The Conference Was a Success!

Thank you so much for your participation in Why Green Isn't Enough: An Anti-Racist Anti-Colonial Environmentalism Conference. The conference was a major success in every way, with over 50 people attending each talk. In addition, two of the conference organizers, Muna and Yazmin, are planning to revive the Anti-Racist Environmental Coalition (AREC) at Trent in Fall 2008! If you would like to join them in mobilizing the ideas discussed at the conference, please send your contact information to whygreenisntenough@gmail.com and they will get back to you.

The conference schedule will remain posted at the bottom of this page for future reference. Please check back for periodic updates on local and global environmental justice struggles.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Canada’s latest political prisoners

By Justin Podur - The Bullet

On March 18, 2008, the Ontario Superior Court’s Judge Patrick Smith sentenced Chief Donny Morris and six other council members from the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (or KI) First Nation, a community of about 1200 people in northern Ontario, Canada, to six months in jail for ‘contempt of court.’ They defied a court order to stay away from a part of their lands, slated for mining by the Platinex Corporation. They were also fined an exorbitant sum, but the judge applied the jail terms because he knew that they could not pay – they were already bankrupt because of the $500,000 in court fees they had paid trying to defend themselves from Platinex before the court, over the past several years. Platinex had sued KI, at first for $10 billion (before reducing it to $10 million).

In his sentence, Judge Smith cited as a precedent the jailing of Ardoch Algonquin Nation leader, Bob Lovelace, who had been sentenced to his own six months on February 15 for trying to stop uranium mining by the mining company Frontenac Ventures on their lands, about 100km from Canada’s capital, Ottawa (for a map of the area and some discussion of the legal aspects see the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation’s website at: www.aafna.ca and specifically www.aafna.ca/Uranium_mining.html). Lovelace was also ordered to pay $25,000. Paula Sherman, the Nation’s chief, was ordered to pay $15,000 and the community an additional $10,000, plus $2000 a day for non-compliance. The judge in this case, J. Cunningham, said that he found the sentencing an “unpleasant task.”

The jailing of these leaders offers a window into a whole host of Canada’s irrationalities and cruelties – the callous dispossession of the indigenous, the search for quick profits to be torn out of the ground and turned into money whatever the consequences, the energy system based on unsustainable premises, the heartlessness in defence of an indefensible system.

The story in Canada is an old one, described eloquently in a 25-year old book that could have been written yesterday by Robert Davis and Mark Zannis (1983) called “The Genocide Machine in Canada.” Indigenous nations are deprived of their landbases and surrounded by settlers, extractive industries, or developments. They lose their means of survival when their lands are taken or when their lands are poisoned. They are dependent on small payments from the government. When they resist further encroachments on their lands, these sources of income are threatened. If that doesn’t scare them, there’s always violence and jail terms.

To understand the significance of the jailings, it is necessary to take a moment to explain Canada’s laws on indigenous rights and public land use.

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Conference Schedule ~ March 14 & 15, 2008

FRIDAY, MARCH 14

7:00-9:00 pm
Peterborough Public Library (345 Aylmer Street North)
Keynote Address: “Stories Less Told: Environmental Justice and Racism in Canada”
A panel discussion with:
*Andil Gosine (York University), author of Environmental Justice and Racism in Canada: An Introduction
*Karen Okamoto, Environmental Justice and Racism in Canada contributor

9:00 pm-1:00 am
The Red Dog (189 Hunter Street West)
Beats 4 Justice! Fundraiser for the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation

A night of spoken word, Afro-soul, down-tempo electronica, and beats ~ featuring:
*DJ Sheena
*The Unity Singers
*Dave Hudson
*Hesper Philip-Chamberlain
*LAL

$10 waged/$5 unwaged, or pay-as-much-as-you-can.

SATURDAY, MARCH 15
Peterborough Public Library (345 Aylmer Street North)


12:00-12:15
Welcoming remarks

12:15-2:15
“Environmental Racism and the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program”
A panel discussion with:
*Chris Ramsaroop (Justicia for Migrant Workers)
*Janet McLaughlin (PhD Candidate, Anthropology, University of Toronto)
*Allan, participant in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program

2:15-2:30
Refreshment break

2:30-4:30
“Impacts of Energy Extraction and Climate Change on Indigenous Peoples”
A panel discussion with:
*Paula Sherman (Co-Chief, Ardoch Algonquin First Nation)
*Leanne Simpson (Past director of Trent University's Indigenous Environmental Studies Program)
*Clayton Thomas-Muller (Indigenous Environmental Network)

4:30-4:45
Refreshment break

4:45-6:00
“Where Do We Go From Here? Organizing for Structural Change”
A workshop with:
*Clayton Thomas-Muller (Indigenous Environmental Network)
*Chris Ramsaroop (Justicia for Migrant Workers)

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The conference is free and open to all members of the public. No registration is required. Resource booklets on anti-oppressive environmental activism will be available to conference participants (suggested donation: $5). Everyone is welcome to attend!

Sponsored and supported by:

Community and Race Relations Committee of Peterborough; Fair Trade Trent; CUPE Local 3908; Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Native Studies; Kawartha World Issues Centre; New Canadians Centre Peterborough; OPIRG-Peterborough; Peterborough-Kawarthas Chapter of the Council of Canadians; Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty; Roy Brady; Sustainable Trent; T.E.W. Nind Fund; Theatre Trent; Trent Central Student Association; Trent Centre for Community-Based Education; Trent Environmental Students Society; Trent University Faculty Association; Trent University's Canadian Studies, Environmental and Resource Studies, Indigenous Studies, Politics, Sociology, and Women's Studies Departments; Trent University's Champlain, Gzowski, Lady Eaton, Otonabee, and Traill College Cabinets; Trent University Graduate Student Association; Trent University's Anti-Racism Issues, Environmental Issues, and Women's Issues Commissioners; Trent Women's Centre; and UFCW Canada.