SHADOW REPORT TO THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE ON CANADA

ON CANADA'S VIOLATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHT TO SELF-

DETERMINATION

SPEAKING NOTES

I am here to speak for one Indigenous group from within Canada: The Aboriginal Title Alliance.

We are a network of Indigenous Peoples who have Aboriginal Title and Rights to our Indigenous

territories.

Our peoples refuse to negotiate with the Canadian government under its current land

rights policy because it violates our indigenous and human rights. In fact, a number of UN

Human Rights Bodies have already found that Canadas land rights policy is in violation of

international human rights standards, because its current models results in the de facto

extinguishment of Aboriginal Title and Rights.

Canada is a settler colonial state that unilaterally claimed sovereignty and underlying title

to Indigenous territories, despite Indigenous Peoples across British Columbia and the Algonquins

of Quebec never ceding, releasing or surrendering our lands.

The United Nations has rejected colonialism and all its manifestations of dispossession,

dependency and oppression. The international remedy to colonialism put forward by the UN is

the right to self-determination.

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In 1984, the United Nations expressed its concerns regarding the lack of state reporting

and provision of adequate information on compliance with Article 1 of the International

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Self-determination.

Twenty-one years later, in 2005, the United Nations Human Rights Committee

specifically asked Canada about the implementation of Article 1 in relation to Indigenous

Peoples right to self-determination.

Canadas response was that its concept of self-determination was evolving within the

context of negotiations on the draft declaration on Indigenous rights:

In 2007, Article 1 on Self-determination of the ICCPR and ICESCR, was officially

recognized in the indigenous context by the international community (excluding Canada, United

States, Australia and New Zealand) in Article 3 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights

of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP):

Despite the important question that the UN Human Rights Committee had previously

raised regarding Canadas implementation of Article 1 and despite its general comment on

Article 1 asking countries to report on it; Canada in its current sixth periodic report DID NOT

REPORT on ARTICLE 1. This is unacceptable, now that Canadas previous excuse that the

negotiations of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) were still

underway, is no longer valid. Rather, the vast majority of the worlds nations voted in favour of

UNDRIP and its Article 3 that Indigenous Peoples have the right to self-determination.

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Canada is denying our right to self-determination by saying we are afforded expression of

our rights under Article 27 and that they also provide meaningful access to government to

exercise the right to self-determination within the Canadian mainstream political system. Their

default position is that they are not discriminating against Indigenous Peoples because they have

rights under Article 27. This adds insult to injury because it denies our right to maintain our own

political, economic and social systems which are covered under Article 1. Article 27 includes

provision for culture, religion and language but does not include the political, economic and

social elements essential to self-determination as Articles 1 and 2 do.

In our brief, we made 12 recommendations to the Human Rights Committee. The most

critical are:

that the UN Human Rights Committee recommend that Canada recognise that Indigenous

Peoples in Canada have the right to self-determination.

that the UN Human Rights Committee to investigate Canadas failure to meets its international

obligations to Indigenous Peoples concerning our right to self-determination.

that the UN Human Rights Committee to formulate recommendations and proposals for the

development of appropriate measures and activities to 1) prevent violations of our right to self-

determination by Canada; 2) remedy them; and 3) coordinate cooperation with other UN bodies

to ensure there is international oversight and review over the implementation of our right to self-

determination as Indigenous Peoples in Canada based on detailed plans and processesin

accordance with Article 1 of the ICCPR/ICESCR and Article 3 of UNDRIP.

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