Houlton Pioneer Times photo/Gloria AustinSHOW OF SUPPORT — A peaceful rally of Idle No More was held Jan. 11 at the mouth of the Tourist Information Bureau in Houlton. The rally was held to send the message to all global leaders and to the oil and gas companies that tribes will not allow them to continue their unchecked destruction of human rights and the environment.
HOULTON — A peaceful rally of Idle No More was held Jan. 11 at the mouth of the Tourist Information Bureau in Houlton. The rally was held to send the message to all global leaders and to the oil and gas companies that tribes will not allow them to continue their unchecked destruction of human rights and the environment.
Idle No More is a movement for Aboriginal/Indigenous rights and environmental justice that began in Canada at the end of 2012. It began in protest of last-century termination policies that have been resurrected by Harper and his administration. Harper’s administration seeks to destroy the protected status of First Nations lands and waters and extinguish inherent Aboriginal and Treaty Rights.
“Idle No More was a global day of action,” said Cathy St. John of the Houlton Band of Maliseets. “We stood in support of Theresa Spence and other First Nations leaders, who met that day with Prime Minister Steven Harper.”
According to Organizer Sherri Mitchell, “We had three other Idle No More events, but none in Aroostook County. We wanted to hold an event in Houlton and wanted to be close to the border on that day.”
The rally lasted about two hours, with approximately 60 people gathering.
“Harper’s termination policies are designed to unilaterally diminish or eliminate the rights of First Nations peoples in violation of Treaty Law and Customary International Law,” said Mitchell. “They are also in direct opposition to the rights outlined by the United Nations in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was endorsed by Canada in November of 2010.”
In addition to the attack initiated against First Nations, Harper has also declared war on the environment, according to Mitchell.
“In recent months, more than 70 federal laws containing environmental protections have been amended or repealed, including the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Fisheries Act. These actions diminish or remove federal oversight over countless lakes, rivers and ocean passages in Canada, including those impacted by the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline,” she explained. “These changes allow the Minister of Transport the authority to approve projects that may affect the navigability of these waterways, bypassing environmental regulatory law and essentially granting industry a blank check for environmental destruction across Canada.”
The actions taken by Prime Minister Harper’s administration are not only in violation of treaty obligations and international law; they are also extremely dangerous to the environment wrote Mitchell in a press release.
“They pose an immediate threat to the ecosystem that we all rely on for our survival,” she said. “These actions will have a devastating impact not only on Indigenous Rights, but on the health of the planet. The environmental protections that have been eliminated provided safe guards against wanton environmental destruction. These laws were created to protect all citizens from the environmental harms that Industry is known to create. If we allow these laws to be dismantled the entire planet will suffer the consequences.
“The Indigenous people have been standing up for Mother Earth since time immemorial; it is now time for all global citizens to stand up with us,” added Mitchell. “These are not just Indigenous or Aboriginal issues, these are human issues. None of us will survive without clean air, clean water or healthy soil. When lands are taken from Indigenous or Aboriginal peoples those lands end up in the hands of Industry, which impacts us all.”
For more information, e-mail Mitchell at smitchel815@ gmail.com.