Indigenous Peoples

TORONTO, Jan. 9, 2017 /CNW/ - Two First Nations in northwest Ontario – Aroland and Ginoogaming – have just launched a precedent-setting lawsuit and injunction motion against TransCanada Pipelines, Canada and the National Energy Board, for doing and allowing damaging physical work on parts of the Mainline pipeline that runs through those First Nations' traditional territories.

• posted Jan 5, 2017 at 11:00 AM

As oil prices rose and fell, the federal government somehow wrestled a national agreement on climate change — with two notable exceptions. The fates of pipelines that had consumed public interest for years were drawn, while others were punted into the future. Canada’s beleaguered oil and gas industry faced an uncertain year with a new Liberal government in Ottawa, and 2017 looks like it will have its own share of big shifts. For the year that was, here are the top five energy stories.

After excluding them from a critical discussion on indigenous people and climate change earlier this year, both the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP) hoped it was a mistake Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would not repeat.

But one week after his second annual meeting with First Ministers and indigenous leaders on clean growth and climate change, the two national aboriginal organizations have been disappointed again.

For years, Chief Allan Adam, leader of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, has been labeled an environmentalist.

He has fought hard to investigate mysterious illnesses plaguing his people who live near major oilsands development and other industrial activity in Northern Alberta. He has been an outspoken critic of both governments and industry for not doing enough to protect public health from industrial pollution.

The Fraser River watershed is the bloodline of our beautiful province.

It reaches from deep in the Rocky Mountains and winds 1,375 kilometres south to the Straight of Georgia at Vancouver. Its major tributaries, the Nechako, Quesnel, Chilko and Thompson Rivers, expand its watershed across the province. It provides vital habitat for endangered salmon and sturgeon, water for crops, recreation for fishers, support for local economies and a living connection between diverse regions. All of this is threatened when reckless mining operations pollute our watershed.

The Trudeau government says Canada’s national police force respects the right to peaceful demonstrations by indigenous activists, after it was revealed the RCMP compiled a list and distributed profiles of indigenous protesters it deemed “threats” who it determined were potentially willing and capable of criminal activities.

Dubbed Project SITKA, the RCMP began soliciting information on indigenous activists who could be perceived “to have committed or commit” crimes from all of its divisions and local police departments across the country in March 2014.

A pipeline leak has spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into a North Dakota creek roughly two and a half hours from Cannon Ball, where protesters are camped out in opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline.

Members of the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes, as well as environmentalists from around the country, have fought the pipeline project on the grounds that it crosses beneath a lake that provides drinking water to native Americans. They say the route beneath Lake Oahe puts the water source in jeopardy and would destroy sacred land.

“The real rights holders of Aboriginal treaty rights are the grassroots peoples, not just the chiefs.” ~Russell Diabo, policy advisor to the Algonquin Nation Secretariat.

Russell Diabo is concerned with the chiefs of the Assembly of First Nations and their fawning over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government. Such outright acceptance could spell trouble for First Nations people down the road, he told Windspeaker.

More than 100 people marched through Fort Langley Sunday afternoon to protest the federal approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

Organized by the Kwantlen First Nation and the PIPE UP Network, the march began with drumming and remarks at the Fort Langley Community Centre before winding down Glover Road and to the Fort Langley National Historic Site.

“We didn’t give permission for the first pipeline that was laid, so why would we give permission for the second?” said Brandon Gabriel, a Kwantlen First Nation member and one of the leaders of the march.