UN slams Canada for First Nations treatment
Canada's international reputation came under fire in Geneva on Wednesday as a UN expert panel delivered scathing criticisms over the government's treatment of First Nations and recent changes to the country's immigration system. - Members on the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, all of them human-rights experts from around the world, questioned why headway has not been made in resolving the disparities between First Nations communities and the rest of the country.
"This problem should not continue the same way as it has in the past," said Noureddine Amir, vice-chairman of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. "How long will this be ongoing?"
The treatment of natives jumped back onto the federal political agenda after the Red Cross delivered humanitarian aid to the First Nations community of Attawapiskat in northern Ontario late last year. Since then, opposition parties and aboriginal groups have called on the Conservative government to provide more funding for education, better infrastructure and a move toward self-determination. There are also concerns that the government's omnibus crime bill will have a disproportionate impact on natives.