Traditional Harvesting and Ontario Works

Resolution No. 2007-09-26

Traditional Harvesting and Ontario Works

WHEREAS court actions initiated by Mushkegowuk Council established that the Province of Ontario cannot force First Nations to administer the provincial social and employment assistance plan (Ontario Works) without our consent; and

WHEREAS provincial social and employment and assistance programs have always failed to recognize the realities of the economic situation in Mushkegowuk territory, including the shortage of salaried employment as in the south, and the value and importance of traditional employment in hunting, fishing and trapping;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Mushkegowuk Council in Assembly supports the development by the Mushkegowuk Social Service Directors of a Traditional Harvesting component for the Ontario Works program; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Mushkegowuk Council in Assembly urges and demands that the provincial government reverse its longstanding anti-aboriginal racist policy of not recognizing Aboriginal hunting, fishing and trapping as employment that deserves support; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Mushkegowuk Council in Assembly urge and demand that the provincial government

Resolution No. 2007-09-26, Page 2

immediately accept and implement a traditional harvesting employment component to its social and employment assistance program to end the discriminatory exclusion historically practiced against Mushkegowuk First Nation peoples.

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