As a former employee of a Conservative Party of Canada Member of Parliament and former campaigner I feel compelled to weigh in the way that Conservatives are talking about the Wet’suwet’en blockades.
The layoffs and loss of livelihoods for the workers affected is terrible and we should be concerned about them and their families, and that does not mean we should ignore the message behind this blockade.
First of all, rolling in with soldiers to forcibly break up the blockade is a dangerous and inappropriate precedent.
Can you imagine the public outcry if roles were reversed and an armed indigenous militia tore down a blockade built by white people?
And this idea that we should ban all blockades in the future that inhibit economic production – when did making rich people richer become more important than the Canadian Bill of Rights?
The people who have lost their jobs are not the targets of the protest – they are unfortunate collateral damage.
The real fight is not with Canadians; it is with the people in power who have created a system whereby they can exploit our country at the expense of those who live here and claim the moral high ground because the law is supposedly on their side.
Well, who do you think wrote the damn laws?
Everyone is so focused on using the Wet’suwet’en’s plight as a political football that no one is stopping to actually ask themselves the most important question – why are they there in the first place?
When people with no power get backed into a corner, they resort to whatever methods they have left.
People, planet, power – that’s what all of this is really about – disempowered people trying to protect a planet they love from a small cadre of powerful people.
Politics has become so political that all anyone cares about is power; the people and the planet are being left behind, and all we seem to care about is making sure powerful people get richer and more powerful.
I am not an Indigenous Canadian, but I am an indigenous species to this planet, and political leanings aside, I refuse to stand silently while my fellow Canadians disparage the courage and humanity of our own compatriots who are resorting to the final appeal they have – putting their bodies on the line – in order to protest the desecration of land that is sacred not just to the Wet’suwet’en, but to all humankind.
I took a break from my regular blog posting in order to write this piece that is front of mind for me and many others. I will be back to regular posting soon.
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