Yesterday Palestine solidarity activists in Vancouver fasted for 24 hours and set up an info table at a busy transit hub to inform people of the situation of Palestinian prisoners and gather support for the campaign to boycott and divest from British security firm G4S.

Five activists joined the fast and raised over $500 in pledges and donations to support Palestinian prisoners in the action organized by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoners Solidarity Network with support from BDS Vancouver – Coast Salish Territories, Canada Palestine Association and Alliance for People’s Health.

The information table highlighted the cases of Muhammad Allan, Khalida Jarrar, Shireen Issawi and Ahmad Sa’adat, but focused on the fact that the mass incarceration of Palestinian activists and political leaders is a tactic of the Israeli occupation to attack Palestinian resistance to the occupation and the whole Palestinian people.  There are currently over 5400 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, including 400 who are in ‘administrative detention’ meaning that they face no formal charge, are denied even the unfair process of Israeli military courts and do not get to see the evidence against them.

Muhammad Allan, who has been on hunger strike for 66 days, has been detained for more than 10 months on such an administrative detention.The information table also carried information about the campaign against G4S in Canada, newly launched by BDS Vancouver – Coast Salish Territories, and dozens of people signed on to support the campaign.  In addition to contracts with the Israeli Prison Authority, G4$ runs immigration detention centres in Ontario and provides security for Tar Sands oil developments and pipeline projects in Canada.

(Photo Credit: Aiyanas Ormond)

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by Steve da Silva

The writing on the wall couldn’t have been written in bigger, bolder, and clearer letters over the past year: The relentless exploitation of fossil fuel is rushing the planet beyond a series of irreversible environmental tipping points. Melting glaciers. Acidifying oceans. An atmosphere reaching carbon levels not seen in millions of years. We are in the midst of what scientists call a “mass extinction” event that is directly attributable to capitalist economy.  Species are being killed off at 1000 times the ‘background rate’ or normal rate at which species statistically go out of existence.

This is the context in which the National Energy Board and the Federal cabinet approved Enbridge’s Northern Gateway project, which plans to lay 1200 km of pipeline carrying diluted bitumen from Alberta to a northwest coast shipping terminus at Kitimat, B.C.

Last week’s decision was expected to yield a positive decision for the oil industry.  In December 2013, a three-member Joint Review Panel – ostensibly “independent” from but mandated by the Ministry of Environment and the National Energy Board (NEB) – issued a report recommending approval for the project subject to the 209 conditions that the Federal cabinet last week set for the project’s go ahead.  But this report has been analyzed as deeply flawed by the actually independent experts.

Scientific Opposition

On May 26, 250 members of the scientific community from throughout Canada and across the world published an Open Letter criticizing the “flawed analysis” of the Joint Review Panel’s assessment of the Northern Gateway project. As the letter highlighted who benefits and who will pay for Northern Gateway by drawing attention to the JRP’s “broad view of the economic benefits, but an asymmetrically narrow view of the environmental risks and costs.” The Open Letter concluded deemed the Joint Review Panel Report “as indefensible as a basis to judge in favour of the project.”

The Open Letter from scientists also brought attention to the proverbial elephant in the middle of the room: the Joint Review Panel’s complete exclusion of considerations for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Climatologists argue that the proportion of atmospheric carbon that humans have evolved over the last couple hundred thousand years has been around 275 parts per million (ppm) of atmospheric molecules.  As of the end of May 2014, the carbon content of the atmosphere stood at 400 ppm, well above the 350ppm that climatologists argue is necessary to preserve the current ecological equilibrium on earth.  The relentless expansion of the fossil fuel industry into hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), deep sea drilling, and oil sands is sealing the fate on irreversible ecological catastrophes.

The carbon content of the atmosphere as of May 2014, already a disastrous and climate changing level according to scientists, and climbing at a rate of 2 ppm / year and accelerating.

Northern Gateway to Where? Who benefits?

But none of this seems to matter to industry heads focused on their “bottom lines”.  Since the financial collapse of 2007/08, corporations have been all the more desperate for profitable investment opportunities that seem increasingly elusive. But intensified resource exploitation is a seeming to be a sure-fire way for Canada to keep itself at the apex of a stagnant, crisis-ridden and profit-based capitalist world economy.

The planned and now approved pipeline would see an estimated 220 oil tankers port and load at Kitimat each year.  Each day, the pipeline would fill 525,000 barrels of oil – a carrying capacity that Alberta’s oil industry is hungry for. In 2013, Alberta’s tar sands were already producing 1.95 million barrels a day, and the industry is planning for an upward expansion to 3.2 million barrels a day by 2020.  This is why industry is hedging its bets with the southward flowing expansion of Keystone XL.  When U.S. President Obama suspended the expansion of Keystone XL in 2011, Canada’s oil industry turned to Asia to become a new destination for its oil supplies.

If Northern Gateway goes online, it is estimated that it will bring tax revenue to B.C. of $1.2 billion dollars over a thirty year period.  That’s less than $40 million a year.  But these revenues are vastly dwarfed by the estimated clean-up costs of an oil spill on the northwest coast, which is estimated to range from anywhere between $2-$10 billion for such a disaster.  Yet, for all the risks and costs, Enbridge is only claiming that the project will yield a mere 560 permanent jobs and 3000 short-term jobs to build the pipeline.

A detailed map of the oil pipelines running throughout Canada. Image taken from an interactive infographic at CBC.

The Two Mountains: Popular Opposition, Indigenous Resistance

Major obstacles remain to the project, which Enbridge hopes to operational by 2018; and those obstacles aren’t just the Rocky and Coastal mountains that lay in the proposed pipeline’s path.

For one, by all measures it is clear that the majority of B.C. residents oppose the project, even in Kitimat, B.C.  Where one might expect to find the largest base of support given the concentration of jobs that would land in Kitimat’s small community of 9000, an April referendum saw 58% of voters oppose the project.  The ruling parties at the Federal level and in B.C. are looking wearily at this as many a lost vote. Trudeau’s Liberals and Mulcair’s NDP have said they’d reverse the decision if elected in 2015.  The Federal Green Party’s Elizabeth May, for her part, offered weak words of opposition saying that that “Next step is encouraging all British Columbians to use all democratic and peaceful and legal means to stop this pipeline.”

But beyond what’s legal and democratic is what’s ecological necessary and morally right, and such action is almost certainly forthcoming from the more firm opponents to be found amongst the Indigenous peoples of the northwest coast and interior nations.

First Nation communities must be “consulted” and won over as part of the 209 conditions that have been set out for Enbridge to meet – wise conditions for the Feds to set out, knowing that anything less would intensify the resistance that already exists to the project.

In December 2013, the First Nations Summit and Union of BC Indian Chiefs called upon the Feds to reject the Joint Review Panel’s recommendations and criticized the “the federal government [for] instead [chosing] to gut federal environmental protections, [and] unilaterally designed and imposed its greatly weakened environmental review process as a quick-and-dirty Aboriginal consultation process for the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project.”

In the wake of last week’s decision, Art Sterritt of the Coastal First Nations promised said in a statement that ““We’ll see if Enbridge dares to put its shovels in the ground… We will never allow oil tankers into our territorial waters.”

The Haida Nation added as unequivocally last week that: “We will take our fight to the land, sea and courts to uphold and protect Haida territory, and to ensure clean water, clean air, and a healthy way of life for future generations.”

Most importantly, perhaps, is the ongoing direct action by members of the Unist’ot’en Camp, who pledged to continue defending their territories “against the incursion of government and industry” in the wake of Northern Gateway’s approval.

Members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation erected a “soft blockade” in 2009 to block all pipeline projects trespassing upon their territories.

In a video statement released on June 17, two leading members of the Unist’ot’en Camp announced their resolve to continue their resistance.  Toghestiy said “This war is far from being over. We’re going to win this one, and we’re going to win it decisively.”

Freda Huson reminded warned that “If they [the Canadian government] try to bring any forces, we’re more skilled in the wilderness than they are, so… We’re not afraid of the Harper government. We’re not afraid of anybody else who is going to try to forcefully push their projects through our territories.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKLLEz_0R8M

So begins the delicate dance of Enbridge and its partners to find some ‘Aboriginal’ partners to give the project their blessings before proceeding further.

Irish Republican Martin Corey, who has been held for four years without trial, was released on January 15, 2014, from Maghaberry Prison in British-occupied Ireland by the Parole Commission.  He was arrested four years ago and then held on secret evidence, despite the fact that he broke no law.

Corey was first arrested during the period known as “the Troubles,” the mass armed campaign against the British that stretched from 1966-2006, for his participation in a military action against the puppet forces of the British occupation, the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The purpose of his action was to disarm the RUC, a paramilitary organization that terrorized and murdered many republicans. Due to the violent response from these occupation forces, he was imprisoned for life.  There currently remains over 100 Irish POWs and prisoners of conscience held in custody by the occupation.

In 1992 he was released from jail unconditionally and pretty much kept to himself. But in 2010 he was rearrested and held without charge; in other words, interned by the occupation forces. Corey has been outspoken against the continued occupation of the Six Counties entrenched by the Good Friday Agreement,  Corey has been outspoken against the continued occupation of the Six Counties entrenched by the Good Friday Agreement.

Mural for political prisoner Martin Corey. Image found at ReleaseMartinCorey.com.

In an interview with BASICS, Kitchener-based Irish Republican Mike Neary said, “The Good Friday Accords, which are portrayed in the West as a treaty that has brought peace to Northern Ireland, actually entrenched the occupation…. By entrenching the loyalist veto to reunification, pushing for a normalization of the army’s presence, removing political status and making issues those of ‘civil rights,’ national sovereignty is ignored”. Neary added, “Nowhere in the GFA does it talk about Irish people determining their own destiny and accepting the GFA means rejecting national sovereignty, since the peace in the GFA is simply a continuation of the same.”

In 2012, the British judge Treacy ruled that Corey’s interment was unconstitutional and was in breach of his human rights. Before he could even get out of custody and be with those who he loves, Owen Patterson, the unelected British secretary of state of Northern Ireland blocked his release.

Despite the fact that his recent release has been seen as a victory of the movement demanding his freedom, Cait Trainor, head of the free Martin Corey Campaign, noted that, “The treatment meted out to Martin Corey for nearly four years was nothing short of barbaric and it was difficult to get the general public and the media interested in Martin Corey’s internment from the beginning. While, quite rightly, we saw/see criticism of the mistreatment of prisoners in other countries — on social media and in the press — the case of Martin Corey was ignored, with a few honourable exceptions, by people here at home.”

Trainor added, “The various British secretaries of state hid behind a wall of silence and claimed that Martin Corey was ‘a threat to the public’. Their case was based on secret evidence/closed material and unspecified allegations. The role of the courts to ensure that ‘not only must justice be done, but must be seen to be done’ took such a back seat that it disappeared.”

On his release the statement from the Northern Ireland (sic) Office said “The Parole Commissioners have decided to release Martin Corey on a licence that is subject to conditions which are designed to manage the risk they assess him to pose.’  After four years of incarceration with no trial and no charges, many are still asking the question: ‘What risk’?

“Tied in a Knot: Narratives from Bride Seeking Regions of India”

Documentary Review by Ashley

I had the pleasure of attending the documentary film screening and director’s presentation of a fascinating film “Tied in a Knot: Narratives from Bride Seeking Regions of India”. It examines the newly emergent phenomenon of bride buying and commoditization of the female body in India, and the attendant gender based violence that the sourced, bought, or trafficked brides undergo in their marital homes, directed by Reena Kukreja and her team.

The documentary was the fruit of Reena Kukreja’s 2 year journey travelling to 226 villages and interviewing over 56 brides, their respective families, and people living in the surrounding villages. Some of the main issues highlighted in this film are patriarchal influences, as well as the socio-economic impacts that neoliberalism and imperialism have on women and their communities in poor rural areas in India. The film is not only a geographic journey, but one of self-discovery and rich political analysis that attempts to go beyond the ‘othering’ of the Northern India’s rural women and focusing on the greater socio-economic forces that contribute to a tendency to look at India through a narrow lens. The film provides a holistic view of the situation in India from the subtle changes in perspectives of the caste system that force men from one state to find brides in a different geographical location regardless of their caste, to the greater imperialist forces like ‘tied aid’ and rapid industrialization that have contributed to severe poverty in rural areas.

What was most compelling were the diverse stories that came from this project.  The film did not hold a one-sided view that all Indian women are ‘coerced’ into these marriages. While anti-Trafficking units have been created, Reena insists that trafficking only happens in a small percentage of cases and that most people choose to be married off into families outside of their homes because of other reasons. She asserts the importance of not placing all women in the ‘trafficked’ category and in ‘need of saving’. She speaks to class and caste issues, along with the larger legislative policies that dictate ‘equal’ treatment of people, but rarely is put into practice.  In fact, she further researched the impact of lax policies that lead to an increase in gender-based violence (ie, disappearances, kidnapping, rape and assault).

Director Reena Kukreja

In the discussion, Reena also raised the importance of examining whose stories and issues are brought to justice and profiled in the media, such as the Delhi rape case of a middle-class woman which received a great deal of media attention and a large outcry from the ‘community’ in contrast to those whose stories and lives are not treated with that same importance. For example, Dalit women, who are among the lower classes, face gender-based violence everyday but their stories do not garner the attention.

The film highlights the “family planning” campaign that came out of Donor Aid (with developments in reproductive technologies with their structural adjustment policies and aid from the UN) to ‘control’ the population by introducing ultrasound machines in communities.  Coupled with male preference and female feticide, this has led to a ‘female shortage’ in many states, alongside poverty that affect communities in ways that lead men to look out of state for brides. There are a small group of people that are indeed trafficking women and girls within the regions that she explored. Reena critically looks at the the real intentions and agenda the anti-trafficking units funded by the Western countries, and their approach to ‘save the brown women from their ‘savage’ native husbands’ to ‘liberate the women’.

Interestingly enough, caste rules are being broken because of migratory bride selection because men are desperately looking for brides to fulfil their need for free labour – in the fields and bearing children (sons) that will eventually inherit their land. Women make up 80% of UNPAID, productive labour, from agricultural, daily work, childcare and household chores. The film captures all sides of the story and is a powerful testament to the resiliency of women who will do almost anything to uphold the honour of their family.

“Tied in a Knot” are stories of women that travel long distances, away from their family, language, traditions and community. It speaks to their loneliness and isolation, racism, abuse and exploitation. It looks at intersections of globalization, greed, industrialization and market economies, poverty, and its connection to how all of these things affect people and exacerbate the struggles of daily life.

The screening was hosted by the Education Committee of the Greater Toronto Workers’ Assembly (GTWA) and Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) at York University.  The film is available on the Directors website: http://www.tamarindtreefilms.com/film-store.php

The source of the ‘Sacred Headwaters’ of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine River, from a group by the same name that is opposing projects by Dutch Royal Shell and Fortune Minerals that would ruin the headwaters.

Fortune Minerals Ltd. issued a press release on September 23, stating that it has taken the “voluntary steps to peacefully resolve the Arctos Project disturbance.”  In their own words, the company has faced “disruptive and damaging protests,” but indicated that they are “100% committed to developing the project.”

The decision came a week after various ministers of the BC government issued a joint statement, where they announced the appointment of a mediator who would “facilitate dialogue between the Tahltan First Nations and Fortune Minerals in an effort to allow the Arctos project to proceed.”

The six-week long blockade of the site began in mid-August by the ‘Klabona Keepers’, who have been resisting Fortune Minerals projects since 2005 (see previous coverage in Two Row Times). The blockade culminated last week with the eviction of mine workers by the Tahltan Central Council.

The project would remove most of Mount Klappan in northwestern B.C. and replace it with a 4,000 hectare open-pit mine, as well threatening to irreparably damage the sacred headwaters of the Stikine, Nass and Spatsizi rivers and destroy traditional hunting grounds. The project would operate for 25 years, and consist of a new rail line to Prince Rupert to ship three millions tonnes of anthracite coal to Asia each year.

Jim Pictou of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society appearing in a recent interview with APTN.

Jim Pictou is a member of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society, “the homeland security of the Mi’kmaq nation.”  Today, the Mi’kmaq, whose ancestral lands span much of the Atlantic region of Canada, are at the center of a developing resistance to hydraulic fracturing – or ‘fracking’ in New Brunswick, the process by which high-pressure water and chemicals are injected into the ground to remove natural gas from shale rock.  The resistance to fracking in New Brunswick has seen the development of a broad united front of native and non-native people.

This interview was conducted with Jim Pictou on September 20, 2013 by Steve da Silva for the Two Row Times and BASICS Community News Service.

Click here to listen streaming or to download Mp3. 

Members of the Treaty 3 Grassroots Citizens Coalition and off-reserve members of the Ojibway Nation of the Saugeen marching for accountability and justice.

The Treaty 3 Grassroots Citizens Coalition, joined by off-reserve members of the Ojibway Nation of Saugeen no.258, are walking to demand accountability from First Nations elected Chief and Council and to raise money for a legal fund. The walk began from the Treaty 3 east-end border at Lac des Milles Lacs First Nation and Saugeen First Nation, and is now passing through Dryden on the way to the Winnipeg Mint.

They are walking between 30km and 40km a day. Darlene Necan, spokesperson for the off-reserve members of the Ojibway Nation of Saugeen no.258, says “It is hard because we’re trying to tough it out through rain and sun, and we have to scrounge for gas money (for the car following the walkers) along the way.”

Other grassroots groups form the Peguis Accountability Coalition, and independent Anishinabec participants have also joined in supporting the Treaty 3 Grassroots Citizens Coalition in their “Toonie Walk for Loonie Justice”.

The Coalition formed in 2008, and consists of 400 participants. It focuses on the issue of what it sees as a lack of accountability from First Nation leadership to its community members. The current campaign calls attention to the lack of federal funding reaching the grassroots Anishinabec after being provided to the elected First Nations chief and councils.

The Coalition believes that the grassroots Anishinabec must hold their own elected leadership accountable. They see the Canadian court system as a possible avenue in this struggle, but are calling attention to the ways in which poor people cannot access the system. The Coalition is asking everyone in Canada to donate $2.00 to help them achieve their goals.

“We’re trying to develop a war chest so we can have something in place…Right now people are being threatened in their own communities when their own leadership tells them they’re going to take them to court for slandering them, or there are repercussions like your welfare check disappearing somehow,” says Kelvin Chicago, spokesperson for the Coalition.

“They’re very reluctant to do anything on reserves to tackle their chief and council. If there was something in place that they can be assured will protect them and could hire lawyers so we can tackle our chief and councils, that would balance it out.”

Darlene Necan states that “For me, joining the walk as a Saugeen citizen, I am on a fact finding walk as to where we (Saugeen members) stand, to find justice in our corner, and avenues for how we can pursue justice with our leadership as well.”

Kelvin Chicago states that some service providing groups are only starting to see the effects of Aboriginal services being cut back in funding. “When (their) wages and programs are in jeopardy only then do (they) want to do something. Now (they) know how the broke Anishinaba feels when they are not getting any benefits from the programs that are supposed to benefit them, ” says Chicago.

The Coalition believes in the journey toward healing and self-sufficiency for Anishinabec nations. Their walk for justice is but one stepping stone on this path.

**Please donate to support the Treaty 3 Grassroots Citizens Coalition walk for justice.**
They are asking for as little as $2.00 from everyone.

Donations can be made directly to the account of the Coalition:
Treaty 3 Grassroots Citizens Coalition
Bank of Nova Scotia
Account # 902170097918

Cheques can be made to the First Nations Solidarity Working Group, and will be transferred directly to the Coalition’s account:
First Nations Solidarity Working Group
193 Tansley Rd
Thornhill, ON
L4J 2Y8

For more information:
Kelvin Chicago-Boucher
Telephone: (807) 465-4846
Fax: 1-807-467-2856

For updates on the Walk:
www.ilpsindigenouscommission.wordpress.com

For information on the chapter of International League of Peoples’s Struggle:

Chapter in Canada: www.ilps-canada.ca

Internationally: www.ilps.info

by Steve da Silva

This article first appeared at the Two Row Times.

Harper attempts to woo Onkwehon:we with training grants for mining jobs

Prime Minister Stephen Harper flanked by a group of Canadian Rangers (a sub-component of the Canadian Armed Forces that maintains a military presence across Canada’s northern colonies) as he arrives in Whitehorse, Yukon on Sunday, August 18. (Image from Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS).

 Stephen Harper kicked off his eighth annual tour of so-called “Northern Canada” this past Sunday, August 18 to promote the extractive industry as a solution to “northern problems”. Harper arrived in the Yukon amidst a scandal over the use of temporary foreign workers to fill jobs in mining and tourism, this only weeks after 100 local miners lost their jobs.

 To build support for the mining sector amongst Onkwehon:we, Harper announced on Monday, August 19 a $5.6 million grant that aims to train “aboriginals” from the Northwest Territories and Kitikmoet region of Nunavut.  Harper reported that the Yukon alone will require 1700 new mining workers by 2022.  The Yukon grant announcement came one week after Harper promised nearly $6 million to the Ring of Fire Aboriginal Training Alliance to train Onkwehon:we for jobs in the region.

Amidst all the rhetoric of job creation, Harper couldn’t resist making some colonialist appeals in his remarks, as he said “The North is Canada’s call to greatness. As Conservatives, we believe this with a passion. We always have. From Sir John A. Macdonald, who brought the North into Canada, to John Diefenbaker, the first prime minister to come north himself.”

Lac Seul First Nation extends collaboration with Goldcorp as hundreds of millions extracted from land

Obishikokaang (Lac Seul First Nation) signed a new collaboration agreement with Goldcorp this past week, which reportedly includes new training, employment, contracting and investment opportunities.  The Treaty #3 reserve consists of the three communities of Kejick Bay, Whitefish Bay and Frenchman’s Head located just northwest of Sioux Lookout.

The Red Lake gold mine is Goldcorp’s most lucrative. The company removed 507,000 ounces of gold from the Anishinaabe lands in 2012 alone – a quantity that would fetch over $720 million CAD at today’s gold rates.  With 3500 band members, that extraction rate equals $206,000 of revenue for Goldcorp for each band member[2] .

The Vancouver-based gold company ranked Canada’s 16th most profitable corporation as of 2013, clearing $1.75 billion CAD in profits last year alone.  With 18 mining operations in seven countries throughout ‘the Americas,’ the company boasts assets of more than $20 billion CAD.

New tar sands project in northern Alberta would threaten few remaining bison

Photograph by: Max Finkelstein – Canadian Press

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) community was set to present on the potential impact of Vancouver-based Teck Resources’ proposed tar sands project for north of Fort McMurray before the Alberta Energy Regulator on Tuesday, August 20, 2013.  The mine would produce 277,000 barrels of bitumen a day. In 2011, Alberta exported oil at a rate of 1.3 million barrels per day to the U.S, a rate that the Canadian and Albertan governments hope to double by 2021.  As of January 2013, there were already 127 oil sands projects operating in Alberta.

The ACFN is arguing that Teck’s exploration would disrupt an area of land that is vital to the survival of the Ronald Lake bison – one of the only bison herds remaining that is disease-free and can be used as a food source.  In a 2012 report Níh boghodi, the Athapaskan Chipewyan community put forward a report with proposals for the restoration of the caribou and bison populations.

Tahltan Nation blockades proposed open-pit mine in northwest B.C.

‘Klabona’ is the Tahltan name for the headwaters of the Stikine, Nass, and Spatsizi rivers.

Approximately thirty members of the Tahltan nation began a blockade at the site of Fortune Minerals’ Arctos Anthracite Project in northern B.C after posting notice to the company of a 24-hour eviction notice in the night of Wednesday, August 14.  The project would remove most of Mount Klappan and replace it with a 4,000 hectare open-pit mine, as well threatening to irreparably damage the sacred headwaters of the Stikine, Nass and Spatsizi rivers and destroy traditional hunting grounds.  The project would operate for 25 years, and consist of a new rail line to Prince Rupert to ship three millions tonnes of anthracite coal to Asia each year.

A photo from another Klabona Keepers blockade in 2005 of Fortune Minerals.

The blockade was organized by the Klabona Keepers, “people of the Stikine and Tahltan ancestry” who have been resisting since 2005 when they launched their first series of blockades

against Fortune Minerals. They were also part of a movement to evict Royal Dutch Shell from in 2007.

The Declaration of the Klabona Keepers on their website reads, “To those who come without respect, we must warn you: you will find us relentless and fierce in defending the Tl’abāne [Klappan] Sacred Headwaters. To those in our own nation who would sell out our interests for monetary gain; you must desist in these ways, and honour the ancient path. You cannot create the façade of traditional governance while you have secret meetings with those who propose to destroy us.”

The Tahltan Central Council did not take part in the action, but a June 2013 statement stated the Council’s opposition to B.C. Liberal government’s fast-tracking of the environmental review process. Council President Annita McPhee said in the June 2013 statement: “The Klappan is sacred to the Tahltan people. Our people practice our hunting, fishing, and traditional cultural activities there. It’s why we’re fighting so hard to protect it.”

Protesters and supporters of resource development on Thunderchild First Nation gathered outside the Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench on Aug. 16, 2013. Photograph by: Richard Marjan, The StarPhoenix.

Thunderchild First Nation blockaders receive restraining order by Saskatoon Court for resisting detonations

A Saskatoon Court issued a temporary restraining to the Thunderchild First Nation against protesters occupying a ceremonial site because they oppose s

eismic exploration in the area, which has already consisted of setting off 150 underground explosives as a method to determine if oil deposits are present.

The August 16 decision prohibits the blockaders from preventing Tonare Energy from detonating the remaining 27 dynamite charges.

The community is located 100 km north of Battleford, Saskatchewan. The matter returns to court next Friday.