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Organizers all drew attention to the federal Liberals’ espoused commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. According to Morrissey, the Liberals have fallen far short of their promises.
“It’s kind of the same as when you’re in a relationship and you’re trying to describe how you know that somebody loves you,” she said. “It’s not through words, it’s through actions. And I can very succinctly say that the Trudeau government is talking out of both sides of their mouth. They’ve been very clear with those who are in protector roles that their very first priority is implementing UNDRIP and I don’t know how [Muskrat Falls] fits into that. This is reconciliation with a ‘w-r’, they’re wrecking Canada’s north, and they are absolutely an assault on Indigenous rights in Canada.”
Behrens said reconciliation has been furthered more by the resistance against Muskrat Falls than by the federal government.
“The real reconciliation is the kind of thing that we see with the land protectors,” he said. “When the land protectors occupied the Muskrat site with settlers together, you had different Indigenous nations and settlers and workers themselves from Nalcor all sharing space together, breaking bread together, sleeping on the floor together. That’s reconciliation, because it’s everybody recognizing that we have a common interest in what is going on, not only in Muskrat Falls but in Site C and in all of these other places across the land. And during that week there was such an amazing connection. That’s what real reconciliation is about because real reconciliation depends on the truth. The reconciliation of the Trudeau Government is like a Hallmark card.”
“This project has to be stopped,” Behrens says. “We’re beyond the point where harm has begun. We’re not talking about the introduction of methylmercury, we’re talking about mitigation of methylmercury. The poison has started going in. How much will we allow to accumulate?”
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– Muskrat Falls resistance growing across Canada
(via allthecanadianpolitics)