Juno News - December 02, 2021Do the BC pipeline protesters speak for Indigenous peoples？
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Summary
In this episode, I discuss the ongoing protests and activism happening across the country against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project, and the role First Nations people have been playing in the process. I talk about the nuances of the issue, and how they have changed since the early days of the pipeline protests.
Transcript
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we've got protests and activism happening in canada once again in british columbia against
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a pipeline project where some first nations people are saying we don't want this project to be built
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they're protesting against it this is looking like two years ago all over again where a very
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similar situation happened but there was i think one positive one silver lining to what happened
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when this occurred two years ago that well i really hope can recur again now so what we have
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going on is we have a number of indigenous persons and their allies saying we're against
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this pipeline project but the chiefs in that community who are against it are predominantly
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the unelected hereditary chiefs and you've got a lot of elected members the majority of them saying
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we support this project and a lot of people from the communities who support it now those nuances
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weren't initially clear two years ago when this issue first rose to the forefront and unfortunately
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what materialized in the press and the way people talked about the issue was a was a sort of us
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versus them this very sort of binary dynamic where people said oh look we've got first nations people
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indigenous people blocking railroads again and and obstructing resource projects oh look this is a
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thing that first nations people do this isn't good for the broader economy at large and the us versus
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them thing start to materialize but then when it became clear that the issue was more nuanced and
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and come on the us versus them thing it's not healthy nobody wants it it doesn't help us move forward
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when the nuances became clearer i think more people across the country realized hold on a second
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the issue is more nuanced than this and there's there's a lot of folks in these communities who are saying
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yes we want resource projects we want development in general because we want prosperity in our communities
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we want to get the same sorts of projects going that other neighborhoods have we want jobs for
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ourselves for our children we want opportunities we want strong communities strong education systems
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and people looked at this and they thought no no no this is not us versus them at all this is this is
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we because we have shared interests i mean these are people saying exactly the same things as we're
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saying about our community and i saw a real kind of forging together of interests and i saw i saw people
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really seeing themselves or at least their own aspirations in what they were seeing some of
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these people in these communities these first nations communities call for i thought it was
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really healthy that the us versus them was was going away and people were beginning to go yeah
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let's start rooting for these communities more and i thought that was a really positive element to how
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we start to discuss that issue because yes there are some people there against these projects but a lot
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of people who are in support of them for reasons that deserve being heard ellis ross he's a former
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chief of the heisland nation he's now running for the bc liberal leadership he was writing a piece in
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the national post recently saying that leonardo dicaprio hey movie star guy don't just appropriate
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this issue for your own ends don't claim you're speaking for all indigenous peoples please
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look at the nuances of the issue because there's a whole lot of us who are in support of all of
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that and i wish a lot of people sort of jumping on the bandwagon with this issue did appreciate
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those nuances because i think it really helps us come together on these issues or at least
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appreciate more various different dynamics going on in these neighborhoods it gets us away from the us
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versus them and i think allows us to do more to really root for the success and prosperity of
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everybody in these first nations communities so i saw that happening two years ago and i really hope and
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i think people are seeing it this time because they're more aware of the nuances and and i think