Indigenous Issues Amid COVID-19

What happens when we're not paying attention?
​I have been glued to the news for COVID-19 updates. While I have been immersed in getting through the day during these challenging times, I have been missing issues that are important to me.

Before COVID-19, the Indigenous people were in a battle to be heard. To keep me informed, I get updates from Unist'ot'en Solidarity Bridge in BC. You can sign-up for their newsletter too, please click here. 

So, what's happening on that front? Despite the urgency of this crisis, TC energy (formally Trans Canada) is still going ahead with the Coastal GasLink pipeline. This infuriates me. As Canadians are being told to stay at home to prevent transmission, the company is sending more workers and federal police officers onto Wet'suwet'en territories. Why on earth are they putting these communities at risk? They're already vulnerable and not equipped to handle a pandemic. AND, they DO NOT have the heredity chiefs permission so why are they in there in the first place? 

Today I learned, KKR is a US based equity firm that has expressed an interest in purchasing 65% of the Coastal GasLink pipeline with Alberta Investment Management Corp (AIMCo). Today, Rising Tide North America has organized a digital communications blockade to flood KKR executives with calls, emails, and tweets, in request that they back away from financing such a destructive project.

I have offered my support. Here’s what you can do to join the KKR communications blockade TODAY and #ShutDownKKR:

• Email KKR today by using their easy messaging tool by clicking here.

The War on Wolves Just Got Bigger
​This one almost slipped under my radar, on March 17 another wolf cull began, this time in the Northwest Territories. The intent is to wipe out 80% of wolf population. Now, I am all for saving the caribou, but I question doing it at the expense of another species; wolves also play an important part in an ecosystem. Here's an interesting article about what happened to the ecosystem at Yellowstone Park when humans interfered with it. What I'd really like to know is this...if we're killing wolves to help the caribou population...how is human behaviour being curbed to prevent the caribou extinction?

Photo: Dean Cluff/GNWT