Presentation of a brief to the federal government’s Berger Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry hearings in Yellowknife. Entitled Colonial Patterns of Resource Development: A Case Study of the Native Peoples’ Struggle in the Amazon Basin of Brazil and its Implications for the Northwest Territories, the study was prepared jointly by the […]
The National Week for Northwest Territories Land Claims saw teams of Indian, Metis and Inuit spokespersons from NWT move across the country telling the story of their struggle for a just settlement on their land claims. Some members of the CCCB Social Affairs Commission took part by speaking at various […]
The Conference’s Social Affairs Department participated in the creation of the ecumenical Inter-church Project on Northern Development, also known as Project North. It focused on treaty and Aboriginal rights and the just settlement of land claims and promoted the search for equitable forms of development in response to proposals for […]
From the Conference’s Labour Day message “Northern Development: At What Cost?”, a pastoral statement on the development of energy resources and its impact on Native Peoples:
[W]hat we see emerging in the Canadian North are forms of exploitation which we often assume happen only Third World countries: a serious abuse of […]
National Indian Day of Prayer. From the minutes of the Board of the Canadian Catholic Conference:
A request was received from the Indian Ecumenical Conference that the CCC declare June 21 a “National Indian Day of Prayer”. June 21 has traditionally been a sacred day of fasting and prayer for […]
From a Statement by the Social Action Department, Liberation in a Christian Perspective:
In Canada as many as one quarter of the citizens, including most Indians, Metis and Eskimos, are still trapped within an imprisoning network of circumstances and constraints.
In response by the Conference to the Government of Canada Statement on Indian Policy, the Bishops pledged support and cooperation for Native land claims and other rights and invited the Government to negotiate with Indigenous Peoples and to grant them financial resources to prepare their cases.
Opening of Ste-Marie among the Hurons, the 17th-century Jesuit mission to the Hurons in Midland, Ontario. Its restoration was a collaborative undertaking by the Upper Canadian Province of the Jesuits and the Government of Ontario.
From “A Letter from the Assembly of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Canada on the Occasion of the One Hundredth Year of Confederation”:
The Problem of Minorities
It is now recognized that the Indians and Eskimos have often had to endure, and sometimes still endure, the effect of prejudice, ignorance, indifference, […]
The Board of the Conference, meeting in Rome, “granted, for this year, an amount of $3,000 [nearly $25,000 in 2018 dollars] to the St. John Bosco Indian-Metis Cultural Centre [of Winnipeg]. This institution, founded in the fall of 1963, aims at promoting the social, economic and spiritual progress of the […]