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Headlines for 16 June 2010

Truth and Reconciliation Commission opens

Starting this morning and running til Saturday, thousands of aboriginal residential school survivors are meeting in Winnipeg for the first national event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The gathering is a follow-up to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement reached in 2006. The agreement gave roughly 80,000 former students about $1.9 billion in compensation, and it also set up the Commission as a forum for their stories to be heard and recorded.

The commission has set up tents where the public can learn about residential schools. As well, a variety of performances and other programming is scheduled at venues throughout the site at the Forks.
 

Innu block access to two mining projects

The online magazine Intercontinental Cry reports that Innu communities are blocking access to two mining projects in northeastern Quebec and western Labrador.

As of Monday, June 14, roughly 100 Innu from the communities of Matimekush-Lac John and Uashat mak Mani-Utenam are attending the blockade, which officially began on Friday, June 11. The two mines are being proposed by New Millennium Capital and Labrador Iron Mines Holdings.

Both Innu communities are members of the Innu Strategic Alliance (ISA), which represents some 12,000 people or 70% of all Innu in the province of Quebec. The ISA supporting the blockade.

In a joint statement released on June 9, the Alliance chiefs said

We are not against all forms of development of the territory but we are against all development held without our consent."

 

The mines are located on both sides of the Quebec and Labrador border. The two mining companies are currently operating sites on the Labrador side but intend to expand into Quebec in the coming years.

 

Kenney forced out of Filipino celebration

No One Is Illegal Vancouver reports that on June 12, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney was forced to leave a Filipino Independence Day celebration. 

After being alerted about Kenney's speech the previous week by members of the Filipino community, No One Is Illegal members gathered at Slocan Park in Vancouver, handing out hundreds of leaflets to people who were attending the celebration.  Kenney was heckled and shouted at as he took the stage, forcing him to cut his speech short and leave the stage.  He was eventually escorted out of the park by the RCMP.

On their website, No One Is Illegal denounces Kenney's anti-immigrant policies, growing rates of deportation, and exploitation of temporary workers.