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Canada's elite lack guts dealing with oil giants. First Nations might embolden all of us.
Idle No More rally at Vancouver Art Gallery. Photo by David P. Ball
Indigenous people here, like African-Americans in US, face criminal injustice built on structural discrimination.
Norway is a long way from Attawapiskat but there may be some important lessons for Canada's First Nations from across the Atlantic in the looming showdown with Stephen Harper. In a recent series for The Tyee, I documented how this tiny Nordic country stood up to powerful outside oil interests intent on exploiting their natural resources and achieved a remarkable economic success.
By standing their ground with a clear vision and united front, Norwegians negotiated arguably the toughest ever terms with the world's most powerful industrial sector. They now enjoy full employment, no debt, generous social programs, and have over $600 billion in the bank -- putting them $1.2 trillion ahead of Canada.
Norwegian experts I interviewed repeatedly stressed that this achievement was rooted not in policy or economics but in their culture. Because people in Norway have such a strong and ancient connection with their land, and a famous Viking chutzpah dating back to the Iron Age, they refused to capitulate to outside timelines or artificial industrial imperatives.
Seen through this lens, the First Nations of Canada have a far better chance of replicating the Norwegian success story than the rest of our country. Their awakening could well lead the way forward towards transforming resource management in our country. And it needs transformation.
Alberta has run consecutive budget deficits since 2008 even through the province collects resource rents on 70 per cent of Canada's petroleum production – the sixth largest in the world. This shocking giveaway of public resources is indicative of resource misuse throughout the country.
Here in B.C., we are now importing discounted Chinese labour to work in our coal mines in a sleepy capitulation to outside interests where Canadians are not even afforded employment in exchange for our natural bounty.
The decimation of Atlantic cod stocks was arguably the greatest ecological catastrophe of the 20th century and another example of an almost unimaginably abundant resource obliterated on the altar of short-term gain and sheer stupidity.
Game changers: First Nations
There is little evidence that we have learned much from these failures, however a long-overdue game changer may be the groundswell of anger from First Nations around the lack of economic benefits from resource extraction within their traditional territories. A pregnant example is a billion-dollar diamond mine operated by de Beers since 2008 within 100 kilometres of Attawapiskat, yet not a dime of this revenue is currently going to the impoverished community.
In fact, APTN reported last year that the current housing crisis in Attawapiskat was partially caused by de Beers overloading the town the sewage system and flooding numerous homes that are now uninhabitable. Chief Theresa Spence has been on a severely reduced diet for a month in protest of these and other indignities visited on her people.
What likely frightens Mr. Harper above all is that newly mobilized Aboriginal groups will use civil disobedience and their constitutionally guaranteed rights to consultation to thwart his agenda of massively scaled up resource extraction -- particularly bitumen pipelines to supply China.
And he should be worried. Native groups have a remarkable record of success in the courts. Whatever supposed consultation occurred with the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline was bungled so badly that the project will likely be tied up in courts for years, regardless of whether it is approved or not.
Norway's brave path to shared prosperity
In a larger sense the awakening of Aboriginal Canada could fundamentally change resource use in Canada. Like Norwegians, First Nations have ancient cultural ties to the land. Companies seeking to exploit resources on these lands have learned the hard way that ignoring aboriginal interests can stop their expensive projects in their tracks.
Shell Oil wanted to open up 400,000 hectares of the Stikine watershed in Northwest B.C. to oil and gas development. They failed. The Tahltan long opposed drilling in what they call the Sacred Headwaters and last month they succeeded in securing the entire area permanently off-limits. This type of push back, achieved with little resources and small numbers, is rooted in land, memory and culture.
Imagine if native communities moved beyond sporadic blockades to demand their fair share of resource rents? And not the paltry pittances typically agreed to by provincial governments, which seem to view resource wealth as something left behind by previous owners when they moved into the house.
Imagine if First Nations demanded Norwegian-scale revenue and management sharing? Not only might this lift native communities out of shocking levels of poverty, it could also show the rest of the country what bumpkins we have been regarding the giveaway of our treasure trove of resources.
Such determination will not come from non-native Canada, but we might all benefit from it. While many Canadians were fretting about the NHL lockout, it was First Nations taking to the street to oppose Harper's gutting of Canada's environmental laws. Their fight has the potential to win a better future for all Canadians. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
Read more: Aboriginal Affairs, Rights + Justice, Politics,
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Hakuin
22 weeks ago
The Scouring of the Shire
I propose that we establish a means by which those who betray us all be stripped of citizenship and deported to whatever godsforsaken hellhole that will take them. Either that or sail forever stateless, examples to their very end of the wages of greed.
Fiat lux
22 weeks ago
Communism and capitalism rely
Communism and capitalism rely and are built on slave mentality in service of ruling classes, using words and weapons, including imaginary monetary figures, to enslave minds and bodies, enforced by bought and brainwashed politicians of low intelligence levels.
Ed Deak.
anne cameron
22 weeks ago
could it be
that deep in our hearts and souls, non-native canadians recognize that we have no moral or legal claim to the land , that it has been virtually and literally stolen...and that, thus, the resources being raped from it aren't really "ours"....so it doesn't matter if we don't get decent royalties or even environmental protections? After all, most of us are squatters on someone else's territory so, since it isn't "ours" why would we give a poop what happens to it?
We all know North Korea is broke and its citizens on the brink of starvation... but we don't seem to see we're on a path which could make this place the same wasteland...
Thank you Ed Deak. Your words resonate.
Hakuin
22 weeks ago
Well put Anne
I for one have no stomach for genocide, fast or slow. Perhaps the idea of Canada could be resurrected by earning the country through real payment for it.
kasi_visvanath
22 weeks ago
accurate comments, Ed, and Anne
isn't it ironic that we now shall have to rely upon the long looked down upon First Nations peoples to stand up for Canada's rights to have much more control over our own resources??
i have never understood why we did not follow in the footsteps of the Norwegians....there is no real justification for NOT doing so, other than the fact that the politicians appear to be eternally bought and paid for by the petroleum lobby....it's extremely unfortunate that Canada's politicians do not have the guts to stand up to Big Oil....
in fact it is utterly amazing that Alberta is so compliant with Big Oil's agenda, that they don't even ask for a fair compensation for the oil they more or less give to Big Oil....what is the bloody matter with our weak kneed, lily livered, and fatuously corrupt politicians?
stand up for Canada...stand up for Alberta....stand up for B.C.
a big vote of Thanks to the "Idle no More" movement from this frustrated Canadian...
Sine Nomine
22 weeks ago
Ownership is a bit of a red herring...
It flows from native wisdom that the land doesn't belong to anyone, rather we belong to it. We seem to have either forgotten that collectively, or simply don't understand what that means. Above our own lives, it should be life itself that is to be venerated. If we destroy the diversity of this planet, we'll become hoplessly vulnerable to any environmental change -- I beleive we're getting close.
We're all guilty of perpetuating our own demise here with our behaviours and inactions. I'm reminded of what I refer to as the parable of the boiling frog, in the book "The Story of B", I think, by Daneil Quinn. Well, anyone who is familar with that story would probably agree, that the water is getting very warm indeed and we're already nestled in by the stupor.
Okanagan Orchardist
22 weeks ago
I can just see one group of shysters
smiling as if the the gates of heaven have opened up for them.
Up to now it has been peanuts for law firms involved in negotiations between Ottawa and the native reserves throughout Canada.
Imagine being able to defend the rights of Natives against Shell, against de Beers?
Wow!
Hadji Ramjet
22 weeks ago
misinformation
"...billion-dollar diamond mine...yet not a dime of this revenue is currently going to the impoverished community"
This FN voted approx 85% in support of the mine. DeBeers has contracted to Attawapiskat companies for about a third of a billion dollars, hardly "not a dime."
As well, DeBeers pays $2 million/year in fees plus $80K annually for "environmental monitoring" to Attawapiskat. Again, hardly "not a dime." The Attawapiskat Trust is funded by DeBeers contributions.
The first sewage problem happened in March 2005, when Victor mine site was nothing more than a fly camp. The agreement to develop the mine wasn't signed until that November, and construction didn't start until Feb 2006. The 2009 spill which caused the greatest problem had nothing to do with the mine. Given that there were few people at the mine site in March 2005, how can you claim DeBeers was even partially at fault for the spill? Seriously, do you expect me to believe they ran a 90-km sewer line for a mine that didn't yet have a development permit? If it was trucked sewage, then wouldn't that be under the aegis of the people (Attawapiskat corporation, actually) running the facility? Surely one can't just drive up in a honey wagon and dump it?
Norway currently has a national debt of about $120 billion USD, no the "no debt" you claim. Still, given their sovereign wealth fund, they're in the black. Are there any other public sector pension funds in Norway? Canada has CPP, QPP, OMERS, Teachers, et al, care to total that up and compare?
I think it would be great if we were able to stash our fossil fuel export wealth away for the future, but if we did that, how would we fund the $11 billion or so FN cost? Or the high public sector salaries we enjoy, significantly higher than Norway? Or the 1.5 - 2 million annual welfare recipients? Can you imagine if Norway had to cover that sort of expenditure rather than save for the future?
The Norwegian Central Bank estimates that household debt will next year exceed 200% of disposable income, is that a good example for Canada? Not exactly all bright lights and sunshine, is it?
Fiat lux
22 weeks ago
The present destructive mess,
The present destructive mess, all over the world, the incredible debt loads, poverty and 25,000 people dying of hunger every day, have been caused by the forced introduction of the fraud of neoclassical market economics into our universities.
An accounting system without debits or liabilities, everything is GDP, the deregulation of the money system and the resulting over 1,000 % inflation here in Canada, to permit a criminal sector to take control of our resources and all humanity at large.
The textbook definition of economics is: "The management and distribution of scarce resources". Not "wealth creation" ,or "the free movement of capital" ,or "free trade".
Canada had no debt, thousands of independent manufacturing businesses, including mine, were booming all over, when we had an economy based on local industries, local self sufficiency etc. and tariffs on products imported from other, especially from slave labour countries.
The solution is the redevelopment of local self sufficiency, the production of goods by local people for local use, the training of people for trades, and foreign trade, and I mean "trade", not the international corporate mafia controlling values and prices, to separate the makers from the users, for resources we don't have.
What goes on today, in the name of "economics", is the biggest crime wave in history, planned and executed by the criminal organizations of the Bilderbergers, the Trilaterals, the WTO etc.
Interestingly, the "conservatives", have caused the biggest debt loads all over, like Reagan in the US piling on more than all Presidents combined before him, Mulroney here, etc.
Schumacher foresaw this mess over 40 years ago, so has Daly and others and an excellent book on the subject "Occupy World Street" by Ross Jackson, with rational and logical plans, has just come out.
It is about time for the world to wake up to the exploitation, and enslavement with imaginary figures, kick out the criminals who cause it and bring back democracy and logic.
Who knows, the FN Idle No More movement may just be a start ? Let's hope so, before it is too late, before the crooks cause the biggest depression to force humanity to beg for their dictatorship to survive.
Ed Deak.
Bob Watts
22 weeks ago
?
We as humans have a equal right to the land.
I have 1/4 acre and a house, that is a full share, but the fact is 1% own about 98% of everyone elses shares.
BrianWhite
22 weeks ago
I read comments on Idle No
I read comments on Idle No more on the cbc website. It would seem from the comments there (read them) that other canadians are pretty racist and in general hate natives. They are fully supportive of taking their land and not saying thanks. All the first nations have is treaties that they signed with the British Crown (with a gun to their heads). Harper has no intention of honouring those treaties and his supporters do not seem to understand the rule of law. It is very hard to stand up to a mob of fascists who think you are sub human. That is what you are facing.
Dan Grant
21 weeks ago
For a protest to be
For a protest to be effective, you have to stop traffic. You have to stop traffic.
Naomi Wolf talks about the barriers to authentic protest and what it takes for a real protest to succeed:
OK. So what kind of mass protest? The kind of mass protest that always works is illegal just about everywhere in the United States today. Why is that?
What keeps you from getting a permit in the United States? Stepping a foot into the street.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubeLAJjZ4wQ&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL92DE3E5F05E08A12
Now why do you have to stop traffic? Because for a protest to do anything, it has to disrupt business as usual. I don’t mean violence. (Whoever’s tape-recording this to take it back to, you know, Quantico or whatever, I don’t mean violence. I mean dissent.)
Martin Luther King, who wrote “Letter from Birmingham Jail” because he marched without a permit, said sometimes it is important for the tension to rise up for people to see all is not well. And that you do that by stopping traffic. That’s how citizens indicate, you know, business as usual is not acceptable.
It's an exercise in stifling debate and blurring the line between legitimate protest and terrorism. They want people to be afraid of those who speak out against government policies. Then they can throw dissidents into all of those jails they want to build.