The Fight for Indigenous Rights and Indigenous Land
Canadian Dimension’s March/April double issue has landed.

The editorial brings up the conspicuous absence of unions from debates on the tar sands, and I’d stress the need to bridge that gap.

From the production side of the fence, we don’t need to “develop technologies that minimize the ecological footprint” in my opinion. These technologies already exist. The possibility of piping in hydrogen, for example, is a real possibility, but to do so requires a techtonic shift in the federal government’s approach.

In all of this, as Clayton Thomas-Müller reminds us in his hellish description of the tar sands, “Canadian policy makers need to understand that there is an inextricable link between indigenous rights and energy and climate impacts.” Any thoughts?

“The public still does not understand that the indigenous First Nations communities are the populations most negatively affected. Dene and Cree First Nations and Métis live close to or actually in the midst of these tar-sand deposits…”

Matthew Brett is the Canadian Dimension weblog editor and a Montreal-based journalist at a weekly newspaper. Read other posts by Canadian Dimension.