1) First and foremost this is an issue of social justice towards a
people that Canada has really been no better at recognising and
accepting than the US or anywhere else. Remember that in the Maritimes a
Canadian government put a BOUNTY on the Beotuck (sp) indians who lived
there, which resulted in the virtual genocide of a whole culture.
Throughout the country missionaries and the military - two arms of the
same oppression - have done their best to destroy native culture, with
land disenfranchisements, "residential schools", (do I really need to
recite the litany - is there anyone who does not know?)
And in the midst of all of this, the Quebec government has been one of
the worst at dealing fairly and constructively with native issues.
REMEMBER OKA!!!! REMEMBER THE GITSKAN WETSU'ETUN (sp -sorry)!!!! REMEMBER
THE OLDMAN RIVER PROJECT!!!
2) My second point, and this plays into the first one, Premier Bourassa
has made it clear that he considers aboriginal peoples to be cranks, and
has consistenty refused to display even a semblance of cooperation and
solicitation of their concerns. Anyone who believes, even for a second
or in the remotest iota, the drivel about opposition to the power
project being aimed at Quebec's sovereignty is only playing into the
propaganda game and further obscuring the second real issue: The very
real environmental devastation this project, offically called the "Great
Whale" project after the rivers which will be diverted, will UNDOUBTEDLY
cause.
We do not need to speculate about the damage which WILL be caused
because we know already from the earlier phases of the project EXACTLY
what will happen. THE LAND WILL BE RENDERED COMPLETELY UNINHABITABLE BY
THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF NORTHERN QUEBEC. Incidently, the earlier phase
of the project had the unanticipated bonus, from Bourassa's point of
view, of forcing native people into wage labour in the white economy
which furthered the process of cultural erosion.
Well, I suppose that is enough said, except to reiterate the point that
Bourassa in Quebec is using the native and environmental issues as
smokescreens for each other, a strategy which depends upon the
assumption that the people of Canada, the USA and elsewhere, are simply
too stupid or uninformed to figure out his game. There are several
excellent articles about the project which highlight the interlinkages
between environmental and aboriginal issues. One appeared recently in
The Nation, and another appeared in the Canadian Geographic about a year
ago.
Yours, Caedmon Staddon (CSTAD@UKCC.uky.edu on BITNET)