Native Leader Serving Six Months for Opposing Mine--Quite a Price for a Belief

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41469

By Chris Arsenault

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Mar 5 (IPS) - Algonquin community leader Robert Lovelace [father of 7] had never been charged with an offence, but when a uranium company began prospecting for radioactive ore on unceded native land without engaging in consultation, he decided to take action, organising a non-violent blockade.

On Feb. 15, Judge Cunningham of Ontario's Superior Court sentenced Lovelace to six months in jail for contempt of court and fined him 50,000 dollars for his involvement in the peaceful protest.

Chief Paula Sherman, elected leader of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, a small community about 110 kilometres southwest of Ottawa, where the controversial uranium prospecting is taking place, calls Robert Lovelace "a political prisoner".

"It seems like a very heavy sentence," said Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch Canada, a non-governmental watchdog. "If the court had issued a trespassing charge, there could have been an argument about who was really trespassing," Kneen told IPS.

The territory in question involves mainly Crown land -- owned by the government of Canada -- that is subject to ongoing land claims negotiations between First Nations and governments at both the federal and provincial level.

In September 2007, an Ontario provincial court issued Frontenac Ventures, the mining company, an interlocutory injunction ordering protestors from two First Nations, Ardoch and Sharbot Lake, along with their non-native allies, to vacate the Robertsville camp, the only feasible entry point to a 30,000-acre wilderness tract in Frontenac County where the company has its prospecting license. Lovelace and other activists violated that order.

"The source of this conflict is the Ontario Mining Act, which allows companies to stake land and prospect without consultation with private land owners or other users including First Nations," said Kneen. Lovelace and other activists argue their constitutional rights were violated by the lack of consultation.

People living on or near the exploration site discovered their land was being taken almost two years ago. There were no community meetings or information sessions about the uranium exploration. "It started on private land when a cottager saw trees being cut and started protesting the development," said Kneen. A few months later it became clear that some of the land being staked was disputed territory.

"Uranium mining has no record other than environmental destruction and negative health issues," Doreen Davis, chief of the Shabot Lake First Nation told IPS. "Uranium can't be stored safely," said Chief Davis, who will be sentenced on Mar. 18 for participating in the blockade. She is under court order not to talk about the dispute with Frontenac.

"I do know that we have communities from Kingston to Ottawa on our side against uranium mining in this district," said Chief Davis. "A huge group of settlers, that's what they call themselves, have been working with us, pounding the pavement and educating people about this. I think it is unique to have aboriginal and non-aboriginal people standing shoulder to shoulder like this," said the chief in a phone interview.

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