First Nations side with U.S.-imposed tariffs: government failed to compensate First Nations for harvesting on treaty lands, NAN spokesperson says.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Forestry: Special Report - Brief Article

With their long-standing complaints on Canada's forestry policy having fallen on deaf ears, the Nishnawbe Aski Nations (NAN) has joined with British Columbia Aboriginals in taking a controversial stand in the ongoing Canada-U.S. softwood lumber dispute.

NAN has teamed up with the British Columbia Interior Alliance of Indigenous First Nations in entering the softwood lumber fray. Their claim to the World Trade Organization (WTO) is that senior levels of government have failed to adequately compensate First Nations after harvesting on their treaty lands, which amounts to an illegal subsidy of softwood lumber products.

"We have not received a penny of the wealth that is generated off the backs of our First Nations," says Evelyn Baxter Robinson, NAN's land and resources co-ordinator in Thunder Bay.

Their stand is a roundabout way to push for changes in forestry policy to create more jobs, wealth and business opportunities for First Nations peoples, she says.

"Our beef is not with the lumber industry...our beef is with the government.

"The province has a long history of ignoring Aboriginal and treaty rights," failing to take into consideration Aboriginal interests in the land through a 1905 treaty signed regarding "our right to use the land for our traditional pursuits, all of which is protected under the Constitution," says Baxter Robinson.

Under the treaty, each individual First Nations member receives $4 a year as compensation for sharing the land with the province, the same as in 1905.

"The federal government has obviously fallen down miserably in upholding their obligations to indigenous peoples at home and abroad...So we've taken it up a notch and we need to get our voice heard in the international arena because we can't seem to get anyone to listen to us in our own country," she says.

Earlier this year, NAN, which represents 49 First Nations communities in Northern Ontario, sided with the B.C. Interior Alliance of Indigenous First Nations in supporting its submission to the World Trade Organization.

The submission was accepted by the WTO.

So NAN prepared a submission of their own, which was rejected by the WTO in late May.

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