‘Idle No More’ protest in London UK as movement vows to target tar sands

This morn­ing, British and Cana­di­an sup­port­ers joined Clay­ton Thomas-Muller, from the Math­ais Colomb Cree First Nation in Man­i­to­ba, to present a peti­tion in sup­port of the Idle No More move­ment to the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment at its High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don. A group of around 20 gath­ered on the steps of Cana­da House in Trafal­gar Square. Clay­ton from the Cana­di­an Indige­nous Tar Sands Cam­paign opened with a tra­di­tion­al song and spoke, fol­lowed by Melis­sa Adams from the Nis­ga First Nation in British Colum­bia, Jess Worth from the UK Tar Sands Net­work and James Ather­ton from Lush Cos­met­ics.

The Idle No More move­ment has seen mass protests, road and rail block­ades and upris­ings across Cana­da in recent weeks, and con­tin­ues to grow. Inspi­ra­tional Attawapiskat Chief There­sa Spence remains on hunger strike after more than a month, deter­mined to keep fast­ing until she is able to meet with Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er and Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al David John­ston. She wants to dis­cuss the ways in which First Nations’ treaties are being under­mined by a series of Bills pushed through by the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment, which aim to make it eas­i­er for indus­tries, such as those oper­at­ing in the con­tro­ver­sial tar sands, to extract nat­ur­al resources from Indige­nous lands. On Fri­day, Chief Allan Adam of the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation whose health and tra­di­tion­al liveli­hoods are being dev­as­tat­ed by pol­lu­tion from the tar sands indus­try upstream, vowed to block­ade the main high­way to the tar sands if their demands for a reasser­tion of Indige­nous rights over those of indus­try are not met.

Today’s sol­i­dar­i­ty protest in Lon­don involved hand­ing in a peti­tion to Prime Min­is­ter Harp­er signed by Oxford res­i­dents at a protest in Oxford last Sat­ur­day. The peti­tion called on the Harp­er gov­ern­ment to ‘stop putting the inter­ests of the tar sands indus­try and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive com­pa­nies above the rights of its First Nations’, to uphold the Treaties orig­i­nal­ly signed by First Nations and the British Crown, and to set aside any leg­is­la­tion that under­mines them.

The protest then vis­it­ed Buck­ing­ham Palace, to acknowl­edge the his­tor­i­cal colo­nial rela­tion­ship between Britain and Cana­da. As Clay­ton said: “2013 is the 250th anniver­sary of the Roy­al Procla­ma­tion which helped set the bound­aries of Cana­da and estab­lished the legal rela­tion­ship with Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. We felt that it would be very sym­bol­ic to take a ban­ner to the Queen Vic­to­ria stat­ue, giv­en she was the sig­na­to­ry to the treaties in Cana­da which the Harp­er gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to under­mine.”

Clay­ton con­tin­ued: “The com­plete gut­ting of all envi­ron­men­tal approval, reg­u­la­to­ry and enforce­ment mech­a­nisms in Cana­da, through the pass­ing of a series of Bills by the Harp­er gov­ern­ment, mean that the reasser­tion of Abo­rig­i­nal & Treaty rights are the last best hope to pro­tect both First Nations’ & Cana­di­ans’ water, air and soil from being poi­soned for­ev­er by big oil and min­ing cor­po­ra­tions. We have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to stand up and fight against this threat, not just for us but for all those across the earth who are feel­ing the effects of cli­mate change and water inse­cu­ri­ty.”

Jess Worth, from the UK Tar Sands Net­work, said: “We are stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty today with Indige­nous peo­ples in Cana­da who are see­ing their right to a healthy life in a clean envi­ron­ment on their tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries auc­tioned off to the high­est cor­po­rate bid­der. As the Cana­di­an tar sands indus­try seeks to squeeze every last drop of ever-more-pol­lut­ing oil out of a plan­et that can no longer take it, we all have an inter­est in the suc­cess of the Idle No More move­ment which seeks to uphold First Nations’ rights and pro­tect Moth­er Earth.”

James Ather­ton, from Lush Cos­met­ics, said: “It is great­ly impor­tant to sup­port and encour­age move­ments like Idle No More, which acknowl­edge human rights and envi­ron­men­tal issues as inter­linked. For too long, the voic­es of Indige­nous peo­ple around the world have been sup­pressed by colo­nial, dom­i­neer­ing mind­sets that live on in polit­i­cal and indus­tri­al sys­tems. The Idle No More move­ment calls for change which is well over­due, and we sup­port the rev­o­lu­tion that is need­ed to cre­ate this pos­i­tive change.”

For more infor­ma­tion, see:
www.no-tar-sands.org
www.idlenomore.ca
www.ienearth.org/what-we-do/tar-sands
www.climaterevolution.org.uk

The peti­tion text in full:

To:
Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er, c/o the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion, 38 Grosvenor Street, Lon­don W1K 4AA

We request that the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da stops putting the inter­ests of the tar sands indus­try and oth­er envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive com­pa­nies above the rights of its First Nations. The gov­ern­ment is cur­rent­ly putting through eight Bills that vio­late exist­ing treaties and will have the effect of under­min­ing and destroy­ing First Nations’ rights, tra­di­tions and ter­ri­to­ries. In par­tic­u­lar, Bill C‑45 will have sig­nif­i­cant impli­ca­tions for the abil­i­ty of First Nations to con­trol what hap­pens on their tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries. This Bill is a mas­sive, com­plex doc­u­ment and needs prop­er review and con­sul­ta­tion with the peo­ple that it will direct­ly affect. This has not hap­pened.

This has pro­voked a coun­try-wide grass­roots upris­ing, Idle No More, which we sup­port.

We request that the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da upholds all treaties signed between First Nations and the Crown, and imme­di­ate­ly sets aside any leg­is­la­tion that could under­mine these treaties. We fur­ther request that the prin­ci­ples of free, pri­or and informed con­sent, as recog­nised in the UN Dec­la­ra­tion on the Rights of Indige­nous Peo­ples, are adopt­ed by the gov­ern­ment of Cana­da when deal­ing with all issues that impact First Nations.

The world is watch­ing you.