Newfoundland Withdraws Voisey's Bay from Land Rights Negotiations
1/29/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997
Subject: Newfoundland Withdraws Voisey's Bay from Land Rights Negotiations
Be Heard: Tell The Governments and the Company What You Think!
Billions of dollars have changed hands for the Voisey's Bay nickel
discovery...and the Aboriginal people who have lived there for hundreds
and thousands of years haven't seen a cent of it! Last week, the
Newfoundland government announced that it was unilaterally withdrawing the
Voisey's Bay area from the land rights negotiations table. As John Gray of
the Globe and Mail reports:
The Newfoundland government has told the province's native peoples
that they will be given no guarantee of sharing in the wealth from
the multibillion-dollar Voisey's Bay mine development on native
land in northern Labrador.
Instead, it will be up to the native people to get what they can
on their own in negotiations with the giant Voisey's Bay Nickel
Co. Ltd.
The government decision opens the way for a possible battle--legal
and otherwise--that may delay the start of what could be the
world's largest nickel mine.
Toby Anderson, chief negotiator for the 5,000-member Labrador
Inuit Association, said that if the government does not revise its
policy by the end of this week, the Inuit will begin a court
challenge to secure a guaranteed share of the royalty revenues of
the mine.
"That's unfortunate, very unfortunate in this country, after
everything else that has happened. But what alternative do we
have? Thank God we've got a Supreme Court that from time to time
rules in the favour of aboriginal people," he said.
If the Inuit are not successful in the courts, Mr. Anderson told
The Globe and Mail, they will turn to civil disobedience to stop
development of the mine site.
Mr. Anderson's stand was immediately supported by Daniel Ashini,
chief negotiator of Labrador's 1,200 Innu, the Indian people whose
traditional hunting grounds overlap those of the Inuit at Voisey's
Bay.
Mr. Ashini said in an interview that the terms set by the
government for the Innu will obviously be exactly the same as
those announced earlier this month to the Inuit. He promised full
support for whatever action is taken by the Inuit...
The Voisey's Bay mine is obviously going to go ahead, he said, but
the Innu have insisted that it should not go ahead until there is
a treaty between Canada and Newfoundland and the native peoples.
They have given a similar warning to the company.
"We have made it quite clear to the company: you may think you
already have the green light from the government, but you still
need to achieve the agreement from the Innu, who are the rightful
owners of this land....
Earlier this month, Harold Marshall, who is in charge of the
negotiations for the province, called LIA president William
Barbour and Mr. Anderson to St. John's at the request of Premier
Brian Tobin.
Mr. Marshall, who is deputy minister for Labrador and
brother-in-law of the Premier, spelled out a tough new line to the
Innu and the Inuit on the negotiations with the province.
He told them that Newfoundland insisted that none of the land
around Voisey's Bay will be considered part of the Inuit land
claim and that the Inuit can expect no surface mineral rights, no
subsurface rights and no royalty-revenue sharing under a
settlement.
For the native people, the bitter irony of the new policy is that
in 1993, just months before the discovery of the Voisey's Bay
deposit, former premier Clyde Wells offered the Inuit a
10,360-square-kilometre parcel of land that included Voisey's Bay.
The Inuit did not accept the offer because, in comparison to
land-claims settlements with other native groups in the country,
the package seemed small. Mr. Anderson said that the offer was
still technically on the table until Mr. Marshall stated his tough
new position.
"Now they've gone unilaterally against their policy and shifted
the responsibility to settle with the aboriginal people onto the
shoulders of the company.
"As far as we're concerned, that's not the way a government
operates, not a government that was elected by the people to
represent the people, aboriginal people included." (from Monday,
January 27/97, page A1)
Canadians and people everywhere should be outraged by this imperious ction
by the Newfoundland government. The self-serving policies and positions
that the province is putting forward at the land rights table clearly
demonstrate bad faith in the negotiations process. 500 years later, it
appears that colonial attitudes towards Aboriginal lands haven't changed:
if they want it they will take it.
Support the Innu and the Inuit by writing letters to the editor, to
politicians and to the presidents of Inco and Voisey's Bay Nickel.
In your letters to the editor and to government, stress the following
points:
* You are outraged by the decision of the Newfoundland government to
unilaterally withdraw the lands and resources of the Voisey's Bay
area from land rights negotiations with the Innu and the Inuit. Voisey's
Bay is clearly native land. When the Newfoundland government entered the
land rights negotiation process with Aboriginal people more than 20
years ago, it accepted this fact. The only thing that has changed is
the discovery of a nickel deposit. The transparent greed of the
Newfoundland government is appaling, and it demonstrates extremely poor
judgement and bad faith on the part of a government that is supposed to
act in the interests of all peopleDincluding the Innu and the Inuit.
* As a Canadian (or as a resident of Newfoundland), you are ashamed by
the way that sucessive governments have treated Aboriginal people. Why
has nothing changed? Canada prides itself on its international record
in the areas of human rights, but at home, it continues to practice the
very things it condemns in other countries.
* Why hasn't the Canadian government, which has a clear constitutional
obligation to protect the rights of Aboriginal people, taken a stand on
this issue and defended the integrity of the land rights negotation
process? Newfoundland's dishonourable conduct towards the Innu and the
Inuit is nothing less than a national disgrace.
* The land rights issue is an important one to all Canadians. The Innu
and the Inuit are still waiting for a just and fair settlement. So why
do we continue to put the interests of companies like Inco before the
rights of Aboriginal people? Nickel doesn't go bad. The vast wealth at
Voisey's Bay will still be there once the question of ownership is
resolved. No mining should take place at Voisey's Bay until there is a
fair and just settlement of land rights and until the Innu and Inuit
people whose ways of life will be radically affected by this project
give their consent for it to proceed.
Write to:
Premier Brian Tobin Hon. Ron Irwin
Province of Newfoundland Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs
PO Box 8700 Government of Canada
St. John's, Newfoundland Ottawa, Ontario
A1B 4J6 K1A 0H5
tel: (709) 729-3571 tel: (613) 922-6418
fax: (709) 729-5875 fax: (613) 953-4941
The Editor
The Globe and Mail The Editor
444 Front Street The Evening Telegram
Toronto, Ontario PO Box 5970
M5V 2S9 St. John's, Newfoundland
tel: (416) 585-5225 A1C 5X7
fax: (416) 585-5085 tel: (709) 634-2323
email: letters@globeandmail.ca fax: (613) 634-3939
Letters to Inco and Voisey's Bay Nickel can include the above points, but
should also stress:
* Inco paid $4.5 billion dollars for the company, Diamond Fields
Resources, which made the discovery not for the land at Voisey's Bay. No
one has given the project a green light, and as a Canadian, you have a say
in whether or not the project should proceed. Inco's production schedule
is less important to you than the rights of Aboriginal people.
* The question of ownership has not been resolved, and no mine development
should proceed until land rights settlements with the Innu and Inuit have
been achieved, and until the Innu and Inuit people have given their
consent to the project.
Michael Sopko Stewart Gendron
President and CEO President
Inco Limited Voisey's Bay Nickel Company (VBNC)
145 King St W. Suite 1500 Suite 700 - 10 Fort William Place
Toronto- Dominion Centre St. John's, NF
Toronto, ON A1C 1K4
M5H 4B7 tel: (709) 758-8888
tel: (416) 361-7511 fax: (709) 758-8899
Larry Innes Visit the Innu Nation WWW site:
Environmental Advisor http://www.web.net/~innu
Innu Nation
P.O. Box 119, Sheshatshiu, Labrador, Canada A0P 1M0
phone: (709) 497-8398 email: innuenv@web.net fax: (709) 497-8396