Category Archives: Resource extraction

Elections this weekend in British Columbia and Brazil: Who gets thrown under the bus for the sake of development?

by Jim Hodgson

I write today from northwest Chiapas, part of the traditional territory of the Zoque Indigenous people in southeastern Mexico. But I am thinking of friends and family in the Canadian province of British Columbia, who will elect a new provincial government today, and of the people of Brazil who will choose a president Sunday.

In all of these places, politics have become sharply polarized. The right attacks even the concept of Indigenous rights as an impediment to private property and to their notions of development – usually tied to ecologically-destructive resource extraction. They also attack 2SLGBTQIA+ people, especially trans people. And the left, rather tepidly in my opinion, defends the rights of Indigenous people, ecological protection and the rights of queer and trans people.

Today, let’s look at my home province, so-called British Columba, a land where virtually no treaties were signed during colonization.

Orange Shirt Day, Penticton, Oct. 30

In the B.C. provincial election, two acronyms have been bandied about. DRIPA and SOGI. Conservative politicians say they’re bad: threats to your property on the one hand and to your family on the other. And the relatively progressive government has not shown much courage in defending these policies.

What are they?

In this piece by Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), DRIPA is explained.

In times like these, First Nations and our rights are often the first to be thrown under the bus. In the territory known as British Columbia (B.C.), this has resulted in politicians placing a target squarely on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). Lost in all the related bluster and rhetoric is what UNDRIP and DRIPA actually are and are meant to do, and what those who seek to weaken or do away with them are asking British Columbians to give up.

Understanding UNDRIP and DRIPA

UNDRIP is an international human rights instrument. Developed through a series of forums beginning in 1982 and ending with the UN General Assembly voting to adopt UNDRIP in 2007, it is the product of more than 20 years of international deliberations, diplomacy, and compromise between UN member States and Indigenous Peoples’ representatives.

UNDRIP does not create new rights, nor does it extend any unique privileges or entitlements to Indigenous Peoples. Rather, it expresses long-standing international human rights norms in the specific context of the world’s Indigenous Peoples. Grounded fundamentally in the inherent right to self-determination enjoyed by all peoples, it is intended to protect the collective human rights of the more than 470 million Indigenous People worldwide that may not be adequately addressed in other human rights instruments that emphasize individual rights, and it also further elaborates on specific individual human rights with particular emphasis on the rights of Indigenous women and children.

Stated simply: UNDRIP recognizes and is meant to protect broadly accepted, basic human rights. Indigenous rights are human rights.

DRIPA, on the other hand, is a provincial statute which the B.C. legislature passed unanimously in 2019. The purpose of DRIPA is to advance the domestic implementation of these rights in B.C. DRIPA made B.C. the first jurisdiction in Canada to formally adopt UNDRIP as its framework for reconciliation, as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada explicitly called for. Since then, DRIPA has played a key role in enabling First Nations to take our rightful place at the decision-making table while facilitating economic growth and prosperity. …

There are legitimate questions about how DRIPA should operate, how its obligations should interact with existing law, and what role courts should play when conflicts arise. But those questions should not be allowed to obscure the fundamental question at the heart of this debate: whether the rights of First Nations will be treated as enduring human rights or as political concessions that can be suspended whenever they become politically inconvenient.

Summerland’s first Pride March, June 18.

And SOGI – sexual orientation and gender identity – is explained here by Wilbur Turner, president and executive director of Advocacy Canada (a Kelowna-based 2SLGBTQIA+ advocacy organization).

SOGI 123 was introduced in BC schools in 2016, ten years ago. It is a set of resources to help schools be safe for every student, and it was never a stand-alone curriculum. Researchers at UBC’s Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre, led by Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, evaluated it using BC Adolescent Health Survey data from more than 98,000 students in grades 7 to 12 across 482 schools. They found that SOGI 123 reduced bullying and sexual orientation discrimination for students in the rainbow community and for their heterosexual classmates too. “We’ve now got 10-year evidence that it works,” Saewyc said.

Thousands of students have now graduated after spending most of their school years with these resources in their classrooms. The sky hasn’t fallen. What has happened is that more kids feel safe at school.

British Columbians face real problems this fall, from housing and health care to the cost of groceries. Let’s get serious about those, and leave the kids out of this culture war.

I’ll write about Brazil’s election in days to come. In the meantime, for excellent updates check out posts from Panamerican Dispatch.

Our season of fire

by Jim Hodgson

Summerland – both my hometown and the site of my so-called “retirement” – made national and global headlines over the past 10 days because of that ultra-fast-moving wildfire that ignited just west of town on Friday evening, August 7.

The fire, frightening as it was and devastating as it is for those who lost homes and jobs because of it, brought out the best among neighbours: from the first minutes, people helped each other. Soon, residents of Penticton and other communities welcomed 20,000 evacuees from Summerland, Peachland and the smaller communities like Faulder and Meadow Valley to the west. I am grateful to neighbours, first responders, and the fire-fighters who came from near and far (gracias, México!) to help control the fire. I’ll say a bit more about my situation below.

Over the summer, I had been pondering the concept of development as I have been using it in my Unwrapping Development blog posts – mostly the international sort that attempts (and often fails) to improve livelihoods in less-privileged parts of the world – and the way the word development gets bandied around in local, provincial and Canadian politics.

By way of illustration, I was going to write about a conflict over a proposed gravel pit mine in Garnet Valley, the northwest part of Summerland. In July, the provincial government of British Columbia re-ignited public debate over the gravel pit. Those of us who opposed the proposal thought we had won when a B.C. Supreme Court judge quashed it in February.

But no. It seems provincial mining laws can override opposition from the municipal council, the regional district (like a county in other places), residents, the Okanagan Nation Alliance and the Penticton Indian Band.

Garnet Valley, like nearby Prairie Valley, Cartwright Mountain and the mountains between Garnet Vally and Okanagan Lake, suffered still-not fully known damage in the recent fire. But the human and ecological concerns about the proposed gravel pit remain. Over time, plants and trees will grow again, and wildlife return. Better, however, with no gravel pit!

Our journey

David and I had left Summerland Wednesday, Aug. 5 before the fire for a visit to Ottawa. When the fire erupted, we talked about whether to try to return early or not. We chose to remain in Ottawa until our scheduled return Tuesday, Aug. 10. By then, it was clear to us that we needed to go back.

Getting there, however, turned into our own Odyssey, or as David called it, our own Amazing Race Canada. Our flights were cancelled, re-scheduled, and cancelled again because of heavy smoke at Kelowna airport. We talked the airline into taking us as far as Calgary, thinking that then we could rent a car and drive to Kelowna, retrieve our car there, and then drive on to Penticton to re-connect with family and retrieve our cat. 

“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans,” as John Lennon sang, and no sooner than the new flights were confirmed, car rented and motel room booked, the plans fell apart. Avis became my Cyclops, and hotels.com my Poseidon. I eventually won both battles, however, and we were able to buy (expensive) tickets on a late-night flight from Calgary to Kelowna. We got the car back and spent the night in a motel in East Kelowna. 

The next day, we made the long detour to Penticton, arriving there mid-afternoon. We got ourselves sorted out with the good people of B.C. Emergency Support Services, recovered our cat Chia, and settled into a hotel in Oliver.

This of course is a story very different from those of people I know who survived the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, or the more recent earthquakes in Venezuela and Colombia. Mine were, as we sometimes joke, first-world problems. We have enough money to absorb some stupid mistakes; we have insurance; we have governments capable of providing assistance.

When I write about development, it has to included capacity for disaster-response just as it must respect the principle of subsidiarity (prominent in Catholic social teaching): community challenges should be handled by the most local authority possible. A higher authority should only assist, support, or coordinate when a lower group cannot do the job alone.

We have a home to go back to and we’ll work with others to clean up and where necessary, re-build. And, more than ever, we must evoke ecological concerns about development. What we do in the name of development continues to affect the climate. Every summer is becoming a season of dread.

Canada-Ecuador free trade deal sparks concern in both countries

by Jim Hodgson

As ministers signed a new free trade agreement today in Ottawa, civil society organizations in Canada and Ecuador repeated their concerns about the deal.

The 26-chapter document was signed in Ottawa today by Canada’s international trade minister, Maninder Sidhu and Ecuador’s minister of production, foreign trade and investment, Luis Alberto Jaramillo.

Ministers meet. Photo: Primicias, Ecuador.

In Canada, Common Frontiers and MiningWatch Canada said the agreement was “deeply dangerous.” From what is known about the deal, it’s clear that it “grants sweeping and undemocratic protections to Canadian investors while deepening Ecuador’s human rights crisis.”

(I have worked with both organizations and their members for the better part of three decades – since our struggles over the North American FTA, opposition to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas – a fight we won in 2005 – and the impacts of Canadian mining companies in Guatemala and beyond. Challenging as the current situation in Ecuador is, I am pleased to see Common Frontiers and MiningWatch fighting the good fight against these FTAs that only benefit the rich.)

Groups in both countries had previously criticized Ecuador’s ban on its largest opposition party, ongoing criminalization of ecological defenders, failure to consult with Indigenous peoples, and collaboration with the United States in military attacks on supposed drug-traffickers.

Common Frontiers and MiningWatch prepared a four-page explainer on why the deal is bad. And here is a statement on the new FTA from colleagues at Latin America is Better without Free Trade.

Most of what follows is text from the Common Frontiers-MiningWatch news release:

Minister Sidhu said the agreement will “open new opportunities for Canadian companies in a growing market, strengthen supply chains, and provide more predictable access to goods, services, and investment.” But Canada’s own assessment of the agreement projected insignificant growth in trade. Its main purpose is to attract and protect Canadian investment in Ecuador’s mining sector. 

The agreement is massively opposed by a large share of Ecuadorian civil society and Indigenous groups.

Paramount among the concerns:

  • A worsening human rights crisis in Ecuador. Ecuadorian and international human rights organizations have documented widespread, systematic human rights violations, including increasing militarization, repression of dissent, the criminalization of environmental defenders, and the imposition of executive decrees that undermine the rule of law. Much of this is exacerbated by – or in support of – existing Canadian mining investment in the country.
  • No consultation, consent, or transparency. The agreement was negotiated and signed without the free, prior, and informed consent of affected Indigenous Peoples, violating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Ecuador’s obligations under the Escazú Agreement.
  • Investor protections that violate Ecuador’s constitution. The agreement contains an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism that is prohibited by Ecuador’s constitution and was rejected in two recent plebiscites. According to former UN Rapporteur David Boyd, ISDS poses “catastrophic” consequences for climate action, environmental protection, and the realization of human rights.
  • No corporate accountability mechanism in Canada. The recent closure of the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE) and the lack of due diligence legislation underscore a major accountability gap in Canada. Communities harmed by the operations of Canadian companies in Ecuador will have no standing in investor-state disputes and nowhere to turn for justice and remedy.

The agreement now heads to Parliament to be ratified. In response to repeated concerns raised by Ecuadorian civil society and Indigenous communities and echoed by prominent civil society voices in Canada, the organizations are urging Members of Parliament to reject the agreement.

In Ecuador, the Primicias news site said the trade agreement with Canada will allow almost all of the products that Ecuador exports to that market to enter with zero tariff, once it comes into force. According to the Government, the benefit covers 99.6% of items for Ecuador.

Among the products that will enter without paying tariffs are: textiles, vegetables, roses, sardines, confetti, chocolate and ceramics.

Likewise, some of the products imported from Canada that will reach Ecuador without paying tariffs, including: wheat, cell phones, cleaning products, laptops, drones, fertilizers, medicines and sporting goods.