JANUARY 16, 2013

IDLE NO MORE DAY OF ACTION PROTESTS BRING CANADA TO STANDSTILL

Idle No More, an ongoing protest movement founded by four women in December 2012, is a grassroots effort among the Aboriginal peoples in Canada–First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples.    As part of the movement’s national day of action, First Nations demonstrators halted passenger rail traffic between Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, as well as highways and rail lines in parts of Manitoba, Alberta, New Brunswick and Ontario.  Protesters near the Ambassador Bridge to Michigan slowed traffic to the U.S. for several hours.  Rallies, blockades and prayer circles across Canada focused on changes to Bill C-45, the government’s omnibus budget bill, that affected the environment and First Nations communities.  Specifically, protesters asserted that C-45 gutted all environmental approval, regulatory and enforcement mechanisms.  They used the “reassertion of aboriginal and treaty rights” as a means of protecting both First Nations’ and Canadians’ water, air and soil from oil and mining pollution.  

Source:  “Idle No More protesters stall railway lines, highways,” CBC, 1/16/2013.  Retrieved 6/5/2019, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/idle-no-more-protesters-stall-railway-lines-highways-1.1303452
Photo:  Moxy, 1/11/2013.   Permissive use under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/