PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY.
The Algonquins of Barriere Lake have been forced into a costly legal battle with Canada to protect their land rights.
They cannot succeed without your support.
The community has been fighting for years to ensure Canada and Quebec honour the Trilateral Agreement, a landmark resource co-management agreement signed in 1991.
The governments are determined to quash the agreement and are now trying to seize sensitive community documents supporting the fight for the Trilateral Agreement. These documents include research on traditional land use & occupancy, wildlife habitat studies, and land claims research.
Barriere Lake is being forced to take costly legal action to protect themselves against the actions of the Canadian government, and its proxy, an illegitimate band council that doesn’t represent the community. The band council was put in place last summer by INAC with only a dozen nominations; most community members boycotted the process, defending their customary government system.
Monthly legal costs that the Algonquins of Barriere Lake must incur will rise into the tens of thousands of dollars by the end of the year, amounting to approximately $30,000 by December 2011. The community’s next legal bill – due at the end of August – will total over $6,000 alone.
If the community loses their case to keep possession of the Trilateral documents, they will launch a constitutional challenge against Canada and the imposition of SECTION 74 of the INDIAN ACT. Section 74 allows the Minister of Indian Affairs to impose band council elections on a customary government, which is a violation of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights, protected in Section 35 of the Constitution. This legal challenge will cost more than $100,000 dollars over time.
To read about the 3 MAJOR CONSEQUENCES to this legal case, please see our website: http://www.barrierelakesolidarity.org/2011/08/barriere-lake-legal-defense-fund.html
Everything counts. Please give what you can. To Donate online, please click one of the buttons below:
Cheques can be mailed to:
OPIRG-GRIPO Ottawa
631 King Edward Ave. (3rd floor / 3ieme étage)
Ottawa, ON K1N 7N8
** Please make checks out to “Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement Ottawa” with “Barriere Lake Legal Defense Fund” in the memo line **
For more information on Section 74 or to find out how you can reach the community directly for support, please contact us. For a good background video on Section 74 and the Barriere Lake struggle, please see this short 3-minute film: http://vimeo.com/23103527
