{"id":1450,"date":"2009-04-02T14:37:49","date_gmt":"2009-04-02T18:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/?p=1450"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:56:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T19:56:41","slug":"inuit-circumpolar-council-leader-calls-on-canadian-government-to-follow-australia-and-endorse-un-indigenous-rights-declaration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/press-releases\/inuit-circumpolar-council-leader-calls-on-canadian-government-to-follow-australia-and-endorse-un-indigenous-rights-declaration\/","title":{"rendered":"Inuit Circumpolar Council Leader Calls on Canadian Government to Follow Australia and Endorse UN Indigenous Rights Declaration"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 1\">\r\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\r\n<div class=\"column\">\r\n\r\nInuvik \u2013 2 April 2009\r\n\r\nThe president of the Canadian office of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC Canada), Duane Smith, praised the Australian government for endorsing tonight (3 April Canberra time) the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. At the same time, he expressed his disappointment that Canada has yet to announce that it will do the same.\r\n\r\n\u201cToday I celebrate with indigenous peoples in Australia and around the world\u201d, said Mr. Smith from his Inuvik home. \u201cTomorrow I will call upon the Canadian Prime Minister urging him once again to do the right thing and endorse the UN Declaration\u201d.\r\n\r\nWhen the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration in 2007, Canada was among only four memberstates that voted against it. Today\u2019s decision taken by Australian parliamentarians, coupled with strongindications from the Obama administration that the USA will follow suit, Canada and New Zealand will soon be the only remaining holdouts in recognizing the rights of indigenous peoples as described in the Declaration.\r\n\r\nIn Canberra, Australian Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said endorsing the declaration was an important symbolic step for building trust with indigenous peoples. \u201cWe do this in the spirit of rethinkingthe relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and building trust.\u201d\r\n\r\nIndigenous rights\u2019 activist and this year\u2019s Australian of the Year, Mick Dodson, was the first to speak atthe Australian parliament in response to Minister Macklin. \u201cThe value of human rights is not in their existence; it is in their implementation\u201d said Dodson. \u201cThat is the challenge for the world with this Declaration. The standards are set. It is up to us to meet them.\u201d\r\n\r\nUSA-based ICC Chair, Patricia Cochran, said, \"now that Australia has supported the Declaration, I hope our administration in Washington will do the same very soon \u2013 as well as the Canadian government\".\r\n\r\nThe ICC Canada president noted that \u201cfor 24 years, Australia, like Canada, was a strong promoter indrafting the Declaration but both countries eventually chose to vote against it.\u201d Duane Smith concluded, \u201cthis Declaration is important for not only indigenous peoples but all who cherish human rights, andAustralia\u2019s reversal in favour of our rights is very, very welcome.\u201d\r\n\r\nFor more information pleases contact: Carole Simon\r\nExecutive Assistant\r\nInuit Circumpolar Council Canada Phone: 613-563-2642\r\n\r\nEmail: csimon@inuitcircumpolar.com\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-40","category-press-releases"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":987515309,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions\/987515309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inuitcircumpolar.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}