The “Idle No More” movement began as a series of protests against a controversial government budget bill but has since expanded into a nationwide movement for political transformation. Aboriginal and environmental activists are teaming up to resist what they say is the conservative Canadian governments attempts to appropriate resource-rich lands and to assimilate aboriginal nations. They are calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to honor treaties with aborigines, open dialogue with environmentalists, and reject tar sands pipelines that would infiltrate First Nation territories.
The website idlenomore.com calls on people to, quote, “join in a revolution which honors and fulfills Indigenous sovereignty” and “protects the land and water.” Spreading their message on social media outlets, activists with Idle No More have rallied in dozens of Canadian cities, held countless teach-ins, blocked major highways, organized flash mobs in shopping centers, and even interrupted the legislature.
Pamela Palmater talking:
its really symbolic of trying to get people organized at the grassroots level, because for many decades we have this scenario where politicians in Canada are making decisions over the lives of First Nations communities across this country and First Nations leaders who are trapped in this system under the Indian Actthats federal legislation that we havethat controls every single action and decision they make, which really leaves the grassroots people out of the decision-making process. And for traditional indigenous governments here in Canada, its the indigenous grassroots people that are the real decision makers. They have been kept in the dark. They havent known whats going on. And so, what we tried to do for this movement is come up with teach-ins, come up with information that would help empower the grassroots to know what is the threat against them and how to take action to address it, regardless of whats happening at the political level.
its actually 14 pieces of legislation. Some of the earlier protests were focusing just on Bill C-45, which was a giant omnibus bill which made amendments to tons of pieces of legislation. But the two kind of critical pieces for us at the time were the changes to the Indianunilateral changes to the Indian Act, which would allow the easy surrender of our reserve lands, and the changes to the Navigable Waters Act, which doesnt just impact First Nations people, it also impacts Canadians and Americans because we share, between Canada and the U.S., lots of waterways and water basins and rivers and lakes. And so, these changes will be catastrophic to those waterways and affect people on both sides of the border. So what we were trying to do was not to just inform and empower First Nations communities about that violation to our treaty rights, because we never surrendered our waterways, but also the devastating impacts on Canadians and Americans in terms of clean drinking water.
from very early times, we negotiated nation-to-nation-based treaty relationship, and ever since then, Canadian officials have decided to make laws and policies and direct our communities without any consent on our part. This is just more of the same. You notice how he doesnt address any of the core issues, like the fundamental crisis in many of our communitiesthe purposeful, chronic underfunding of water, sanitation, housing, food, education, the very things that contribute to our premature deaths by up to 20 years less than other Canadians.
What hes talking about more dialogue. Well, we have been dialoguing for decades, and look at where it has got us. In the last 20 years, every single socioeconomic indicator for First Nations has gone downhill, which, when you look at the mandate of Indian Affairs, they only have one job, of those 5,000 bureaucrats who use up billions of our dollars, have to improve the social well-being of First Nations in this country, and they have failed over and over again. So dialogue is not going to do it; its only going to be action.
this movement has been in the works for several years. I know myself and many others have been working to inform First Nations about whats happening on their territories, not just in terms of legislation and the funding cuts, but also whats happening politically, and then whats happening in terms of the aggressive resource development thats happening without our knowledge and consent, like tar sands, like pipelines, like mining, hydrofracking and all of those things. All of that is tied in. Youll notice, even before the Idle No More movement officially came out on social media, youve had lots of protests against Enbridge and Kinder Morgan and, I mean, even earlier, against MacMillan Bloedel for forestry and that kind of thing. So we have been working on resisting whats happening here in Canada; its just that what this movement has done is kind of tied it all together.
So, the Idle No More movement tied in with the resistance to pipelines, with, you know, other informal movements called the Indigenous Rights Revolution and individual First Nations who are standing up and exercising their sovereignty to protect the lands and resources for everybody, because something that Canadians dont often realize is that First Nations are the last best hope that they have of protecting lands for food and clean water for the future, not just for our people, but for Canadians, as well, because we have constitutionally protected aboriginal and treaty rights that they dont have. So this country falls or survives on whether or not they acknowledgeor recognize and implement those aboriginal and treaty rights. So they need to stand with us to protect what will be essential. And what were talking about is having food and water for future generations, and that impacts all of us.
Senator Patrick Brazeau, hes an indigenous person that came to Senate. Most First Nations in this country consider him a traitor, because he actively works against First Nations interests, for his own personal gain, according to First Nations. And so, we tend not to pay attention to the things that he says.
But in terms of other politicians, of course theyre going to say these things, because the current status quo benefits the majority population, even if they dont have a direct hand in it, because we, First Nations people, have been subsidizing the wealth and prosperity and programs and services of Canadians from our lands and resources. And thats the reality here that most people dont understand.
This hunger strike is very symbolic. If you look at every day that Chief Theresa Spence doesnt eat, shes slowly dying. And shes doing that for her people. And why? Because our people are slowly dying. Twenty-two percent of our youth die from suicides. Our people die in child and family services, in prisons, from contaminated water and lack of food, lack of housing. This is whats happening to our people. And Chief Theresa Spences hunger strike is meant to bring awareness to whats happening around the world, because international countries look at Canada and see the Olympics and some Native people dancing in their regalia at the opening ceremonies and think everything is wonderful here in Canada, when in actual fact, you know, the United Nations Human Development Index puts Canada from number four as a wonderful country for living down to 78, if you isolate First Nations. Thats how bad things are here in Canada.
– source democracynow.org