Malaspina students show support for KI 6

The waves of support for the KI 6 were lapping at the shores of Vancouver Island April 14 when Malaspina University-College students gathered at a cedar welcome figure on campus to protest, pray and fast.
The students are part of the Bachelor of First Nations Studies program at Malaspina. At their year-end feast, they heard an impassioned plea from classmate Rachel Wuttunee, a member of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) in northern Ontario, who told them of the plight of the six leaders of the community, jailed for defending their lands against mining exploration.
"My name is Cedar Tree Woman. I'm from Big Trout Lake," Wuttunee said. After thanking the Snuneymuxw people on whose land she had been able to live, learn and network, she said there was something that needed her fellow students' attention. "Then I told them about what was happening."
What's happening is that Chief Donny Morris, and his five councillors, including grandmother Cecilia Begg, have been put behind bars for contempt of a court order that allowed mining company Platinex to search for platinum where the remote community hunts, traps and harvests fish.
It's the most recent chapter in the text book on how not to conduct business with First Nations people.
Right from the beginning, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug objected to Platinex's activities. After happening upon barrels of chemicals the mining company had flown in to conduct its exploration, said Wuttunee, community members went to officials telling Platinex it was not welcome in the territory. Events were staged by Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug that stymied exploration, and in April 2006 the company sued the community for $10 billion.
In May of that year, the community launched its own legal action challenging the constitutionality of Ontario's Mining Act that allowed the exploration to occur.
The small community went bankrupt, racking up $500,000 in legal fees, but an Ontario court ruled in favour of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwugordering a moratorium on mining activity until the provincial government and the company could consult with the community.
The victory, however, was short-lived. The court ordered that a consultation protocol was to be established, and then it lifted the moratorium to allow the company to drill.
Consultation can mean a variety of things depending on perspective, First Nations have come to understand.
"They just came to the land and said, 'This is where we are going to mine. This is where we are going to start looking,'" said Wuttunee. "And [KI's] like, 'That's not good neighborly consultation." She said "notify" is what the company did, in her opinion, not consult.
On Sept. 28, 2007, the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug leadership escorted company officials back to their plane and sent them on their way with a warning: Trespassing charges may be filed against them if Platinex chose to return. Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug set up a protest camp at the exploration site, but by October, the company was back in court asking that contempt charges be laid against the leadership.
On March 17, the KI 6, as the leadership has come to be known, were found in contempt and settled into a six-month sentence.
"The same thing is happening all over the place where they just go and take what they want without consultation or without respecting us in any way," said Malaspina student Rochelle Starr of Little Pine, Sask. "And I just really felt that it crossed the line putting the chief and council in jail, that's when they've gone too far. That's when we have to stand up and say no."
Starr, and student Thomas Paul of Ahousaht, a remote Nuu-chah-nulth community located on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, got their heads together. They invited others to fast for a 24-hour period to demonstrate unity on the land use issue. It was just one protest in a wave occurring across the nation to show support for the KI 6.
"I think taking First Nations studies has really opened my eyes to the way First Nations have been treated in Canada," said Paul, adding it was important to him to show his support of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug,"whether you are for extraction of the resources within your territory or not." (Paul and the other protesters were particularly offended by the lack of consultation done with Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug before exploration was begun.
"It's different in the Clayoquot," said Paul. "We just signed an MOU [with Selkirk Metals to explore copper, silver and gold prospects on the territory] and you know that's what the people want. There has to be consultation, and I've got to show my support for the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug band, because there was no consultation."
Paul's community has struggled coming to its decision to allow exploration of Catface Mountain in Ahousaht. The community was split for many years leading up to a vote on the issue at its last annual general meeting. Ahousaht is located in the Pacific Ocean across from Tofino in the pristine Clayoquot Sound, the site of high profile anti-logging protests in the 1990s.
The community's decision has disappointed environmentalists, long-time allies of First Nations communities in the area, but the crushing weight of poverty in Ahousaht was becoming increasingly intolerable to bear.
Student Fallon Crosby's father is Haida and her mother is Kwakiutl. She grew up in Haida Gwaii, the territory of the famed Haida decision where the government's duty to consult was chiseled into Canadian law.