[Indigsol] Monday, Oct. 5 - Grassy Narrows Youth Leader Speaks

[Indigenous Peoples' Solidarity Movement -Ottawa]

Grassy Narrows Land Struggle:

Talk and film with
Chrissy Swain, Grassy Narrows Youth Leader

Monday October 5

6PM

University of Ottawa –
University Centre room 205



Chrissy Swain, a Grassy
Narrows youth leader and mother will be speaking about the ongoing
struggles for healing and land protection at Grassy Narrows. Chrissy
will also present a new documentary about the history of the conflict
in her community. She is currently finishing a walk from Grassy
Narrows to Ottawa to deliver the message that the Canadian government
needs to respect First Nations rights to say no to economic
exploitation and environmental destruction, and stop criminalizing
indigenous land struggles.



Grassy Narrows is an
Anishnabe (Ojibway) community which has been resisting clearcut
logging in their traditional territory for more than a decade,
including years of sustained logging blockades. October 5th
also marks the beginning fo the Grassy Narrows Trappers Association
court case at the Ontario Supreme Court in Toronto, to contest the
Ontario government's ongoing collusion in attempts at clearcut
logging in the territory.


Organized by  Indigenous
Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa

 ipsmo at riseup.net
   ///  www.ipsmo.org







BACKGROUND:

“The government does not understand that words are not good enough.
Talking ‘green’ and making empty apologies that don’t actually deal with
real
issues is not good enough. We have to protect the land—protect our
Mother Earth. I want to tell Harper that apologies are not good
enough. Canada needs to give proper respect to the victims, families
and survivors of the residential schools. We need Canada to recognize
the damage those schools have done to our communities and cultures,
and we need an end to the destruction of our lands, and an end to
native people being criminalised when they stand up for their rights
to protect their lands, their cultures, and their
communities.”

-Chrissy Swain, June 2009

Chrissy  is finishing out a walk from Grassy Narrows to Ottawa. Last
year, Chrissy led a group of 22 youth from Grassy Narrows (and a few
other First Nations communities), on the Protecting Our Mother
Walk—over 1800 kilometres from Grassy Narrows to Toronto, with the
message: respect the right of First Nations to say no to economic
exploitation and environmental destruction, no criminalisation of
land protectors. This year’s walk will bring together representatives from
communities across the province to deliver a united message to Ottawa that
the rights of First Nations must be honoured and land protectors must
not be criminalised.


Chrissy has been an integral leader in the Grassy Narrows
resistance to logging on their territory, in the empowerment of
youth, and the traditional resurgence of Anishnabe culture that is
taking place in their community.


On December 2nd, 2002, the youth of the Grassy Narrows First
Nation established a blockade on a logging road in their territory,
and sparked what is now the longest standing and highest profile
indigenous logging blockade in Canadian history. Grassy Narrows
(Asubpeeschoseewagong) is a small Anishnabe community about 80
kilometres north of Kenora in Northwest Ontario. The Grassy Narrows
community has been through many traumas including relocation,
residential schools, mercury contamination, flooding of sacred
grounds and burial sites, and clearcut logging of their traditional
territory. However, resistance is strong at Grassy Narrows where
people are actively resisting the continued destruction of their
territories, re-occupying their lands, reviving their culture and
fighting for the right to manage their land as they see fit.


This tour, for Chrissy is a spiritual journey inspired by dreams
and recent incidents. Chrissy and Grassy Narrows organizer Judy
Dasilva visited the site of the Macintosh Residential School near
Kenora. There, behind the old school site, instead of a memorial,
they found several large hydro towers right at the site of the graves
of those children who died at the school, disrespecting their memory.
Following the visit, Chrissy had dreams telling her that this was to
be a symbol of the connection between the destruction of Indigenous
lands, and the destruction of their communities. She began planning a
second Protecting Our Mother Earth Walk that had been tentatively
scheduled to leave Grassy Narrows on June 15.

On June 3 of 2008 David Paterson, CEO of AbitibiBowater, then the
largest newsprint producer in the world, yielded to international
pressure and informed then Ontario Minster of Natural Resources,
Donna Cansfield, that the company would discontinue using wood from
Grassy Narrows territory and relinquish its license to log in the
area. AbitibiBowater’s withdrawal has suspended logging, but there
is growing concern over the Ontario government handing out new timber
concessions in the territory.


October 5th also marks the beginning of the Ontario Supreme Court hearing
on the Grassy Narrows Trappers Suit against logging on their
traditional lands. Grassy Narrows is challenging Ontario’s right to
approve industrial logging that interferes with its constitutionally
guaranteed treaty rights.

The trappers’ legal action “seeks a declaration that the MNR
has no authority to approve any forest licences, forest management
plans, work schedules or make or give any other approvals or
authorizations for forest operation, within the Keewatin Lands so as
to infringe, violate, impair, abrogate, or derogate from, the right
to hunt and fish guaranteed to [Grassy Narrows] by Treaty 3.”

More info available at: freegrassy.org, peaceculture.org,
amnesty.ca
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