internalized colonialism. We have
allowed it to inform the way we see the world and ourselves. Too often
we have turned to the colonizing governments for support. Too often we
expect you to solve out problems or blame you for our inadequacies. Too
often we are satisfied with handouts rather than partnerships or
ownership. We have come to accept colonial labels such as "status" and
"non-status" as definitions of who we are. We let these labels divide
our families and communities.
Our leaders have accepted foreign forms of governance which undermine
our unity and foster corruption.  We have come to accept that blood
quantum, shades of skin colour and even levels of education determine
our Indianess. Far too often we have given up, given in to self-hate,
self-abuse and the abuse of others. Like you, we have to confront
colonialism on our own terms, for it is just as immoral to accept
victimization as it is to benefit from oppression.
Ontario's education system is a primary instrument in ensuring that
colonialism remains unchallenged. Many Ontarians know nothing of how
generations of Aboriginal children were victimized by church and state.
Ontarians posses only a vague understanding of how land was overrun by
settlement in the 19th century and Aboriginal people were forced to sign
unconscionable treaties and land sales in return  for modest protection.
As far as understanding the evolution of colonial laws, almost all
citizens are ignorant.
Even the real suffering of their own immigrant ancestors as slaves,
indentured servants, child labour and cannon fodder have been sanitized
for the popular glorification of Ontario's history. Many of these
immigrants were escaping colonialism in their own homelands, just as
refugees today come to Canada to find a better life. But they acquire no
real history about themselves and at best only an "honourable mention"
of Aboriginal realities. Without an honest and fully informed education
system, your job of challenging and changing colonial laws is as
difficult as our in changing the attitudes of ignorant neighbours.
Almost all of you have either publicly or privately condemned the
Aboriginal people who protest and obstruct economic and civic activity.
At best you have expressed complacent tolerance and an admission that
Aboriginal dissatisfaction may have some merit. Ontario's civility rests
on its affluence, not on its moral intelligence or character. It is this
artificial civility that Aboriginal protestors challenge. Each time a
road is blocked, exploration for minerals is halted, or forestry is
interrupted, Aboriginal activists are raising the prickly question of
Ontario's morality.
Each time a protest forces a political "spin" to be re-spun, law makers
are confronted with the ineptitude of their own professional history.
You may not like the politics of confrontation but I would rather see
Shawn Brant block the 401 than Ovide Mercredi begging at the gates of
Meech Lake, or Phil Fontaine writing Steven Harper's apology for the
abuse of residential schools.
The affluence of Ontario has been acquired from the sacrifice of our
ancestors' health and the wealth of our homelands. If immobilizing the
power of that affluence is the only way to expose the evil of
colonization then you need to brace yourselves. Aboriginal people and
our thoughtful neighbours are sick and tired of colonialism. People of
all races who hunger for justice, who understand the sacredness of
creation and the folly of greed will find expression in tearing down
colonialism. Aboriginal protests are not so much about past grievances.
They are about the effects of present dispossession. Aboriginal activism
is about changing the course of the future.
During the last week of May, Aboriginal people across Canada will be
preparing for the National Day of Action on May 29th.  Many people will
come to Queen's Park. They are coming to talk to you. Throughout that
week you will have the opportunity to listen to Aboriginal people and
their friends express their fears and aspirations for the future. You
will also hear their complaints. If you are wise you will listen. If you
are as courageous as they are, you will allow what you hear to inspire
your actions. If you are thankful for the Creator's gift of life, you
will extend your hands in peace and friendship. It is up to you if you
choose a partnership with Aboriginal Nations to begin the arduous task
of rewriting Ontario's laws to exclude colonial principles. But if you
choose to do nothing, or to condemn us, then please do not make excuses
or false promises.
In the days leading up to May 29th, the media will extol the Canadian
virtue of tolerance. In the days following, the media will
sensationalize the "criminality" of Aboriginal defiance. You will see
large pictures of masked warriors but little honest context. As you look
with trepidation into the masked faces remember that those of us who
wear no masks have been faceless as well, all of our lives. The real
news will be in the conversations that you will have in the midst of
demonstrations and at the edge of the barricades.
As much as I would like to be with you and my brothers and sisters at
Queen's Park at the end of May, I will be here in prison. Throughout my
life, I have advocated the path of non-violence as the only means of
restoring our cultural integrity and our belonging within creation.
Freedom, at last, is a state of spirit. Even within the walls of this
cell, my spirit can heal and grow and under the burden of oppression,
all of our spirits can rise up. My spirit, like a seed, can wait
throughout the long winter and come to life again when there is room to
grow. Non-violence does not mean timidity. Those of us who have chosen a
life of non-violence vigorously fight against the oppression and
injustice that is sustained by violence. Colonialism, the laws that
uphold it, the police actions that take down barricades and disrupt
peaceful protests, are violence. Freedom flows around violence like
water in a stream flows around a fallen log. Freedom is beautiful like
the colours of the earth. Violence is ugly. My spirit will be with all
of you at the end of May in peace and friendship.
My immediate thoughts are with my community and the threat of extensive
deep core drilling. There is also the humiliation that Ontario is
unwilling to allow our community into the decision-making process before
further encroachment occurs. And there is the constant anxiety of what
an open pit uranium mine will do to our land, our health and the health
of our neighbours down stream. My heart aches in the memories of fishing
along that river; the blueberry picking on the ridges and the winter
solitudes of Arty's trapline. For two hundred years, colonists have been
taking out land. I wonder every day when it will stop.
Because I do not have that answer I will begin a fast on May 16 and I
will fast until I have an answer. I will not be fasting as a political
statement or to extricate some concession from Ontario. In our culture
we fast to purify our bodies and free our spirits. We fast in
anticipation of a vision of things to come and to prepare ourselves to
accept a great challenge. If my fast over the next few weeks brings
attention to the defense of our community I will welcome the growing
interest. I will also be praying hard for the protection of
Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug and all of the communities struggling to
survive. If in some small way my fast contributes to the non-violent
struggle against Canadian colonialism, then all the better. I have no
expectation of the Premier or his Ministers. The gun is to our head not
his. I will pray that their hearts and minds become clear and that we
will meet soon to work together to find solutions to the mess we are in.
When I began this letter I wrote that you might be shocked, angered and
certainly embarrassed. If reading my thoughts made you uncomfortable, I
am not sorry. It was my intent to shake you out of your complacency and
indifference. Aboriginal people do not want your platitudes. We want
change. We want an end to colonialism. We want legislation that protects
our rights and recognizes our original jurisdiction. What you did
yesterday in the name of justice for Aboriginal people is not enough. No
matter what happens now, we will walk tomorrow's road together; you must
ask yourself how you have that journey to be.
In the spirit of Peace and Friendship, mutual respect and benefit, I
wish you to be well in your work, your play and your dreams.
Migwetch,
Robert Lovelace
Retired Chief
Ardoch Algonquin First Nation
---------

5) CITIZENS' INQUIRY SUBMISSION: ALGONQUIN ELDER WILLIAM COMMANDA

May 9, 2008

Elder (Dr.) William Commanda
Circle of All Nations
circleofallnations at sympatico.ca

Elder (Dr.) William Commanda was glad to have the opportunity to offer
the opening prayer at the Citizen's Inquiry in Ottawa on April 22, 2008.


Background:

Elder Commanda is the ninety four year old Algonquin Elder from
Maniwaki, Quebec, and he has a passionate interest in the stewardship of
the Ottawa River Watershed, the unceded, unsurrendered and unconquered
traditional territory of his peoples on both sides of the mighty river,
known to his ancestors as the Kichisippi.  In 2004, he received the Bill
Mason Award for River Conservation, and for several years he has been
involved in the effort to designate the Ottawa River a national heritage
river. It is well known that it cannot qualify for this nomination on
one of the key requirements - a pristine nature - since it has been so
badly polluted, contaminated and transformed over the past two
centuries; now its special historic and cultural value and recreational
potential serve to support the case for this designation. Elder Commanda
serves as Honorary Chair of the Nomination Committee, and while the
current effort is focused on the nomination of the river in Ontario, he
has also communicated with Quebec, urging its engagement in the file,
since the river constitutes the common heritage of all the Algonquins of
the watershed, and he of course would like to see the entire river
honoured and protected from further degradation.

Key Issue:

The uranium mining issue that has sparked this Citizens' Inquiry has
direct implications for the Ottawa River.  Elder Commanda has supported
the effort to challenge the uranium test drilling in Ardoch/Shabot Lake
in a peaceful manner, by conducting ceremonies and promoting dialogue.
He arranged for ceremony by Algonquin Fire Keeper Peter Decontie, and
information presentations by Mining Watch Canada, Eco Justice Canada and
Ms. Lorraine Rekmans co-editor of This is My Homeland, and NDP
representative, at the first protest gathering on July 8, 2007.  He also
included this topic on the agenda of The Awakening Gathering he hosted
in Perth, Ontario in October 2007.

As we say in our report on this Gathering, "Joan Kuyek, the hard working
representative of Mining Watch Canada, provided us with factual
information about the trigger issue in the area - uranium mining; it
seems impossible to imagine the entire town would not want to avail
itself o such researched information, as they come to addressing a key
controversial issue of our times, one with potential impact on their
very own children and grandchildren.  Unfortunately, a crisis at the
site prevented our Ardoch/Sharbot Lake First Nations and Settler Uranium
Protest presenters from joining us, and so we missed out on learning
about their dramatic summer of soul searching, struggle and sacrifice,
though Larry McDermott, former mayor of Lanark Highlands, and
representative of the First Nations of Sharbot Lake provided a brief
overview of the protest."

Elder Commanda also offered the opening prayer at the September 28, 2007
POWER TO CHOOSE OTTAWA information session organized by ActCity at the
Odawa Friendship Centre.

As noted in his blog, this cause touches him personally.  Since 1999,
people in Elder William Commanda's community, Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg,
must use bottled water, because of the uranium in the well water.  Other
than this great hindrance and cost to lifestyle, the impact on the
overall health of the community is not assessed; but he is painfully
aware that three young children within his inner family network are
fighting cancer, and that one child was born with just one kidney.  He
notes also that in 2002, his colleagues participated in the Hiroshima
Flame Walk from Seattle to New York City, a walk for world peace,
mindful that many of their lands were used for the extraction of uranium
and plutonium and the dumping of nuclear wastes, with disastrous
consequences across the globe, and in violation of their sacred
relationship with their lands.  He notes also that in 2004, we were
reminded of the horror of nuclear weapons when a delegation of thirty
Japanese led by the then Vice President of Sony Company participated in
a healing sweat lodge ceremony during his Circle of All Nations
Spiritual Gathering, on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.  He
himself has conducted prayer and ceremony in Japan and across this
continent concerning the aftermath of nuclear warfare and waste.

He realizes that this is difficult work, and many have made great
personal sacrifices to bring the subject to the attention of the public
at large, and he will continue to pray, consistent with the beliefs of
his ancestors, that, with the growing global acknowledgment and respect
for Mother Earth as the both holder of our collective future and the
ultimate equalizer, we will all benefit from a deepening understanding
of the complexities of this file, and reconcile differences in
recognition of the sacred essence of water, and in favour of the
protection of future generations of life in this special area and
elsewhere.

He commends CAAMU on taking the initiative to launch this effort, was
glad to see Algonquin contributions acknowledged so positively, and he
looks forward to supporting the on-going work.

Post Script:

On May 9, 2008, Elder Commanda joined Chief Doreen Davis and the
Algonquin leadership from the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation Community
in their interventions on the Uranium Issues, with the Honourable
Michael Bryant, MPP, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Government House
Leader, and reiterated many of the points made in this file. Ironically,
this was on the day after the Elder's session at the Nephrology Clinic
with his deteriorating kidney condition (note: over the past decade, his
community drinks bottled water because of uranium contamination of the
water).

(Editor's Note: Elder William Commanda's entire submission with
appendixes can be found on the CCAMU website. It is under the FIRST
NATION tab, then the WILLIAM COMMANDA INQUIRY SUBMISSION subtab.-LD)






















-- 
"In life we meet extraordinary people who follow us wherever we may go" -
Trisha Nagpal
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