Obed ‘optimistic’ as work continues on Canada’s Indigenous Peoples’ rights plan
Government minister, Indigenous groups’ leaders offer update on work being done to meet Canada’s obligations
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami president Natan Obed speaks during a news conference announcing Canada’s UNDA Action Plan Wednesday. (Photo courtesy of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami)
Seven years after pledging to implement United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Canadian government has an action plan to do it.
But this work is going to take time, officials cautioned Wednesday.
Justice Minister David Lametti joined representatives from Inuit, First Nations and Métis groups in Ottawa to release the plan intended to bring the country in line with obligations laid out in the declaration.
The United Nations adopted UNDRIP in 2007. Canada reversed its permanent objector status to it in 2016 and passed the United Nations Declaration Act five years later.
“Undoing 150 years of colonialism doesn’t happen in the life a single government,” said Justice Minister David Lametti, calling the plan a “road map” to reconciliation and a “transformational document that holds potential and opportunity beyond the words written within its pages.”
The federal government will work from “22 Inuit priorities” in its effort to rewrite and update the parameters of Canada’s partnership with Indigenous peoples.
That includes plans to include “Inuit-specific” approaches to addressing their inherent right to self-determination and working with Inuit governments and representatives on agreements, policies and legislative frameworks.
The government will also bolster National Defence department spending in dual-use infrastructure in the North, which can be used for civilian or defence purposes “to support Inuit needs.”
Other points include updating the Indigenous Languages Act to mandate services in Inuktitut be available at federal institutions in any Inuit Nunangat region of Canada and updating guidelines for the sale of Inuit country food within Inuit Nunangat to allow for domestic and international trade of those goods.
“Today I’m incredibly optimistic,” said Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, at the news conference.
“This is a very important day.”
This announcement marks the first phase of implementing the United Nations Declaration Act, following meetings in 2021 and 2022 between government officials and representatives from Indigenous groups across Canada.
Over the next five years, federal and Indigenous leaders plan to weave UNDRIP into the fabric of Canada’s political, legal, economic and social relationship with Indigenous peoples.
“For almost a decade, the Government of Canada rejected the UN declaration,” Obed said. “It’s important to know that this government made that shift.”
Obed also stated that Canada is, to his knowledge, the first jurisdiction to attempt to implement UNDRIP.
Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said the plan is more important than words on paper.
“This action plan is the first period of a three-period hockey game. A lot of people need to score some goals,” said Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller.
Métis elder Albert LeClaire echoed this sentiment in his closing remarks.
“I heard a lot of talk about implementation — implementation [means] you need a plan,” he said.
“Then work on that plan in order to get things done.”
The hybridization of entitlement and grievance culture in contemporary indigenous societies translates to endless expounding the virtues of self determination. Conspicuously absent, though, is any discourse around self sufficiency. The latter is merely a further entitlement to be exploited and extracted from the larger state.
YEP !!!!!!!!!!!! you got that right.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) provides a framework for reconciliation, healing and peace, as well as harmonious and cooperative relations based on the principles of justice, democracy, respect for human rights, non-discrimination and good faith.
I see you have the ability to compile a lot of words but failed to notice part of the article that describes the sale of items to allow for domestic and international trade of those goods. This would at least partially fall in line with your concerns about self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency was not completely, as you have described, conspicuously absent.
Further, UNDRIP’s framework includes economic relationships.
The parasitism is in your benefits from this society.
Barry, do you see in contemporary Inuit culture the cultivation of grievance as a method for economic ‘development’ ?
Economic ‘extraction’ is more accurate. Pay attention to how people like Natan use the word rights as well. You might notice fuzzy, and increasingly expansive boundaries around economic outcomes. In other words, “we have the right to be as prosperous as Southern Canadians” (agreed) and, tacitly, “you are obligated to impose that on us, regardless of what we do to achieve it.
If someone could agree to establish a goal post for the Canadian government to meet then I would be happy. However it seems conspicuously absent of when “reconciliation” will be well, complete. There is an entire industry around this field of indigenous engagement and government lobbying that puts food on the table for a lot of people, government and indigenous organization alike, and I don’t think they want it to ever end.
I think they are called ” CONSULTANTS ”
Plans for the survivors is only for survivors. Do not use their children as bait and send them off to a stupid hospital because it effects losing jobs.