Bob Lovelace fined and serving six months in jail for refusal to ‘purge’
TORONTO – The personal stakes are high for Bob Lovelace, an Algonquin negotiator who sits in jail, serving a six-month sentence for contempt of court for his part in a three-month blockade that prevented a mining exploration company from drilling for uranium in eastern Ontario. He also has to pay a $25,000 fine.
At a hearing held the week of March 17, a judge was likely to order him to pay a portion of the company’s legal costs. When he gets out, he may face an additional daily fine of $2,000 for not agreeing to abide by the terms of an injunction prohibiting any protest.
It’s his refusal to give that agreement that landed him in jail in the first place.
Taking the position that he is a political prisoner, Lovelace, 59, has refused to work in jail, fellow negotiator Jack LaPointe said. That means he must forego the privileges that are earned by prison work, like watching television or working out.
The political stakes may be higher for Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, a Liberal who was re-elected last fall amid promises of better relations with indigenous people.
The promises – sparked by the landmark Ipperwash report, released last year following a judicial inquiry into the police shooting of aboriginal activist Dudley George – have soured.
While Lovelace will spend the summer in the Lindsay jail, it’s Ontario that flouts the law.
In his report, Ipperwash Commissioner Sidney Linden urged Ontario to work in good faith to accommodate indigenous concerns with regard to activities that might impact their rights and interests.
It was the provincial government’s failure to consult before licensing Frontenac Ventures to carry out exploratory drilling on unceded Algonquin land – in violation of the constitution and Supreme Court rulings – that ended with Lovelace, former acting chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, university professor and father of seven, being led out of the Kingston, Ontario, courthouse in handcuffs.
He’s not alone in being prepared to pay a personal price in a fight against environmental degradation. In northern Ontario, leaders of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation have expressed their readiness to be jailed for contempt for defying an injunction permitting Platinex, a Toronto mining exploration company, to drill on their territory. They were expected to be sentenced March 17.
One point Linden made in the Ipperwash report was that injunctions are blunt instruments, ill-suited to settling aboriginal land disputes. It’s a point amply demonstrated by Justice Douglas Cunningham, the judge whose penalties have attracted widespread criticism.
He sentenced Ardoch Algonquin First Nation Chief Paula Sherman to six months in jail and a $15,000 fine. A single mother, she faced losing her three children, so she agreed to abide by the injunction to avoid jail time.
Cunningham also imposed a $10,000 fine on the 550-member First Nation – which has no status and receives no government funds.
More Algonquins were up for sentencing March 18 in Kingston.
Amnesty International, the Christian Peacemaker Teams, environmental activist and broadcaster David Suzuki, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation of northern Ontario have all protested.
McGuinty is being urged to pull back from the growing confrontation with aboriginals over mining issues and uphold ”the honour of the Crown,” a reference to a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling that laid out government responsibilities in dealing with aboriginal people.
Even Scott Reid, the area’s federal Member of Parliament, and Randy Hillier, the Member of the Provincial Legislature – both Conservatives – called Lovelace’s sentence a ”grave injustice” and the sentence and fines ”grossly disproportionate” to his offence.
”It is clear to us that any disobedience he may have shown has at all times been peaceful, respectful and civilized in the very best tradition, dating back to Henry David Thoreau, of civil disobedience to unjust laws and unjust men,” they said in a joint release.
There has been no response from McGuinty’s office. A call requesting comment was referred to a communications official in the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines who insisted that the government’s duty to consult had been discharged in last-ditch mediated talks that began after an injunction was issued Sept. 27.
Lovelace was the chief Algonquin negotiator. The talks broke down in early February. The reason, according to Lovelace, was that provincial negotiator Cam Clark went back on an undertaking that no drilling was a possible outcome of the talks. ”This tactic is simply bargaining in bad faith,” he wrote in an online report.
MNDM spokesman Kathy Nosich rejected the notion that the province acted in bad faith.
Initially, no one noticed when a small company called Frontenac Ventures Corp. staked claims on 30,000 acres northeast of Kingston and west of Ottawa in 2005 and 2006. Most of it was public land, but some was private. It’s part of 8.9 million acres of unceded Algonquin land that includes the capital city of Ottawa, a claim that’s presently being negotiated by 10 Algonquin communities with the federal and Ontario governments.
When members of the Ardoch Algonquin and Shabot Obaadjiwan Algonquin First Nations found out, they moved in June last year to blockade the nearby drilling site.
Non-aboriginal residents – the Algonquins call them settlers, a term that in this context signifies camaraderie – have formed the Community Coalition Against Mining Uranium.
Uranium is the core issue, for the Algonquins and the settler group: a mineral that is found in a mildly radioactive state across the Canadian Shield, but can spread environmental devastation once exposed.
”The only thing that’s responsible to do with uranium is to leave it in the ground,” said Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch Canada, a nongovernmental watchdog.
That’s an idea that George White, president and CEO of Frontenac Ventures, dismisses as outdated mythology. Fifty years ago, maybe; but now the rules have changed, he said, and government regulation ensures safety. Drilling is imminent, he added.