'New Brunswick fracking protests are the frontline of a democratic fight'
'Images of burning cars and narratives about Canadian natives breaking the law obscure the real story about the Mi'kmaq people's opposition. [...] It turns out the residents of Elsipogtog aren't criminal deviants. They are the frontline of a fight for the democratic and environmental will of New Brunswick.'
"It
is our responsibility to protect Mother Earth, to protect the land for
non-natives too," says Susan Levi-Peters, the former Chief of Elsipogtog.
"My people are speaking up for everyone."
'It's a
badly-kept secret that Canada's oil, gas and mineral wealth, the key to Prime
Minister Stephen Harper's reckless resource obsession, are mostly on Indigenous
lands.'
'Harper praised the "courage and audacity" of the country's
"pioneers," who "forged an independent country where non would
have otherwise existed." [...]
Levi-Peters says the Mi'kmaq remember the "audacity" all too well.' [...] 'How their nation signed a peace and friendship treaty in 1761 to let the English settle but not to trample Mi'kmaq interests. How [...] they came [..] for the timber, the fish, the wildlife. And then for the children, locked away in residential schools and split from their connection to the land. [...]
And how every act of resistance has been greeted by the same lectures from authority.'
Levi-Peters says the Mi'kmaq remember the "audacity" all too well.' [...] 'How their nation signed a peace and friendship treaty in 1761 to let the English settle but not to trample Mi'kmaq interests. How [...] they came [..] for the timber, the fish, the wildlife. And then for the children, locked away in residential schools and split from their connection to the land. [...]
And how every act of resistance has been greeted by the same lectures from authority.'
