When we go about things in a good way, with good intentions, our Creator will never leave us vulnerable. Things do not happen by chance. Everything happens for a reason, and when we embark on this challenge with love and light in our hearts, we are exactly where we are meant to be. We are warriors—Mother Earth’s Soldiers.
Lakota Chief and Holy Man Sitting Bull said this:
For us, warriors are not what you think of as warriors. The warrior is not someone who fights, because no one has the right to take another’s life. The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenseless, those who cannot provide for themselves and above all, the children, the future of humanity.1
Mother Earth’s soldiers believe in a better world, a better human existence, and a better future for the generations to come. We believe in the life-giving abilities of our one true Mother. And we believe that, with our truth-telling abilities, we will move forward into a better way of knowing and being.
I am a warrior because I gave life. I am a mother, and when you bring life into this world, you become the protector of those little blessings on loan to you from the Creator. My obligation is to my children, first and foremost. Following that is my role as a Nehiyaw, an Indigenous woman of Turtle Island. I come from the four-bodied people. I was born from ancestors who endured for the future generations and the life-giving abilities of our one true Mother, and it is my obligation as a conduit to ensure that what they endured was not for nothing. We must follow through for the children and our future. With our boots on the ground, we will persist as we resist the colonial structures that have been forced upon us.
The Beaver Lake Cree are among the peoples who are challenged by the strong arm of industry and its wilful ignorance. I will start to discuss our struggles by offering a glimpse into the trials and tribulations that we face.
On May 20, 2013, two oil spills were reported around the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. lease pads, located on the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range in northern Alberta. Additional reports soon followed—three more spills were found on land, and the fourth was found under a lake. As months passed, these spills killed over two hundred birds, small animals, and amphibians. To date, over one and a half million litres of bitumen emulsion has seeped to the surface and is contaminating groundwater that we all depend on.
Welcome to ground zero of steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) tar sands destruction in Treaty 6 traditional territory, which includes the Beaver Lake Cree Nation. Eighty-four per cent of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation’s traditional hunting territory has been leased out to Big Oil without appropriate consultation with Beaver Lake Cree Nation. The Canadian government has not followed Canadian and international legal requirements to consult our Nation. Moreover, Canada has not achieved the minimum international standard of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC).2 Consultation and, more importantly, FPIC must be defined by us. Such processes must not be prescribed by the brass hands who are making decisions with real-life consequences that they are deliberately ignoring.
A major complication within Treaty 6 lands and territories is how the traditional hunting territory of the Beaver Lake Cree falls between two of the three oil deposits in this province we call Alberta: the Athabasca and the Cold Lake deposit areas. This is the land to which the First Nations people have inherent rights as per the Treaty of 1876, an agreement between the British Crown and the First Nations people of Canada.
This Is Where I Grew Up
I am a member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, in Treaty 6 territory, where I live and work. I am a mother, a daughter, a granddaughter, an aunt, a niece, and a friend. I am someone who loves my roots and my place of birth, because this is my homeland. I was born and raised in the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, and I have spiritual and cultural ties through ceremony and my ancestors. But my home is under attack by an industry and by the Alberta and federal governments, which will stop at nothing to get the bitumen from the ground. This bitumen is hundreds of metres underground and cannot be extracted without SAGD, a lot of wasted energy, and a complete dismissal of legal and ethical duties to protect our waters, our one true Mother, and the ecosystems that life depends on.
In our area, animals like the Northern woodland caribou were abundant species that we traditionally hunted, but the caribou are declining from a population of thousands to between 175 and 275 caribou in 2011.3 As the habitat for wildlife is under threat from tar sands operations, so are the ecosystems upon which the frontline communities rely. My children cannot safely drink water straight from the land in the way I did as a child, and in the way my aunts, uncles, parents, and grandparents did. No longer do children relate to stories of water so pure that one had only to skim the top of the water, take their dipper from their backpack, dip, and have a drink. They cannot fully appreciate how water has life-giving abilities.
It is the milk of our Mother, who provides us with everything a human being needs to survive. But as with any mother’s milk, it needs a body that is free from chemicals and toxic solutions to nurture it. Instead, here we are with reports of deer with green meat and moose with pus bubbles under their skin. There are boil-water advisories, and babies are being airlifted to the urban medical centres for sickness resulting from drinking contaminated water.
Our elders talk about how Turtle Island was a paradise before our visitors came over. Mother Earth is a natural grocery store. Just as we give before we take from a grocery store, we do the same when taking from our Mother. Indigenous peoples have traditions of conservation, and we are the first environmentalists. Those teachings are reminders that we should never take more than we need. Every day, we should be mindful of balance in everything that we do. Thus, when we see medicinal plants that are natural to us disappearing because they rely on a healthy ecosystem, we know that something is terribly wrong.
At the same time, our oral histories, knowledge systems, and teachings are under attack. We must react. It should never be okay for a people’s way of knowing and being to become a part of history, rather than the present and future. I have heard of a time when the medicinal plants were so pure and powerful that, when combined, they could cure cancer. The elderly could talk of these medicinal plants with ease, knowing where they could be found in abundance. We are losing these connections with the land.
As a member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, I have seen the devastating impacts of industrialization first-hand. I am not the only witness. But governments are not addressing the root causes.
The response to the rapid decline of the caribou is a case in point. A study and report written and issued by Dr. Boutin on the woodland caribou prompted a recovery strategy that was formulated further in the Species at Risk Act (SARA), the Act created to satisfy, in part, international legal obligations under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. SARA is an approach to protecting and recovering species at risk, and the Northern woodland caribou is listed as a “Threatened” species on the Species at Risk Public Registry.4 But it is from SARA that one of the most controversial recovery strategy resolutions arose.
Carolyn Campbell, Alberta Wilderness Association conservation specialist, has observed that “because of ongoing mismanagement of caribou habitat, Environment Canada’s data shows Alberta’s herds are by far the most vulnerable to being wiped out in all of Canada…. This proposal will allow 95% habitat loss and many decades of massive scale wolf kills, for most Alberta herds. This is an absurd and deeply unethical strategy that sacrifices both wolves and caribou to unmanaged energy industry growth.” In the name of caribou recovery, hundreds of wolves have already been poisoned and shot from helicopters in northwestern Alberta. The federal government’s draft caribou recovery strategy is now calling for a massive expansion of this approach. “There is no reason to think that killing wolves will recover caribou,” says Campbell. “Only protecting caribou habitat will achieve that.”5 This is one of many reasons further oil and gas expansion projects that do not follow due process and consultation defined by the First Nations people must be stopped.
To date, over nineteen thousand permits have been granted to every major oil company in the world within the traditional hunting territory of the Beaver Lake Cree. Out of 38,972 square kilometres of natural habitat, 34,773 comprise oil and gas well sites. One well site is equivalent to ten thousand square metres of habitat loss. The government is accepting this without abiding by its legal obligations to consult. And the government is clearly not seeking the free, prior, and informed consent of the First Nations peoples in areas where activities have the potential to affect their rights.6 Article 32 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states that “Indigenous peoples have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for the development or use of their lands or territories and other resources.”
Treaty Rights
I will return to the question of consent, because First Nations rights are arguably some of the most important rights in the Canadian legal landscape, and certainly the most powerful environmental rights in the country (see chapter 22). Aboriginal rights are enshrined in Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982.7 So there are legal grounds to challenge megaprojects that are destroying First Nations’ rights to hunt, trap, and fish—in direct violation of their Constitutional rights, which are the highest law in Canada.8
There are people who will say that there must not be any recognition and/or utilization of the law of this country we call Canada. As Indigenous people, we abide not by a written law, but by the law of our Creator—a Natural Law, which puts the collective rights of all living things above all else. But it is with Canadian law—as well as associated treaty obligations, and the collective rights of Indigenous peoples—that we are able to set precedent in Canada.
On May 14, 2008, the Beaver Lake Cree, under the leadership of former Chief Alphonse Lameman, made a declaration that we would assert our rights and protect the ecological area known to us as our traditional territory. When the litigation was filed in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, over seventeen thousand treaty rights violations and infringements were cited. Basically, the Canadian and Albertan governments granted seventeen thousand permits to Big Oil without following due process by acting on their duty to consult the Beaver Lake Cree. Currently, grassroots members of the Beaver Lake Cree are supporting the leadership, who are carrying out the litigation by doing their part to raise funds for the cumulative impacts studies necessary to mount a full legal challenge.
When our ancestors entered into treaty, they did not do so with the thought that they were ever agreeing to surrender the land. Collectively, the First Nations people of Canada are holders of historical treaties that cover the breadth of the land that has come to be known as Canada. When we entered into Treaties 1 to 11—which extend across Canada—we used our own legal orders and exercised our inherent rights as Nations.
When my ancestors entered into the nation-to-nation agreement that is called Treaty 6, they did so with the thought that it could never be broken. They believed that our rights would never be surrendered, and that this treaty would be upheld as a lasting agreement of peace and friendship. The words “for as long as the sun shines, the grass grows, and the rivers flow” express how we will always have an inherent right to the land, with the ability to sustain ourselves in a meaningful way. This would mean that we could go to the land freely, as if we had never entered into this agreement. The treaty did not speak of owning land, which nobody can own. The land is our one true Mother, and you cannot own your mother, who has life-giving abilities and the ability to nurture.
Treaty 6 outlines rights that we will exercise until the sun stops shining, the grass stops growing, and the rivers stop flowing. As keepers of the land and water, we still exist, and we have obligations. We have not gone anywhere—nor do we plan to.
Canadian citizens also are treaty rights holders. As such, it is the responsibility of all Canadians to say, “Enough is enough; we will no longer be bystanders and act as the vessels of disaster for future generations.”
Our Collective Struggle
If you breathe air and you drink water, this is about you. These are challenges we face as human beings in a collective struggle that involves each and every one of us. This is no longer an “Indian problem.” The tar sands are the largest industrial project in the world, and the largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.
Yet, if tar sands developments are recognized to be unconstitutional, existing and future tar sands projects will no longer be permitted to proceed without the consent of the Beaver Lake Cree. This would also set a precedent for other First Nations, who could issue similar court challenges and potentially stop further tar sands expansion on their lands.
It is crucial to raise the platform of the rights of Indigenous peoples under this state we call Canada, a government that has dismantled environmental protections. Omnibus Bill C-38 has shortened the time frame for environmental assessments with greater federal control. Bill C-38 was quickly followed by omnibus Bill C-45, amounting to a First Nations land grab9 and the complete erasure of virtually all legal protections of our surface freshwater systems. Prior to December 2012, we had thirty-two thousand protected lakes, and two and a half million protected rivers. The day after the passing of Bill C-45, we were left with ninety-seven protected lakes and sixty-two protected rivers. This bill was followed by Bill S-8, which the federal government supposedly enacted to provide safe drinking water for First Nations. In reality, it will result in the privatization of our water, thereby taking the milk of our Mother and turning it into a commodity.
Our people would be forced to pay fees for clean water because of this government’s attempt to sell what was never theirs in the first place. Who can afford this? The poor First Nations people living in Third World conditions in a First World country? The poor farmer who relies on his crops to feed his family, and the 99 per cent? No. It is industry that can afford it, and this government has made sure of that.
This government also has pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, and has signed a Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China. These behind-the-scenes, closed-door decisions deliberately ignore the democratic process that would involve all the citizens of this state we call Canada. So here we sit, with a government refusing to accept responsibility and hiding from accountability and transparency.
Yet this same government, as a successor state to the British Crown, is therefore a treaty partner. These treaty obligations arise from agreements among sovereign nations.
Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Conservative government has made a promise to First Nations leaders, a promise of transparency and open lines of communication. Supposedly, this relationship would be based on “mutual respect, friendship and support.”10 As such, words are uttered at press conferences, while permits that support the industry are granted in the legislatures and municipal council halls. Bills that gut our environmental laws are being passed and implemented while the Albertan and Canadian governments claim to work on the “reclamation” of land that once was pristine boreal forest, but now looks like the Sahara Desert.
Unless the industry can show me that they have replaced the vegetation and wildlife that was natural to that area in its purest form—an ecosystem returned as if it had never been touched—only then will I stop talking about their false facts and their false ideas of reclamation. For me, reclamation is not poisoned life and barren lands; reclamation, for me, is solidarity with the 99 per cent, and planting the seeds of knowledge and love.
In the meantime, while additional permits are granted, tar sands projects are taking billions of dollars out of the traditional territories of Treaties 6 and 8 every year. On these territories, First Nations people suffer from endemic poverty, high unemployment, and severe health problems. As Susan Smitten, executive director of the organization Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs (RAVEN), has observed:
It’s not fair to rely on the poorest people in our nation to stand alone and be the voice of reason in this effort. They have the power of their treaties to protect the planet, and we have the power of a nation to support them. I just encourage people to get behind the line they’ve figuratively and literally drawn in the tar sand.11
As our Indigenous rights are violated and our natural resources are exploited, we face environmental degradation and destruction every single day. Some examples include: the Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan pipelines in British Columbia; the tar sands and natural gas and coal extraction in Alberta; the uranium and pot ash developments and crude oil extraction in Saskatchewan; the destruction of treaty lands in Manitoba for hydraulic power generation; TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline; the mining of diamonds in Attawapiskat; Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline through Aamjiwnaang, Ontario; the mining of diamonds in the Northwest Territories; and the fracking of natural gas in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick. These are but very few examples of the ongoing exploitation. Members of these communities are making every possible attempt to curb the environmental racism that they endure.
Many of us are collectively standing together and demanding environmental justice, with the aim of understanding the need to address and reduce the disproportionate harm from environmental degradation that affects Indigenous, low-income, and minority communities. People of colour in frontline communities face environmental burdens from extreme resource extraction and exploitation, so we must begin to participate in processes designed by us to improve environmental health and safety.
Indigenous peoples are exercising our rights. We are standing up to protect the land, the water, and our collective future, not only for ourselves but for the very existence of the human race. We are doing what we can to stop the exploitation and abuse of Mother Earth from one end of this country to the other, all over what we call Turtle Island, and on a global level.
It is time to recognize that we are all Indigenous peoples. We all come from somewhere; we all have a connection to what we call Mother Earth, and it is time to reclaim these roots. It is time that we stand up and say, “We will no longer allow our air and our water to be coveted. These basic human rights cannot come from disaster. We will no longer be players in this game of environmental roulette. No more will we be pacified with money that has been making us hostages of this economy.”
Our greatest battle will be a fight for the rights of Mother Earth and the rights of nature. It is terrifying that so many of the human race believe they supersede Mother Earth—as though she is a subject with no rights. But, truth be told, she was here well before us, and if we do not collectively work together—beyond the confines of race, colour, and creed—she will shake us from her and she will continue to exist.
Every day, more people are hearing our truth and saying enough is enough. My truth is part of the mobilization of the grassroots people I come from, and I hope to support the mobilizations of grassroots people in every community, and on a global level. I have realized that this cannot be done alone. This is a collective fight to stop Big Oil.