Why Canada opposed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Why Canada opposed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

By Camille Cendaña and Alex Felipe

TORONTO–Canada promotes itself as a champion of human rights and democracy, but on the eve of the final vote on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, aboriginal groups from around the world are crying foul.

Along with the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, Canada voted against the adoption of the Declaration this past June at the UN Human Rights Council. The Declaration began the drafting process over twenty years ago in 1984, while the last ten years dealt with the inter-governmental negotiations. The final draft was submitted February 2006.

Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, was at the University of Toronto during the fall semester as a visiting professor on the Dame Nita Barrow Distinguished Visitorship and gave a public lecture on 21 November 2006.

Corpuz, an indigenous Kankana-ey Igorot from the Cordillera region in the Philippines, has played a major role in the forwarding of aboriginal rights both in her native country and on the international stage. She began as a community activist in the 1970s during the height of the Marcos dictatorship. Since then she has co-organized the Indigenous Caucuses at the WTO Ministerial meetings in Seattle and Cancun, was a founding member of the Indigenous Initiative for Peace, and was one of the central players in the establishment of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues within the Social Council of the United Nations (the forum she now chairs).

Her talk highlighted many of the challenges that indigenous peoples face against institutions like state governments and the United Nations. She further elaborated on these themes in our interview.

“In the beginning they didn’t like indigenous people to be a part [of the negotiations],” she said. “They [were hesitant to give us] equal standing [with] governments to negotiate this Declaration”.

She expressed her shock at Canada’s position as they contributed positively throughout the process. “They were actually very active in helping to formulating the language of the Declaration. When the working group was established, they were there,” she explains.

Corpuz spoke of various points of contention. The article on aboriginal ownership of lands, territories, and resources are claimed to be “unimplementable.” The article on self-determination, they argue, violated national unity. Furthermore, the question of free, prior, and informed consent, while important to indigenous peoples, is as yet unrecognized in international law.

“Basically they don’t like any of the articles which will clip their capacity to continue robbing the lands and resources of these people they don’t like.”

She sees the Declaration as an important redress for the continuing rights violations against aboriginal peoples.

Corpuz believes the major issues revolve around land, territory, and resources. In her view these lands and territories were traditionally owned by the indigenous peoples who first inhabited the area.

Today these lands are being expropriated away from them through the enacting of laws which designate indigenous land as forest reserves, public land, or protected areas. This, states Corpuz, is how governments take land from indigenous communities.

Despite Canada’s early enthusiasm for the formulation of the Declaration, Corpuz had reservations. Its recent actions at the UN leave her shaken.

“Now I tell my Aboriginal Canadian friends: ‘you know what? Even at the very beginning I couldn’t trust your government because they are just too good to be true,’” Corpuz sighs. Its opposition to the current Declaration confirmed this for her.

In 1999, the Concluding Observation by the UN Human Rights stated that the situation of Aboriginal peoples is the “most pressing human rights issue facing Canadians”. That same report also showed concern to the little improvements made since the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which has its 10 year anniversary this week.

Canada “is really messing up the issue of land claims of the Aboriginal people here. And if you look at their history: my god, it’s amazing what they have done to deprive these people of their inherent rights,” said Corpuz.

Prime Minister Harper’s highly publicized snub by the Chinese President Hu Jintao in November was blamed on his aggressive human rights finger pointing. Corpuz sees this as “all show.” For her, Canada’s talk of human rights is merely a tool to get more economic concessions from the Chinese. “It’s a very self-serving [ploy for the purpose of] profit.”

Governments do not carry the whole blame, in fact “corporations are more powerful than states,” she declared at her lecture at U of T.

Corpuz has a poor opinion of Canadian mining and energy companies. “[It’s] really horrible. The worst mining and oil corporations… in Asia, Latin America, and Africa [are] Canadian.”

She points to the actions of Toronto Ventures Incorporated (TVI), Ivanhoe, INCO, Talisman, and Barrick Gold among others.

In one example TVI, a Calgary- based company, has been accused of harassing the indigenous Subanen people at its mining operation in the village of Canatuan in Corpuz’s native Philippines.

Functioning without free and prior informed consent, TVI uses paramilitary security forces that intimidate the community and restrict their freedom of movement. The presence has resulted in violent dispersal, illegal detention, and economic blockades. In one incident, four locals were shot protesting the situation.

KAIROS, a Canadian social justice organization, sent an investigative team to survey the situation and found evidence that TVI’s operations pose serious environmental risks to the health, safety and livelihoods of those living within the mine’s watershed.

If the Canadian government and Canadian corporations can’t hold up human rights for indigenous people, then Corpuz hopes that the Canadian people will: “They [can] be more involved in influencing the decisions of the government, especially in terms of really monitoring the behaviour of Canadian corporations abroad. Canadian citizens [themselves can be] more socially and politically aware.”

That Canada sees itself to be a champion of human rights is certainly not as clear to Corpuz and the indigenous peoples of the world. Notwithstanding this Corpuz remains hopeful, “Canada… is a very good country for human rights as far as its record for adopting the major human rights instruments in the UN.” When the time comes, she hopes that will continue to hold true.