Search Brent’s blog at www.canadians.org/blog to read updates on Idle No More and Chief Theresa Spence.

I’m honoured to be joining today the solidarity hunger strike in support of Attawapiskat First Nation Chief Theresa Spence along with seventeen other people, including individuals from the Canoe Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan, the Cross Lake First Nation in Manitoba, the Brokenhead First Nation in Manitoba, the Blood Tribe/ Kainai Nation in Alberta, and the Six Nations in Ontario.

In a November 2011 campaign blog, we noted that Attawapiskat, a Cree community of about 1,200 in northern Ontario, lacked clean drinking water and called on the federal and provincial governments to take emergency action to ensure the United Nations-recognized right to water and sanitation for the people of Attawapiskat. We also repeated our call for $1 billion to be spent that fiscal year to build, upgrade and maintain water and wastewater infrastructure in First Nations. The following month, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples James Anaya expressed concern to the Harper government about the conditions in Attawapiskat, including the lack of running water in that community. Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan dismissed Anaya’s statements, describing them as a “publicity stunt”.

Northern Ontario Business has also reported on the De Beers owned open-pit Victor diamond mine which is located on the Attawapiskat First Nation’s traditional lands. That news report says, “Dewatering of the site flows into the Attawapiskat River, leading (then-Chief Theresa) Hall to express concern that the peatland’s naturally-occurring mercury may have unknown long-term effects. The community relies on the waterway for fishing, hunting and medicinal plants and local whisperings of dead fish, where none had been seen before, is stirring fear, says Hall.” Although it is acknowledged that the mine is on Attawapiskat traditional land, the royalties from Victor Mine, are paid to the Province of Ontario, not Attawapiskat First Nation.

Chief Spence began her hunger strike on Tuesday December 11 and said she was “willing to die” if the Harper government ignored her call for a meeting between the Prime Minister, the Governor-General, the Ontario government, and First Nations leaders to discuss the situation being experienced by First Nations peoples across Canada. To watch an uncut 17-minute CBC interview with Chief Spence describe this in her own words, please go to http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Politics/ID/2318285061/.

For more on the solidarity hunger strike campaign organized by the United First Nations of Turtle Island, please see http://www.facebook.com/groups/439262629452516/498142343564544/?ref=notif¬if_t=group_activity#!/events/448271678567106/.

brentprofile11-1 (1)

Brent Patterson

Brent Patterson is a political activist, writer and the executive director of Peace Brigades International-Canada. He lives in Ottawa on the traditional, unceded and unsurrendered territories of the Algonquin...