Thoughts on “Idle No More”
by Donald Sutherland

I am thrilled that Chief Teresa Spence put her life on the line to try to save what little is left of both Aboriginal and Canada’s pristine waters and untouched forests. Our current political leaders smile upon Big Oil as our saviour, willing to put massive investments into tar sands “development” and risky pipelines with the aid of recently gutted environmental laws. The Omnibus Budget Bill (C-45) was rammed through with no meaningful discussion. I was reminded of the proverbial elephant dancing among the chickens.

I am both heartened and surprised that there is still fight left in the chickens. Four young Aboriginal women in Saskatchewan, all lawyers, have lit a fuse called, “Idle No More.” The potential exists to wake large numbers of Aboriginals across Canada and the world, joined and supported by Canadians in all walks of life, alarmed by the legacy likely to face our children and grandchildren. The looming tragic legacy results from a philosophy of “plunder now, ignore the pollution and species extinction.” My surprise is based on my observation that First Nations people in Canada have been subjected to terrible disrespect and even attempted genocide over the short space of some four centuries. First Nations people suffered huge losses in their numbers due to lack of immunity to common “white man’s diseases” such as tuberculosis, small pox, pneumonia, and measles. Food, clothing, and shelter for the Great Plains Indians that had been supplied by millions of buffalo for many centuries gave way to settlers, horses, and guns. By 1880, the buffalo were gone. A once proud people, now starving, freezing, and diseased were pushed onto small reserves and pressed into negotiating Treaties using ill-equipped translators to construct legal documents in a foreign language. In a colossal cultural assault, children as young as five were pulled from the arms of crying mothers and placed in the now infamous residential schools. The trauma of this policy, designed to “take the Indian out of the Indian,” is still reverberating through succeeding generations.

Chief Dan George (1899–1981) was a gifted speaker, actor, author, and leader among his people. At Canada’s Centennial celebration in 1967 he delivered the following speech in Vancouver:

How long have I known you, oh Canada? A hundred years? And today, when you celebrate your hundred years, oh Canada, I am sad for all the Indian people throughout the land… When I fought to protect my land and my home, I was called a savage… how can I celebrate with you this hundred years?… Shall I thank you for the reserves that are left to me of my beautiful forests?... Oh God? Like the Thunderbird of old, I shall rise again out of the sea; I shall grab the instruments of the White man’s success—his education, his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society… So shall the next hundred years be the proudest in the proud history of our tribes and nations.

Reprinted courtesy of Earthcare Connections, PO Box 1790, Wynyard, SK S0A 4T0. Phone (306) 554-LAND, email: info@earthcare.ca, www.earthcare.ca. Donald Sutherland is a career counsellor, personal coach, and mediator with special training in restorative justice. He is also a professional agrologist who divides his time between Saskatoon and Winnipeg, and he is also an active farmer in west-central Saskatchewan, email: donaldsutherland@sasktel.net.