The Rights Of Indigenous People

Thousands of indigenous tribes live off the earth, the source of their sustenance and for centuries, it has been their priority to protect and care for it. The years after are congested with concepts of assimilation and infantilization that compromise rights to be stewards of the land. Dr. Stan Louttit states, “Ontario and the federal government came to an agreement that one of the soul purposes of wanting to enter into a treaty with the Crees of Northeastern Ontario was that they wanted the land, they wanted the resource and they could see that in the future there

In 1967, a landmark event occurred for the Indigenous Community of Australia. They were no longer declared Flora and Fauna This means that Aboriginal people would be considered a part of the landscape and not humans in their own right.. In 1967, a Referendum was held by all members of Australian society voting on the issue of allowing Indigenous Australian to be a part of the census and thereby able to vote and be counted as part of Australia’s population. This achieved not only citizenship for Aboriginal people, but put the issue of Indigenous Rights on both the political and social platforms. This essay will look at the lead up to the Referendum, how Aborigines and their supporters communicated their belief in their rights to the

When Canada was first inhabited by the First Nations people, the land was completely their own. They were free to inhabit and use the land in whichever manner they saw fit. However, since the arrival of the European settlers, the First Nations people have been mistreated in countless ways. They faced many issues throughout history, and are now facing even more serious problems in our modern society like having to endure racism, discrimination and social ridicule. Given what they already have to deal with, the last thing they should have to worry about is the denial of their rights which is a problem that Aboriginals have to contend with as well.

The Canadian government says that it is dedicated to making its obligations to First Nations by discussing issues and bringing closure to all claims. Canada likes to underlie that by looking at the historic inequality and building strong partnerships among First Nations people; governments, and the private sector are emerging. Nevertheless, the current progress of First Nations Land Claims is very unhurried and seems to be deliberately painstaking.

One of Canada’s priorities in regards to Arctic Sovereignty should be to protect the Inuit people not only because they are experiencing a loss in culture, but the Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Arctic Sovereignty also declares that the Inuit have rights to the resources and the land upon which they live on.

For the decades the first nation peoples are not being treated properly. Whether in terms of signing treaties or getting compensation of using their water from shoal lake 40. The Canadian government has carried out against Indigenous people, their land and their water as well. A centaury ago when the demand for water was increasing in Winnipeg city because of growing population , the federal government forcefully captured their reserve land on shoal lake 40 in order to construct aquaduct which is used to carry water extracted from shoal lake into the Winnipeg city. The federal government did not think about the consequences the first nation people will face who actually depend on shoal lake for their survival. T

These ‘White Papers’ focused on the social and economic problems that were rampant within the First Nation communities and was considered to be humane because of the fact that Native peoples were integrated within mainstream society [pp.6]. These problems were ‘highlighted’ through the result of various studies conducted by the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development from 1966 to 1969 and became the basis of the ‘White Paper’. Although the paper was ultimately defeated, these beliefs were brought into mainstream society and became a more idolized form of modernizing the Aboriginal peoples. This form of ‘helping’ the First Nations peoples was the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development [D.I.A.N.D] way of dissolving the First Nations reservations. These institutionalized ideologies were masked as social and economic reforms that addressed the First Nation communities [pp.5-6]. Such reforms include the state of welfare on First Nation communities, re-educating the youth, and the identification of a First Nations person according to the government, which also includes the apology that Prime Minister Harper spoke on June 11th, 2008. These ideals have become the driving force behind the United Nation’s ‘Universal Declaration of Indigenous Rights’. This declaration has yet to be signed by Canada for a variety of reasons, one of them being that it is in direct violation of Article 25, which is a right to social services and health

The Grassy Narrows (Asubpeeschoseewagong) First Nation is an Ojibwa First Nation located north of Kenora, ON. The community has been fighting against environmental injustices imposed on them from various actors over the last 40 years (Rodgers, 2009, para. 10), involving issues with mercury poisoned fish (para. 1) clear cutting of their lands (para. 27) and subsequent degradation of their land, water and food sources. This essay will detail the environmental justice struggles of the Grassy Narrows First Nation, point out the unfair treatment and environmental racism they have been subject to and will also question the role that authority, power and litigation have played within the community.

Soren C. Larson writes the second article, titled, Promoting Aboriginal Territoriality Through Interethnic Alliances: The Case of the Cheslatta T’en in Northern British Columbia. Larson worked for five years from 1998 to 2002 conducting ethnographic research on the Cheslatta T’en tribe in northern British Columbia. He conducted 82 formal interviews between himself and tribal as well as non-tribal members alike, as well as becoming integrated with the aboriginal

The First Nations people of Canada have a long list of treaty rights, as well as many undefined aboriginal rights, from their right to hunt and fish on their land to housing and annuities. However, it’s not all gift-giving and sunshine; while the government of Canada is supposed to respect their rights to hunt on their land and the right to hold title to their land, there are many disputes such as the Ron Sparrow case and the Oka Crisis that show that the Aboriginal peoples’ inherent rights are not always respected, with cases such as that of Don Marshall that show that the government might not exactly be on the First Nation’s side.

The first relation should be between the natives and their land in connection with the potential petroleum production and the world. This issue is global in scope as 95% of Canada and 12% of the world's oil is in Alberta. A secondary relation is not only in terms of domestic resources, but the global effects of extraction, as NASA supports that the domestic and international effects would be catastrophic with twice the amount of CO2 being emitted from this Canadian extraction than all of the oil used in history (McCreary & Milligan, 116.) As stated initially, the merit of this article focuses on the actions taken by First Nations and their supporters. Enbridge's proposed pipeline project has initiated research in Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge to supposedly help guide them through a means of working with protesting groups. The findings of this research ultimately leaned towards ways of rerouting maps due to regulatory requirements. Enbridge is an example of a corporation that does not recognize the authority of First Nations groups. A neo-colonial relationship is produced and practiced in territory and development (McCreary & Milligan, 117.) There is very little mention on the media about the improvements of First Nations rights. Though there have been triumphs in aboriginal rights, indigenous development according to McCreary are deeply political/material advancements that not only coincide with the events, but are dependent on returns of resource extraction and consumption (McCreary & Milligan,

The health hazards for humans who come in contact with contaminants from exposure to polluted water can have long term effects on the body causing possible organ failure and death. Contaminants and chemicals such lead and mercury can bring about many minor illnesses ranging from nausea, lung irritation, skin rash, vomiting, and dizziness, to the major diseases that include cancer, liver and kidney damage, disorders of the nervous system, damage to the immune system, birth defects and even death.

According to the Cornell University Law School’s ‘Legal Information Institute’, self-determination ‘denotes the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order’. As a major concept of international law, self-determination gives people the right to control their own fates under certain fundamental criteria, and can be claimed by a minority that bases its lifestyle on an ethnic identity that is distinguishable from regular society, with a strong desire for cultural preservation. It has been considered to be a framework with the ability to guide legislative reforms within Australia, with an underlying ‘rights- based’ approach to Indigenous Issues. Self-determination is considered to be an important aspect of the legal system in regards to Indigenous Peoples, as it provides them a process of choice, to guarantee the practice of Indigenous social, cultural and economic needs.

The article “Our Preferred Poison” in the March 2005 issue of Discover magazine brings up the issue dealing with mercury poisoning. The author, Karen Wright, writes, “Mercury is unimaginably toxic and dangerous. A single drop on a human hand can be irreversibly fatal. A single drop in a large lake can make all the fish in it unsafe to eat.” This was the opening statement in the article which first grabbed my attention, because I had not thought mercury to be such a deadly substance. After all, it is used in thermometers, so I hadn’t thought it to be as fatally toxic as Wright claims it to be.

People can come in contact with mercury in a number of ways. There is increased risk of mercury exposure in the dental, health and chemical industries. People are also at risk of consuming an unsafe amount of mercury if they eat certain things in excess amounts, such as more than 6 ounces of albacore tuna per week, or over 12 ounces of fish like shrimp, canned tuna, salmon, pollock or catfish. Exposure to mercury can cause brain damage, kidney damage, lung damage and various digestive system problems (McCoy). Perhaps the person most vulnerable to mercury poisoning is the pregnant woman and her unborn fetus. Trauma caused to infants and children as a result of