ADVENTURE AGENT SUPPORTS A MORITORIUM ON MINING IN POPULATED AREAS, IN PARTICULAR, EASTERN ONTARIO, NORTH FRONTENAC

BURY MY HEART AT ROBERTSVILLE

I have known Robert Lovelace and Harold Perry, both of the Ardoch Algonquin community, for several years now. They personify something that is strongly missing in our society today. They each have integrity.

It was this integrity which bound them to their word that the protest against uranium mining at Robertsville Ontario would be peaceful. Integrity compelled them to escort out of the blockade, outsiders who wanted to escalate the situation to classic confrontation.

I have never seen a situation like this has been. Protracted to several months, with all kinds of weather, it was a battleground, but no battle occurred except in dialogue. Because of the integrity, diligence and patience of Lovelace and Perry, even senior police officers commented on how that “this is the way all protests should be”.

Many readers may view the small collective of people here as insignificant, but this peaceful effort is from an area with a population density of 1.4 persons per square kilometre. The commitment to non-violence has even cynics in awe, because it was is enduring.

In the timeline of First Nations relating to Canada, this situation was a dot, not a mark. A moment. Mostly these peoples have struggled peacefully for hundreds of years. Think about that. Again, their integrity enabled them to trust the Ontario legal system and its political machine, and to take the word of Ontario representatives as honourable. In this spirit, they left the Robertsville mine site. With trust, honour and respect.

Ontario refused to carry the continuum in discussion, and the legal entities shut the door for the return of the First Nations to the land for which they were seeking protection. A “clever” slight-of-hand, common on the timeline of First Nations relating to Canada. This is a twenty-five year old claim, not something caused by this situation of alarm.

While many may applaud the court judgement which saw Robert Lovelace, a man of extraordinary integrity, patience, courage, and courtesy, handcuffed and carried away to prison, there is more to see. This summer past, and a few years ago, across Ontario we had roadblocks and trouble with some First Nations. Motorists were quoted as saying “How can they block us from going where we want”? Years ago, gunfire, and killing had the nation’s attention. These people have been culturally blockaded for centuries. Imagine. New immigrants to Canada seem to get more respect.

Robert Lovelace and Harold Perry have won respect from police officers and from the local communities around here. Indeed, the media failed to take aim at the fact that there was probably fivefold support from outside the First Nations.

In fact, it was not the First Nations who started this history-making community-building; this union of aboriginals and non aboriginals. It was a non aboriginal who sounded the alarm. It’s just that it also affected the First Nations, or as I prefer to think of them, First Neighbours.

This issue is not about land, it is about uranium. It was not about mineral extraction. It is about uranium extraction. It is about contaminating the waterways for a hundred kilometres; the Mississippi, the Ottawa and the Rideau system. It is about tainting the air with fine particulate borne equally distant. It is about the destruction of a portion of Ontario that is largely wilderness. It is about irreparable destruction of this region of 85% wilderness. These men stood in the breach for all of us.

The head of Frontenac Ventures, the company doing the prospecting, was an honourable man too, when he showed up at a public discussion in Almonte Ontario. At that time he was asked “would you live there, right beside the uranium mine”? To this, he responded “Yes …”

I am looking forward to seeing how soon this man sells his house in the Oakville/Toronto area, packs his bags and leaves to live beside the pit of potential pollution that this mine will generate. Perhaps Bay Street's shimmering gold windows and quartz-flecked white towers are too comfortable to leave. If he is willing to place his house within a half mile of the present entrance to the Robertsville mine, and draw water from the aquifer his company will breach; if he is willing to leave his windows open during the day and night, as we do, and bring along with him his relatives to this community, then he may demonstrate some integrity.

First Nations, through Robert Lovelace, have again been made something of an object lesson by the Ontario court, but there is a shadow that follows Mr. Lovelace. This Canada and the world are watching. Christian Peacemakers, Amnesty International. This is another sad day for First Nations people. But new leaders arise, study, and carry forward. But what a shame on this country.

In spite of this heartbreak, we are all glad to say that this is within Canada. Our national tolerance has permitted much dialogue and learning. I am proud to be Canadian, and proud that my great grandfather, great uncles, grandfather, uncles, my father, and my mother, who volunteered into the British Army, all fought for our right to democratically confront each other. This is all about a celebrating this gift.

Mr. Lovelace. You are not alone.

Dave Martin, Snow Road Station

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The information provided above relates to the potential development of a Uranium mine at Robertsville Ontario. The Robertsville uranium mine would be developed at Robertsville, near Sharbot Lake, North Frontenac Township, Frontenac County, in Eastern Ontario. Robertsville was one of several small community stops on the Kingston & Pembroke Railway line. Now reliant on tourism and mineral and timber extraction, the Robertsville mine does not bode well for eco tourism, which the County and the Townships have been trying to promote.

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