Note: This article was
originally written for the publication Fightback
and is expected to appear on their website www.marxist.ca after the Christmas break.
Thousands of protesters took part in demonstrations across
the country on Dec. 21 under the banner of Idle No More, a grassroots movement
dedicated to protecting the environment and Aboriginal treaty rights against new
federal legislation. First Nations activists and their supporters mobilized
nationwide, with the largest protest on Parliament Hill drawing more than 2,000
people. Solidarity rallies took place around the world from New Zealand to Los
Angeles to the United Kingdom. Some activists also started blocking key roads and railways. In the span of a few weeks, Idle No More has
become the most significant social movement in Canada since Occupy and the
Quebec student strike.
The movement’s recent focus has been on stopping the federal
omnibus budget bill C-45, now the law of the land after having received royal assent.
Idle No More supporters argue that, contrary to Aboriginal treaties, the Harper
government has pushed through Bill C-45 without consulting native leaders or
gaining their free, prior and informed consent. The bill includes changes to
the Indian Act that would give the Aboriginal affairs minister the authority to
call a band meeting or referendum for the purpose of releasing reserve land, potentially
a gateway to privatization.
Environmental concerns also play a key role in Idle No More.
Changes made in Bill C-45 to the Navigable Waters Protection Act reduce the
number of protected lakes and rivers in Canada from 2.5 million to 82 (coincidentally,
the majority of bodies of water that remain under federal protection are
located in Conservative ridings). The weakening of environmental regulations to
boost corporate profits will increase pollution and contamination in native
communities such as Fort Chipewyan, which has seen cancer rates skyrocket in
recent years due to the nearby oil sands.
Idle No More supporters are demanding that the Harper
government shelve Bill C-45 until it has met and consulted with native leaders.
Their struggle has become embodied in the hunger strike of Attawapiskat Chief
Theresa Spence, who at the time of writing had gone more than 22 days without eating. Leader of a First
Nations community that attracted international attention in 2011 for its appalling
living conditions, the increasingly emaciated Spence has pledged to continue
her fast until the prime minister and governor-general meet with native
leaders. Harper’s continued refusal to grant such a meeting raises the real
possibility that the prime minister of Canada will let this woman die before he
listens to her concerns.
Fightback unequivocally supports the efforts of First
Nations to defend their land and resource rights as stipulated in the treaties.
But Idle No More addresses issues of concern to all Canadian workers, including
poverty, education, housing, public health, the environment and the Harper
government’s ongoing attacks on democracy. First Nations face the same enemy as
the broader Canadian working class. By forcing these topics into the national
conversation, native activists are taking the lead in the ongoing struggle
against the decaying capitalist system.
The current activity follows years of steadily mounting
grievances. First Nations have faced state oppression and discrimination
throughout Canadian history. Successive governments in Ottawa cynically signed
and broke treaties depending on their needs of the moment, while Aboriginal
inhabitants were pushed onto reserves with poor land or relegated to the
fringes of urban society to live as a despised minority. State authorities
attempted to erase every aspect of their culture and separated native children
from their families, forcing them to attend abusive residential schools.
Today, First Nations people statistically suffer social
maladies at rates far worse than the general population: more unemployment,
shorter life expectancy, higher rates of incarceration, poverty and suicide,
lower levels of education and greater substance abuse. More than 75 First
Nations communities live under constant boil-water-advisory conditions, and
residents of towns such as Attawipiskat live in overcrowded, unsanitary
conditions with no running water or proper sewage. Such is the legacy of
centuries of oppression in which Aboriginal Canadians were treated at best as
second-class citizens.
Abuse inevitably leads to resistance. Over the last few decades,
indigenous peoples in Canada have fought back in whatever way they could,
illustrated during successive crises in Oka (1990), Ipperwash (1995), Gustafsen
Lake (1995) and Burnt Church (1999). National days of action in 2007 and 2008
led to native activists blockading stretches of Highway 401 and the CN railroad
between Toronto and Montreal. Leaders of these actions were often rounded up
and arrested.
Many First Nations people hoped for change in 2008 after
Stephen Harper issued an official apology on behalf of the Canadian government for
the residential school system. The prime minister pledged a new relationship with
First Nations based on partnership and mutual respect. But the government’s
successive actions exposed Harper’s promise as meaningless verbiage, as The Toronto Star noted on Dec. 20:
Since 2008, the Harper government has cut aboriginal health funding,
gutted environmental review processes, ignored the more than 600 missing and
murdered Indigenous women across Canada, withheld residential school documents
from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, abandoned land claim
negotiations, and tried to defend its underfunding of First Nations schools and
child welfare agencies.
When some dared call attention to poverty, “corrupt” chiefs were
blamed. Although the minister of Aboriginal Affairs, John Duncan, claims to
have visited 50 First Nations communities and conducted 5,000 consultations, he
and his staff clearly have not gained the First Nations’ consent on the seven
currently tabled bills that Idle No More activists oppose.
After so many broken agreements and cutbacks, Bill C-45 was
clearly the straw that broke the camel’s back – the moment when quantity turned
into quality, when injustices accumulated over many years became too much to
bear.
Idle No More began with four indigenous and non-indigenous
Saskatchewan women – Sylvia McAdams, Jessica Gordon, Nina Wilson and Sheelah
McLean – who began organizing “teach-ins” in Saskatoon, Regina and Prince
Albert during November to build awareness around Bill C-45. Efforts continued
when the Louis Bull Cree Nation held learning sessions in Alberta, and
organizer Tanya Kappo took to Facebook and Twitter to spread the message
further.
Momentum built on social media and led to a National Day of
Action on Dec. 10. At the invitation of the New Democratic Party, First Nations
leaders attempted to enter the House of Commons as the bill was being voted on,
but were refused entry. Agitation therefore
built up further, culminating in an even larger day of protests across the
country on Dec. 21.
While solidarity rallies took place from Vancouver to
Halifax, the focus was on Ottawa, where legions of supporters were bused in
from as far afield as Regina. By mid-morning on Friday, 500 supporters had
already gathered on Victoria Island outside the compound where Chief Spence is
staying in a teepee during her hunger strike. The demonstrators braved cold
weather to rally on Parliament Hill to hear a variety of speakers including
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo, who said Spence’s hunger
strike and Idle No More had awakened Aboriginal people across Canada.
Harper appeared unmoved by the day’s rallies, preferring to
tweet about his love of bacon. But NDP leader Thomas Mulcair penned a letter to
Harper in which he urged the prime minister to heed the message of Idle No
More, commit to reconciliation and re-engage with native leaders.
“From coast to coast to coast, an unprecedented wave of
grassroots action is sweeping across First Nations communities,” the Leader of
the Official Opposition wrote. “When you met with First Nations leaders less
than a year ago, you committed your government to working in partnership with
First Nations Canadians. The #IdleNoMore protests are proof that Aboriginal
Canadians are demanding you fulfill that solemn commitment.”
The NDP leader’s support for the aims of Idle No More is an
encouraging sign, as are letters of support from the Canadian Labour Congress,
the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers
and others. There is a widespread recognition that in challenging corporate
power and standing up for native land and resource rights, First Nations people
are fighting on behalf of all Canadian workers who want decent housing, high
public health and education standards and a clean environment for their
children to grow up in.
Therefore, Fightback wholeheartedly supports the Idle No
More movement. The struggle of Aboriginal Canadians for basic rights and
dignity reflects the struggle of all working class Canadians seeking a decent
life. But advancing those goals in the long run will require greater unity
between First Nations and the labour movement.
Defend native treaty
rights and the environment!
Unity between native
and non-native workers!
For a socialist
Canada with equal opportunities for all!
