June 21^st was a fairly warm day in Ottawa, made even warmer by the gathering of about 300 people on the grounds of the Supreme Court. They came to lay out the 1000 blankets that had been gathered from across the country and transported by the ARC/CEJI "Blanket Train." 70 people rode the trains from North, South, East, and West in support of the "Land Rights, Right Relations" petition calling on the federal government to form an independent commission with the mandate to implement Aboriginal land, treaty, and inherent rights.

Blankets were chosen as the symbol for this event because over the last year ARC and CEJI have used blankets to symbolize Aboriginal peoples’ dispossession from the land. Workshop participants in the "Blanket Exercise" were walked through the historical process from first contact until now that has resulted in the "rolling up" of the land from under Aboriginal peoples’ feet and their marginalization on the reservation system. On June 21, National Aboriginal day, we reversed that process by rolling out the blankets on the Supreme Court lawn.

Participant Paula Butler commented: "A wonderful part of the blanket train experience was actually seeing the blankets spread out on the lawn of the Supreme Court of Canada –– more than one thousand blankets of all sizes and colours. They symbolized very graphically the desire of a small but growing number of non-Aboriginal Canadians to live in a country where Aboriginal land rights are restored and protected once and for all –– where we can experience ‘right relations’ with Aboriginal people for the first time in our history together."

Work continues on Aboriginal rights: The petition circulates until September 18 and is available here.

» See the original organizational materials for the Blanket Train here 

There was good news in May for more than 145,000 Canadians who responded to the Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative campaign calling for more accountability on the part of Canadian corporations, including the Export Development Corporation, which operate abroad and often on indigenous lands.

On May 15, the interim Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, released an audit on the Export Development Corporation which slammed the crown corporation for its environmental assessment practices. The audit confirms what NGOs under the umbrella of the NGO Working Group on the Export Development Corporation and CEJI have said about the need for improved standards of assessment.

More than 90 per cent of EDC projects examined in the Auditor General’s report were improperly assessed under the corporation's environmental review process. The audit gave a failing grade to 24 out of 26 projects backed by the EDC based on a review procedure first introduced in April 1999. The report also found that 9 of 13 other transactions that didn't qualify for reviews under the EDC's guidelines also presented significant environmental risk.

"We believe that these problems are serious. Potential environmental risks were not identified (in the EDC’s assessment)," said Ms. Fraser. The report said that public consultation and disclosure of information should be essential elements of a credible environmental review process. In a written response to the report, International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew said he is concerned with the EDC's performance, and asked for another audit in two years rather than the recommended three.

The EDC indicated that it intends to adopt each of the Auditor General's recommendations. It has also released a new disclosure policy, which proposes to release information about all its financing activities. The new disclosure policy would make it necessary for EDC to reveal the country involved, the amount and name of the borrower, EDC financial service granted, a short description of transaction, the amount of EDC financial support and the exporter's name. This is a vast improvement over the previous non-existent disclosure practice of the notoriously secretive government crown corporation. In terms of disclosure, the new policy raises EDC’s standards to the level of best practices of similar Export Credit Agencies in other countries.

Following the Auditor General's advice, the EDC says it intends to hold "an open, public consultation process" to find ways to improve the review process. It also will hold consultations about its proposed new disclosure policy.

On Friday May 25, representatives of member organizations of CEJI and the NGO Working Group on the Export Development Corporation met with International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew. They urged Mr. Pettigrew to influence the EDC to come under Canadian Access to Information legislation and improved standards of environmental and social risk assessment.

The coordinator of the NGO Working Group on the EDC, which for years has done tremendous research and advocacy around EDC reform said the Global Land Rights campaign made a important contribution to these successes. Emilie Revil wrote on May 31 that "This ton of letters, for that is the weight of the letters as estimated by one employee of the Ministry of International Trade, gave credibility to the entire working group." (See a slightly expanded version of this update here.)

The postcard campaign calling on Canada to ratify the Kyoto Protocol will continue until the end of October, in advance of the COP-7 meetings on Kyoto in Marrakesh this coming November. Postcards have been flying out of the CEJI and Ten Days offices at a notorious pace, and they have been noticed by the government. Minister of the Environment David Anderson even attended a Jubilee Climate Change workshop in Ottawa recently. Go here to see a new action aimed at lobbying MP's on climate change.

As well, CEJI recently participated in a major public event on Climate Change with the David Suzuki Foundation, the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, and the Assembly of First Nations.1200 people attended the June 14 Ottawa event, where the following statement was issued: "There are public priorities far more important than supporting the fossil fuel industries and technologies that arose in the last century. The quality of life we bequeath our children and grandchildren, and the long-term economic, social and ecological security of our planet must become our leading priorities." Go here for more details.

As planned, CEJI now closes its doors. The groundswell continues, however, and our work on land rights, ecological integrity, and debt continues in the newly formed ecumenical coalition Kairos: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives. Please find below the names, email addresses, and phone numbers of the staff people at Kairos who will be following up on this work:

• Debt: John Mihevc, ,

• Aboriginal Rights: Ed Bianchi, ,

• Climate Change: Joy Kennedy (interim staff), ,

• Education and Networking: Jennifer Henry, ,  

Ottawa, April 3, 2001: Representatives of indigenous groups in Chile and Colombia are in Ottawa to speak about the devastating impacts of Export Development Corporation (EDC) trade-financing.

Specifically, civil society leaders have come to protest EDC's financing of US$17 million for the construction of the Ralco dam on the Biobío river in Chile and of US$18 million for the construction of the Urrà dam on the Sinu river in Colombia. Ralco is the second dam on the Biobío river. EDC also provided US$20.5 million for the first dam, Pangue.

"The Ralco dam is changing the way of life of my people forever", says Sara Imilmaqui Aguas, a Mapuche leader. "This dam will bring social and economic chaos to what is now a self-sufficient community living in harmony with the environment".

Alberto Achito, a leader of the Embera people attested to the devastation an EDC-financed project. "The Urrà dam has brought with it repression. It has wiped out our food supply and brought an epidemic of mosquito-borne diseases directly linked to the flooding caused by the dam".

Unlike the Urrà dam in Colombia, the Ralco dam was financed by EDC after it approved an environmental policy meant to minimize environmental and social impacts. EDC will not disclose any environmental or social information collected through the application of its policy. EDC is exempted from the Access to Information Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

The World Bank has refused to finance the Ralco dam, because of violations of the company of environmental and social requirements for the first dam, Pangue. Environmental organizations and the indigenous people of Chile are challenging the Ralco dam in the courts.

"Canada's EDC has gone ahead with financing a Canadian company involved in this project even though the Chilean courts have still not decided if it is legal", said Rodgrio Garreton Kralemann, of the NGO Action Group for the Biobío river.

The Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative, together with the NGO Working Group on the Export Development Corporation, a working group of the Halifax Initiative are jointly demanding that the EDC required by law to follow an environmental assessment process under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and to disclose information on the environmental and social impacts.

The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development And Peace today presented 130,000 letters they have collected in support of the campaign to the office of Minister Pettigrew. Fabien Leboeuf, Executive Director of Development and Peace called on the government to regulate Canadian companies and the EDC in their business-dealings abroad.

For more information, see information posted on the global land rights campaign here or contact:

"The rejection of the Kyoto Protocol by the Bush administration is a betrayal of their responsibilities as global citizens", said Dr David Hallman, the World Council of Churches (WCC) climate change programme coordinator, today in a first reaction to the decision of the US government to reject an international treaty designed to combat global warming. The United States, with 4% of the world's population, emits 25% of the global emissions that are leading to climate change. The WCC Central Committee, meeting in Potsdam, 29 January-6 February 2001, reaffirmed its position that "industrialised countries bear the major moral responsibility for precipitating climate change and therefore must exercise leadership that results in real action to reduce the causes".

Hallman, a member of the United Church of Canada, noted that there is increasing evidence that vulnerable peoples, especially in the poorer countries, are already suffering from the impacts of human-induced climate change. He pointed to the past two years of devastating floods in Mozambique, rising sea levels in the Pacific Islands, and persistent years of drought in Africa.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scientific body which advises the UN, reported earlier this year that "there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities".

Hallman stated that the climate change issue will continue regardless of the recent rejection: "If the US walks away from the Kyoto Protocol, it just means that another treaty with even more ambitious targets will have to be negotiated in the future as evidence of the devastating impacts of climate change mounts. We encourage all other countries to continue working towards the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol regardless of the US action."