The Council of Canadians Statement on the 2010 Olympic Winter Games states that we are “committed to working with activists who are highlighting the negative aspects of the 2010 Games, especially the fact they are being held on un-ceded First Nations territories and are providing mining, resort, real estate and energy developers with opportunities to continue expansion of projects on indigenous territories throughout the province.”
To see Council of Canadians Board member Garry John of Shalath, British Columbia singing at the ‘Take Back Our City!’ protest on February 12, go to the very powerful 6-minute video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFWIzBAN0VI or watch below:
Eriel Deranger of the Fort Chipewyan First Nation recently stated, “We see that the leading sponsors of the 2010 Winter Olympics are also complicit in the Alberta tar sands and the destruction and devastation of my peoples territories. RBC, the leading financier of the tar sands and a top Olympic sponsor, continues to profit from the erosion of First Nations and human rights. They are saying that they will not implement a policy that respects the model of free, prior and informed consent.”
Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that, “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.”
Canada, the United States and New Zealand are the only three countries in the world that oppose this UN Declaration. The Council of Canadians criticized the Harper government for voting against the Declaration in September 2007 and has demanded that the federal government endorse the Declaration.
There are more than 300 outstanding land and resource claims in Indigenous communities in British Columbia alone.
The Council of Canadians Statement on the 2010 Olympic Winter Games is at http://canadians.org/olympics/statement.html.
