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Indigenous Peoples

Canada's Egregious Human Rights Record Demands Explanation

Megan Yarema | Posted 05.02.2013 | Canada Politics
Read More: Poverty, Human Rights, Bill C-400, International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, Universal Periodic Review, UN Human Rights Council, United Nations, Food Insecurity, Indigenous Peoples, Canada Politics News
Megan Yarema

According to the federal government Canada is a human rights leader, but this status was openly questioned at the Human Rights Council last week in Geneva. Under review for the second time as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, Canada found itself facing recommendations to step up its efforts to fulfill human rights and explain why little has been done to date.

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How Idle No More Could Help Save Canadian Democracy

Tobold Rollo | Posted 04.02.2013 | Canada Politics
Read More: Rights of Indigenous Peoples, INDIAN ACT, Indigenous Self-Government, Indigenous Peoples, Native Reserves, Native Bands, Idle No More, Canada Politics News
Tobold Rollo

The Indian Act is the most glaringly anti-democratic impediment to Indigenous self-government. Although they are elected, Chief and Council have no democratic authority to govern because they are constrained from above by the Act rather than from below by their people. The arrangement is insultingly arbitrary.

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I'm in a Life-Threatening Abusive Relationship...With My Government

Chelsea Vowel | Posted 02.11.2013 | Canada
Read More: Social Media, Bill C-45, Inuit, First Nations, Idle No More, Indigenous Peoples, Metis, Native Winter, Aboriginal People, Canada's Relationship With Natives, Canada News
Chelsea Vowel

Chief Theresa Spence of Attawapiskat did not launch a hunger strike over a single piece of legislation. In short, this is what we have always been talking about. Whether the particular focus has been on housing, or education or the environment, or whatever else. What lies at the heart of all these issues is our relationship with Canada. And Canada? This relationship is abusive. We have been backed into a corner and we are literally fighting for our lives. We are literally dying, in so many preventable and unacceptable ways. I'm not being poetic or hyperbolic here and I don't just mean culturally. We are dying. I need you -- WE need you, to see the forest and not just the trees.

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