Without that, she warns that the troubling living conditions on her northern Ontario community will likely worsen and that lives may even be lost.
“Great riches are being taken from our land for the benefit of a few, including the Government of Canada and Ontario, who receive large royalty payments while we receive so little,” Spence said during a lunch speech Tuesday.
“Our lands have been stripped from us and yet development on our land area in timber, hydro and mining have created unlimited wealth for non-native people and their governments,” she said.
A day after aboriginal leaders held an historic meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to chart a new course for Canada’s First Nations, fresh warnings Tuesday of lost lives and civil unrest added a reality check to the challenges confronting both sides.
The housing crisis in Attawapiskat hit the headlines after reports that families were living in makeshift tents and sheds without running water, electricity or heat.
The community is 90 kilometres east of the De Beers Victor mine, on the James Bay lowlands. The mine produces about 600,000 carats of diamonds a year.
“We don’t have revenue-sharing with De Beers,” Spence said, saying they get a payment from the company but declined to say how much.
“We’re not out for gaining a handout. We want a base from which to build and move our people forward,” she said.
Spence says she never meant to put Canada in the international spotlight with her decision last September to declare a state of emergency because of the squalid living conditions.
“It was not my intention to cause embarrassment of Canada or to politicians. Nor did I plan to have this type of exposure. I merely wanted to help,” Spence said.
In response, the government stripped her council of its ability to manage the council’s day-to-day affairs and brought in a third party manager.
But Spence warns that unless additional investments are made to fund needed improvements to the community, lives could be lost.
“If there is no movement, there will be chaos in this remote locations leading to loss of lives,” she said. “I see traces of it happening now. It will only escalate.”
Spence isn’t alone in her call for some control over the resource riches on aboriginal lands. Many of the aboriginal leaders who attended Tuesday’s meeting in Ottawa were united in their demand for revenue sharing.
Behind those demands are suggestions that aboriginal frustration could boil over into civil unrest, said Bill Erasmus, regional chief, Northwest Territories, for the Assembly of First Nations.
“This reminds me of the early days when Oka was happening,” he said, referring to the 1990 stand-off in Quebec between Mohawks and authorities over the proposed expansion of a golf course.
While he downplayed a repeat of similar action, he didn’t rule out people taking matters into their own hands.
“A lot of this is spontaneous and yes it may happen. We’re not advocating violence,” he said.
Spence, too, suggested tensions among the young people in her community.
“It is their future. They have every right to make noise and action if there’s no changes, especially revenue sharing, because the resources are from our land,” she said.
Tom Ormsby, director of external and corporate affairs for De Beers Canada, said resource sharing arrangements with First Nations communities are up to governments rather than the company to decide.
He said De Beers backs the idea of resource revenue sharing with the caveat that it’s done out of existing payments, rather than a new tax on the companies.
“We’ve always said that resource revenue sharing is something the governments control and should consider,” he said.
He said the company has an industrial-benefit agreement with Attawapiskat that gives the community first crack at job opportunities and business contracts at the mine.
Last year, community-owned businesses got contracts worth a total of $51 million, he said.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Bruce Campion-Smith
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