Amnesty International report pans Canada's record on Indigenous rights

Global non-governmental organization Amnesty International is denouncing Canada's record on Indigenous rights as it releases its latest annual analysis on the state of human rights worldwide.

In the report released on Monday, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization expresses concern that Indigenous people in Canada continue to face territorial expropriation, resource extraction without consent, widespread inequality, systemic discrimination and repression by the state.

"The rights of Indigenous peoples remain a major concern and a grave concern for us," said Ketty Nivyabandi, secretary general for Amnesty's Canadian branch in Ottawa, in an interview.

"We see Canada significantly failing in its obligations to uphold the rights of Indigenous peoples, but also to tackle the climate crisis and to fully support refugees and migrants."

The group releases a version of the report every year, offering a snapshot of human rights conditions in countries all over the world. The 2022-23 report says that in Canada "The right to assembly was often under threat, particularly for Indigenous land defenders," adding that "authorities failed to mitigate the climate crisis," which also impacts Indigenous people.

Amnesty says it's concerned about anti-Indigenous racism, reports of forced or coerced sterilization of Indigenous women, the persistence of long-term boil water advisories, the legacies of colonialism and the lack of access to education and health care. 

It follows a similar report from the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, who said earlier this month that Indigenous people face "serious obstacles" to fully enjoying their human rights in Canada.

The international censure is "putting Canada on the world map when it comes to human rights violations, which may not be something many Canadians are used to," said Nivyabandi, a Burundian poet who has resided in Canada since 2015.

Amnesty says it's specifically concerned about the criminalization of Wet'suwet'en members who oppose the Coastal GasLink pipeline, a $14.5-billion project that would carry natural gas from northeast British Columbia to an export facility on the coast.

While five of six Wet'suwet'en bands have signed on to the project, the report says the pipeline is proceeding without consent of Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs, who have never surrendered jurisdiction to the nation's 22,000 square kilometre territory. 

Amnesty also notes that Wet'suwet'en members are suing Coastal GasLink and the RCMP over allegations of intimidation and harassment, allegations that both have denied.

Na'Moks (John Ridsdale), a Wet'suwet'en hereditary chief who opposes the project, said in an interview the report "clearly states that the democracy of this country is being weakened" by the pursuit of profit.

"The government is steered by an industry — creates arms of the RCMP to support industry," he said, referring to the Community-Industry Response Group, a unit created in 2017 to address what the RCMP calls "energy industry incidents."

Na'Moks, who raised the same issues with the UN envoy, said the international criticism has real consequences, pointing to Canada's failure to secure a seat on the UN Security Council in 2020 as an example.