Event

Renewing the Relationship between Canada and the Indigenous people: Federal Government's approach and action plan - With the Hon. Marc Garneau

Friday, April 6, 2018 13:00to14:00
Chancellor Day Hall NCDH 312, 3644 rue Peel, Montreal, QC, H3A 1W9, CA
Price: 
Free and open to the public

The McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism invites you to a conversation on the Indigenous issue with Honorable Marc Garneau, Federal Minister of Transport, Member of the Cabinet and MP of the Federal Parliament. Respondent: Raymond Savadogo, O’Brien Fellow, Faculty of Law, McGill University.

Summary

Recently, at its sitting of February 7, 2018, the House of Commons of the Federal Parliament adopted at second reading and by a large majority of 217 votes in favor versus 76 against, Bill C-262. It aims to incorporate the UN General Assembly Resolution 61/295 of 13 September 2007 on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a non-binding legal instrument of only 46 articles that essentially cover the rights of indigenous peoples.

This declaration provides for the indigenous people, inter alia, the right to administer themselves, to maintain separate institutions, to live as peoples without any act of genocide or forced transfer of indigenous children from one group to another, while dedicating the prohibition to be forcibly removed from their lands and territories, their rights to practice, promote and teach their traditions, customs and religious and spiritual rites, the right to repatriation of their human remains, to establish and control their own educational systems and schools in their own languages, and even to manage their own news media. It also reiterates the right of indigenous peoples to reparation in the form of restitution or compensation. At the same time, the Declaration enshrines the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples.

What is the middle ground that allows both to entrench so many rights, but without undermining the territorial integrity and political unity of a country like Canada? What consequence can such a Declaration have in terms of the institutional, legislative and constitutional reorganization of Canada and particularly in Federal Minister of Transport? What is the Federal Minister's action plan related to oil spills on the west coast, indigenous people's intervention in ocean stewardship, Inuit Airline in northern Quebec, protection for species like the orca and traditional fisheries in some regions, railways and shipping to the north or oceans including the strikes on federal railways or other measures of pressure used by the Indigenous people?

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