NAN Grand Chief to speak at New Zealand conference

Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief Stan Beardy plans to speak about Ontario’s imposition of the Far North Act on NAN communities at an international Sharing Power Conference in New Zealand.
“We maintain the position that when we signed the treaty, we established relationships that are supposed to be mutual and respectful of each other,” Beardy said. “We feel that Ontario imposing unilateral legislation on us is an infringement of that international arrangement which we call treaties which were made a hundred years ago.”
Beardy is scheduled to speak during a Jan. 13 panel discussion with representatives from Pikangikum, Poplar River First Nation from Manitoba and Wolf Lake First Nation from Quebec.
The Jan. 11-15 conference is organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature with discussions on governance of natural resources; promoting a rights-based approach to conservation; social and environmental accountability of the private sector; linkages between cultural, linguistic and biological diversity; environment; conflict and security; and the intersection between economics and the environment.
The conference is about de-centralization in the governance and management of biocultural resources and about enabling Indigenous peoples and local communities to have greater rights and responsibilities in governance and management of the landscapes and ecosystems they live in.
Beardy said Pikangikum and Poplar River are examples of communities taking initiative on their own in partnership with other jurisdictions to look at best practices, noting that Pikangikum’s Whitefeather initiative utilizes traditional knowledge and Elders’ experiences.
“That is what we are trying to look at in terms of best practices,” Beardy said. “How do you do land-use planning and at the same time ensure that development does take place in an orderly fashion?”
Beardy said NAN needs to participate in international forums to create an awareness of what Canada is doing to its Indigenous peoples.
“We have concerns in terms of how Canada, especially Ontario, treats First Nations in regards to our homelands,” Beardy said, explaining the conference brings together scientists, economists, Indigenous leaders, environmentalists, academics, policy makers, national governments and international agencies. “So we hope to network with other Indigenous peoples of the world.”
Beardy said while First Nations people were at the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen, they were “not involved at all.”
“We need to create a forum amongst ourselves as Indigenous peoples to be part of larger discussions where the heads of states are involved,” he said.
Beardy wants to create an awareness on the international stage that Canada is not living up to its treaty obligations, explaining he has a mandate from the NAN chiefs to get the message out that they still have inherent rights that are recognized in the Canadian Constitution and their rights and title to their lands are part of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
“As far as NAN is concerned, we never gave up the right to govern ourselves,” Beardy said. “Neither did we give up the Aboriginal title to our homelands.”