This Changes Everything

by Naomi Klein

  A year after that ruling, I met Al Lameman, now retired, and his cousin Germaine Anderson, an elected band councilor, as well as the former chief’s niece, Crystal Lameman, who has emerged as one of the most compelling voices against the tar sands on the international stage. These are three of the people most responsible for moving the lawsuit forward, and Germaine Anderson had invited me to a family barbecue to discuss the case.

  It was early July and after a long dark winter it was as if a veil had lifted: the sun was still bright at 10 p.m. and the northern air had a thin, baked quality. Al Lameman had aged considerably in recent years and slipped in and out of the conversation. Anderson, almost painfully shy, had also struggled with her health. The spot where the family met for this gathering was where she spent the summer months: a small trailer in a clearing in the woods, without running water or electricity, entirely off the grid.

  I knew the Beaver Lake Cree were in a David and Goliath struggle. But on that endless summer evening, I suddenly understood what this actually meant: some of the most marginalized people in my country—many of them, like all the senior members of the Lameman clan, survivors of the intergenerational trauma of abusive residential schools—are taking on some of the wealthiest and most powerful forces on the planet. Their heroic battles are not just their people’s best chance of a healthy future; if court challenges like Beaver Lake’s can succeed in halting tar sands expansion, they could very well be the best chance for the rest of us to continue enjoying a climate that is hospitable to human life.

  That is a huge burden to bear and that these communities are bearing it with shockingly little support from the rest of us is an unspeakable social injustice.

  A few hours north, a different Indigenous community, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN), recently launched another landmark lawsuit, this one taking on Shell and the Canadian government over the approval of a huge tar sands mine expansion. The band is also challenging another Shell project, the proposed Pierre River Mine, which it says “would significantly impact lands, water, wildlife and the First Nation’s ability to utilize their traditional territory.” Once again the mismatch is staggering. The ACFN, with just over one thousand members and an operating budget of about $5 million, is battling both the Canadian government and Shell, with its 92,000 employees across more than seventy countries and 2013 global revenues of $451.2 billion. Many communities see odds like these and, understandably, never even get in the ring.25

  It is this gap between rights and resources—between what the law says and what impoverished people are able to force vastly more powerful entities to do—that government and industry have banked on for years.

  “Honour the Treaties”

  What is changing is that many non-Native people are starting to realize that Indigenous rights—if aggressively backed by court challenges, direct action, and mass movements demanding that they be respected—may now represent the most powerful barriers protecting all of us from a future of climate chaos.

  Which is why, in many cases, the movements against extreme energy extraction are becoming more than just battles against specific oil, gas, and coal companies and more, even, than pro-democracy movements. They are opening up spaces for a historical reconciliation between Indigenous peoples and non-Natives, who are finally understanding that, at a time when elected officials have open disdain for basic democratic principles, Indigenous rights are not a threat, but a tremendous gift. Because the original Indigenous treaty negotiators in much of North America had the foresight to include language protecting their right to continue living off their traditional lands, they bequeathed to all residents of these and many other countries the legal tools to demand that our governments refrain from finishing the job of flaying the planet.

  And so, in communities where there was once only anger, jealousy, and thinly veiled racism, there is now something new and unfamiliar. “We’re really thankful for our First Nations partners in this struggle,” said Lionel Conant, a property manager whose home in Fort St. James, British Columbia, is within sight of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline. “[They’ve] got the legal weight to deal with [the pipeline] . . . because this is all unceded land.” In Washington State, anti-coal activists talk about the treaty rights of the Lummi as their “ace in the hole” should all other methods of blocking the export terminals fail. In Montana, the Sierra Club’s Mike Scott told me bluntly, “I don’t think people understand the political power Natives have as sovereign nations, often because they lack the resources to exercise that power. They can stop energy projects in a way we can’t.”26

  In New Brunswick, Suzanne Patles, a Mi’kmaq woman involved in the anti-fracking movement, described how non-Natives “have reached out to the Indigenous people to say ‘we need help.’ ”27 Which is something of a turnaround from the saviorism and pitying charity that have poisoned relationships between Indigenous peoples and well-meaning liberals for far too long.

  It was in the context of this gradual shift in awareness that Idle No More burst onto the political scene in Canada at the end of 2012 and then spread quickly south of the border. North American shopping centers—from the enormous West Edmonton Mall to Minnesota’s Mall of America—were suddenly alive with the sounds of hand drums and jingle dresses as Indigenous people held flash mob round dances across the continent at the peak of the Christmas shopping season. In Canada, Native leaders went on hunger strikes, and youths embarked on months-long spiritual walks and blockaded roads and railways.

  The movement was originally sparked by a series of attacks by the Canadian government on Indigenous sovereignty, as well as its all-out assault on existing environmental protections, particularly for water, to pave the way for rapid tar sands expansion, more mega-mines, and projects like Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline. The attacks came in the form of two omnibus budget bills passed in 2012 that gutted large parts of the country’s environmental regulatory framework. As a result, a great many industrial activities were suddenly exempt from federal environmental reviews, which along with other changes, greatly reduced opportunities for community input and gave the intractable right-wing government of Stephen Harper a virtual free hand to ram through unpopular energy and development projects. The omnibus bills also overhauled key provisions of the Navigable Waters Protection Act that protect species and ecosystems from damage. Previously, virtually 100 percent of the country’s water bodies had been covered by these protections; under the new order, that was slashed to less than 1 percent, with pipelines simply exempted. (Documents later revealed that the latter change had been specifically requested by the pipeline industry.)28

  Canadians were in shock at the extent and speed of the regulatory overhaul. Most felt powerless, and with good reason: despite winning only 39.6 percent of the popular vote, the Harper government had a majority in Parliament and could apparently do as it pleased.29 But the First Nations’ response was not to despair; it was to launch the Idle No More movement from coast to coast. These laws, movement leaders said, were an attack on Indigenous rights to clean water and to maintain traditional ways of life. Suddenly, the arguments that had been made in local battles were being taken to the national level, now used against sweeping federal laws. And for a time Idle No More seemed to change the game, attracting support from across Canadian society, from trade unions to university students, to the opinion pages of mainstream newspapers.

  These coalitions of rights-rich-but-cash-poor people teaming up with (relatively) cash-rich-but-rights-poor people carry tremendous political potential. If enough people demand that governments honor the legal commitments made to the people on whose land colonial nations were founded, and do so with sufficient force, politicians interested in reelection won’t be able to ignore them forever. And the courts, too—however much they may claim to be above such influences—are inevitably shaped by the values of the societies in which they function. A handful of courageous rulings notwithstanding, if an obscure land right or treaty appears to be system
atically ignored by the culture as a whole, it will generally be treated tentatively by the courts. If, however, the broader society takes those commitments seriously, then there is a far greater chance that the courts will follow.I

  As Idle No More gained steam, many investors took notice. “For the first time in six years, Canadian provinces failed to top the list of the best mining jurisdictions in the world in a 2012/13 survey,” Reuters reported in March 2013. “Companies that participated in the survey said they were concerned about land claims.” The article quoted Ewan Downie, chief executive of Premier Gold Mines, which owns several projects in Ontario: “I would say one of the big things that is weighing on mining investment in Canada right now is First Nations issues.”30

  Writing in The Guardian, journalist and activist Martin Lukacs observed that Canadians seemed finally to be grasping that

  implementing Indigenous rights on the ground, starting with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, could tilt the balance of stewardship over a vast geography: giving Indigenous peoples much more control, and corporations much less. Which means that finally honoring Indigenous rights is not simply about paying off Canada’s enormous legal debt to First Nations: it is also our best chance to save entire territories from endless extraction and destruction. In no small way, the actions of Indigenous peoples—and the decision of Canadians to stand alongside them—will determine the fate of the planet.

  This new understanding is dawning on more Canadians. Thousands are signing onto educational campaigns to become allies to First Nations. . . . Sustained action that puts real clout behind Indigenous claims is what will force a reckoning with the true nature of Canada’s economy—and the possibility of a transformed country. That is the promise of a growing mass protest movement, an army of untold power and numbers.31

  In short, the muscle able to turn rights into might that Standard & Poor’s had been looking for in that meeting with Arthur Manuel and Guujaaw back in 2004 may have finally developed.

  The power of this collaboration received another boost in January 2014 when the rock legend Neil Young kicked off a cross-Canada tour called “Honour the Treaties.” He had visited the tar sands several months earlier and been devastated by what he saw, saying (to much controversy) that the region “looks like Hiroshima.” While in the region, he had met with Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan and heard about the lawsuits opposing Shell’s tar sands expansions, as well as the health impacts current levels of oil production are already having on the community. “I was sitting with the chief in the teepee, on the reserve. I was hearing the stories. I saw that the cancer rate was up among all the tribes. This is not a myth. This is true,” Young said.32

  And he concluded that the best way he could contribute to the fight against the tar sands was to help the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation exercise its rights in court. So he went on a concert tour, donating 100 percent of the proceeds to the court challenges. In addition to raising $600,000 for their legal battles within two months, the tour attracted unprecedented national attention to both the local and global impacts of runaway tar sands development. The prime minister’s office fought back by attacking one of Canada’s most beloved icons, but it was a losing battle. Prominent Canadians spoke up to support the campaign, and polls showed that even in Alberta a majority were taking Young’s side in the dispute.33

  Most importantly, the Honour the Treaties tour sparked a national discussion about the duty to respect First Nation legal rights. “It’s up to Canadians all across Canada to make up their own minds about whether their integrity is threatened by a government that won’t live up to the treaties that this country is founded on,” Young said. And the country heard directly from Chief Allan Adam, who described the treaties his ancestors signed as “not just pieces of paper but a last line of defense against encroaching reckless tar sands development that my people don’t want and that we are already suffering from.”34

  The Moral Imperative of Economic Alternatives

  Making the most of that last line of defense is a complex challenge involving much more than rock concerts and having cash in hand to pay lawyers. The deeper reason why more First Nations communities aren’t taking on companies like Shell has to do with the systematic economic and social disenfranchisement that makes doing business with heavily polluting oil or mining companies seem like the only way to cover basic human needs. Yes, there is a desire to protect the rivers, streams, and oceans for traditional fishing. But in Canada, according to a 2011 government report, the water systems in 25 percent of First Nations communities are so neglected and underfunded that they pose a “high overall risk” to health, while thousands of residents of Native reserves are living without sewage or running water at all. If you are the leader of one such community, getting those basic services taken care of, no matter the cost, is very likely going to supersede all other priorities. 35

  And ironically, in many cases, climate change is further increasing the economic pressure on Indigenous communities to make quick-and-dirty deals with extractive industries. That’s because disruptive weather changes, particularly in northern regions, are making it much harder to hunt and fish (for example when the ice is almost never solid, communities in the far north become virtually trapped, unable to harvest food for months on end). All this makes it extremely hard to say no to offers of job training and resource sharing when companies like Shell come to town. Members of these communities know that the drilling will only make it harder to engage in subsistence activities—there are real concerns about the effects of oil development on the migration of whales, walruses, and caribou—and that’s without the inevitable spills. But precisely because the ecology is already so disrupted by climate change, there often seems no other option.

  The paucity of good choices is perhaps best on display in Greenland, where receding glaciers and melting ice are revealing a vast potential for new mines and offshore oil exploration. The former Danish colony gained home rule in 1979, but the Inuit nation still relies on an annual infusion of more than $600 million (amounting to a full third of the economy) from Denmark. A 2008 self-governance referendum gave Greenland still more control over its own affairs, but also put it firmly on the path of drilling and mining its way to full independence. “We’re very aware that we’ll cause more climate change by drilling for oil,” a top Greenlandic official, then heading the Office of Self-Governance, said in 2008. “But should we not? Should we not when it can buy us our independence?” Currently, Greenland’s largest industry is fishing, which of course would be devastated by a major spill. And it doesn’t bode well that one of the companies selected to begin developing Greenland’s estimated fifty billion barrels of offshore oil and gas is none other than BP.36

  Indeed the melancholy dynamic strongly recalls BP’s “vessels of opportunity” program launched in the midst of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. For months, virtually the entire Louisiana fishing fleet was docked, unable to make a living for fear that the seafood was unsafe. That’s when BP offered to convert any fishing vessel into a cleanup boat, providing it with booms to (rather uselessly) mop up some oil. It was tremendously difficult for local shrimpers and oystermen to take work from the company that had just robbed them of their livelihood—but what choice did they have? No one else was offering to help pay the bills. This is the way the oil and gas industry holds on to power: by tossing temporary life rafts to the people it is drowning.

  That many Indigenous people would view the extractive industries as their best of a series of bad options should not be surprising. There has been almost no other economic development in most Native communities, no one else offering jobs or skills training in any quantity. So in virtually every community on the front lines of extractive battles, some faction invariably makes the argument that it’s not up to Indigenous people to sacrifice to save the rest of the world from climate change, that they should concentrate instead on getting better deals from the mining and oil companies so
that they can pay for basic services and train their young people in marketable skills. Jim Boucher, chief of the Fort McKay First Nation, whose lands have been decimated by the Alberta tar sands, told an oil-industry-sponsored conference in 2014, “There is no more opportunity for our people to be employed or have some benefits except the oil sands”—going so far as to call the mines the “new trap line,” a reference to the fur trade that once drove the economics of the region.37

  Sadly, this argument has created rancorous divisions and families are often torn apart over whether to accept industry deals or to uphold traditional teachings. And as the offers from industry become richer (itself a sign of Blockadia’s growing power), those who are trying to hold the line too often feel they have nothing to offer their people but continued impoverishment. As Phillip Whiteman Jr., a traditional Northern Cheyenne storyteller and longtime opponent of coal development, told me, “I can’t keep asking my people to suffer with me.”38

  These circumstances raise troubling moral questions for the rising Blockadia movement, which is increasingly relying on Indigenous people to be the legal barrier to new, high-carbon projects. It’s fine and well to laud treaty and title rights as the “last line of defense” against fossil fuel extraction. But if non-Native people are going to ask some of the poorest, most systematically disenfranchised people on the planet to be humanity’s climate saviors, then, to put it crassly, what are we going to do for them? How can this relationship not be yet another extractive one, in which non-Natives use hard-won Indigenous rights but give nothing or too little in return? As the experience with carbon offsets shows, there are plenty of examples of new “green” relationships replicating old patterns. Large NGOs often use Indigenous groups for their legal standing, picking up some of the costs for expensive legal battles but not doing much about the underlying issues that force so many Indigenous communities to take these deals in the first place. Unemployment stays sky high. Options, for the most part, stay bleak.