Basic Human Rights for Aboriginal Persons Must be Canada's Focus
ETFO supports Chiefs' resolution to UN to monitor housing crisis

December 9, 2011

Toronto – Basic human rights for Aboriginal persons must be our country's focus on International Human Rights Day and every day until those rights are achieved, according to the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO).

"How ironic that Canadians played such a major role in drafting the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which we commemorate each year on December 10th," said ETFO President Sam Hammond. "While the struggle for human rights spans the globe, it is no more urgent and pressing than right here with Canada’s Aboriginal peoples."

"Those human rights include adequate housing, something that is desperately needed in Attawapiskat and other Aboriginal communities," said Hammond. "We support the resolution by chiefs of the Assembly of First Nations this week asking the United Nations to appoint a 'special Rapporteur' to monitor the Canadian government's treaty obligations in this regard."

"The Harper government must work with Aboriginal leaders in a meaningful way to solve the structural and institutional problems that have denied Aboriginal peoples their rights," added Hammond. "Along with a lack of adequate housing, clean water, and viable economic opportunities, education funding for Aboriginal students under the Indian Act is $2,000 less than for students in provincially funded public and Catholic systems. We cannot rest until those inequities, and the structures creating them, are corrected."

Just over a year ago, ETFO provided support for the Shannen's Dream campaign to ensure the children and youth of Attawapiskat and other reserves realize the same fundamental right to decent schools and education that is afforded to every other child in Canada. "The young activist Shannen Koostachin, helped all of us see the intolerable conditions that children and their families face while living on northern reserves," said Hammond.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario represents 76,000 elementary public school teachers and education professionals across the province and is the largest teacher federation in Canada.