Mi’kma’ki/Nova Scotia - On Tuesday, March 3 at 12 p.m., a coalition of more than 60 Mi’kmaw and settler groups from communities throughout Nova Scotia are gathering at the N.S. Legislature to call on the Houston government to respect Mi’kmaw Rights, follow democratic processes and stop selling off Nova Scotia to corporate interests.
“The unceded lands and waters of Mi’kma’ki need to be treated with respect if we are to have a livable future,” says Nina Newington, president of Save Our Old Forests (SOOF). “This government is erasing years of painstaking progress. They’re firing scientists, dumping commitments, clearcutting moose habitat and greasing the tracks for unchecked resource extraction – all while threatening Mi’kmaq and settlers alike with outlandish penalties for daring to stand up for the health of the Earth and all her creatures.”
Led by Mi’kmaw Rights Holders and in solidarity with the land defenders of Tqamuoweye’katik / Hunter’s Mountain, the group first gathered in November on the Halifax Commons, drawing hundreds of supporters from across the province. Since then, they say the government’s actions have only worsened – pointing to recent widespread budget cuts, false and divisive claims made by the premier about Mi’kmaw communities, investments in fracking, the dismantling of the wildlife division of DNR and more.
As public frustration and outcry over the province’s direction continue to grow, organizers are bringing their message directly to Province House, where the N.S. government has just begun the spring sitting of the Legislature.
"Actions by the Houston government seek to undermine Indigenous rights and title as well as proving the colonial boomerang theory,” says Dr. TJ Wilson, Mi'kmaw citizen and professor at Acadia University. “Houston and his cronies have proven they will seek to criminalize Charter protected activities of all Nova Scotians to attack Indigenous rights and title."
Despite fears over the Houston government’s actions, organizers are heartened by the groundswell of support they’ve seen.
“People are coming together from all corners of the province,” says Nancy Hunter of The Many Vs. the Money. “Houston is trying to take us down a path we may never recover from, but we’re building collective resistance and working with each other for a liveable, caring place that we can all call home.”
The Shoulder to Shoulder rally will start at 12 p.m. AT on Granville St. in Kjipuktuk/Halifax with ceremony and speeches, followed by the tabling of a petition calling for the reinstatement of the provincial ban on uranium mining and exploration by a group of participating organizations. Organizers are inviting all concerned citizens to join.
“If you live, work, play or pray in Nova Scotia, we want you there,” say Mi’kmaw land defenders Michelle Paul and Glenda Junta. “We’re standing in solidarity with all resistance movements in Nova Scotia. We want to hear your voices.”
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Alexina Doucette
Mi’kmaw Land, Water and Treaty Defender
(782) 503-1394
Nina Newington
President | Save Our Old Forests
c: (902) 698-4347
p: (902) 825-4347
nsforestprotectors@gmail.com
Additional Quotes:
Glenda Junta, Mi'kmaw Defender Protector said: “As I recall, our late Grand Chief Gabriel Sylliboy stood tall though he was criminalized for our rights. Though he was exonerated generations later for not being in the wrong. We are not in the wrong. He is one of many legacies that inspire me to go on and protect our rights as Mi’kmaq. Our allies further strengthen us as they are well aware of the responsibilities they have for sharing our lands with them.”
A representative of student group Divest Dal said: “We are participating in the Shoulder to Shoulder rally because we are concerned about the impact our government’s decisions are having on the sanctity of our educational institution, our learning and our future. With research funding cuts, Bill 12 and the new Subsurface Energy R&D Investment Program, we feel that the Province is directing university activities to further their own interests, rather than the students’. These activities have implications for our future living in Mi'kma'ki as treaty partners and will impact our ability to live and work in this province.”
Maggy Burns, Executive Director of the Ecology Action Centre said: “The province we love and the nature that sustains us are under attack. This government has no mandate for their actions – they ran on a platform of healthcare and affordability, but are delivering austerity, a lack of transparency and a dangerously short-sighted push for unchecked resource extraction. People are fed up. We’ve seen a growing movement of communities from all corners of the province calling for justice, accountability and respect for Treaty Rights. Now we’re bringing their voices directly to the government’s doorstep.”
Tina Oh, Vice President Eastern Canada for SEIU Local 2, said: “Houston's budget is an attack on working families and will make life more unaffordable for most of us. It doesn't have to be this way. Corporations and the wealthy need to pay their fair share, just like the rest of us. The only way to fight back against this corporate agenda is for ordinary people to organize and build the power necessary to defeat it.”
Catherine Cervin MD, CCFP, FCFP MAEd, Chair of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment–Nova Scotia (CAPE NS), said: "As a physician, I see a fundamental contradiction in the government's direction. They are spending money to fix health care and at the same time supporting extractive industries that we know make people sick. We call on the government to abandon this outdated thinking. We need a bold new path that bolsters our economy without sacrificing the health of Nova Scotians."
The Right Reverend Sandra Fyfe, Bishop of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, said: “Our commitment to proactively care for creation is clearly reflected in the Fifth Mark of Mission: 'To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.' a commitment shared by a network of Anglican churches in over 165 countries around the world who make up the Anglican Communion. We stand in solidarity with the Shoulder to Shoulder rally because we recognize that as people of faith we commit ourselves to actively caring for the world God loves.”
Adrian Guilleminot of Nova Scotia Student Strike said: “A core, uncompromising demand of the Nova Scotia Student Strike is sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples, and we stand in staunch defence of the unceded Mi’kmaq lands, waters, and environment which sustains and nurtures all of us. As guests on this land facing ongoing settler colonialism, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder in unwavering solidarity with the Mi’kmaw water and land protectors at Hunter’s Mountain, across Mi’kma’ki, and the whole of Turtle Island in the struggle for sustainability, sovereignty, and decolonisation.”
Stacey Gomez, Executive Director of the Centre for Migrant Worker Rights NS, said: “We echo the calls for a thriving and liveable future where Mi’kmaw rights and all rights are respected and where everyone’s needs are met, regardless of immigration status. We chose a path of justice, equity and care over the austerity and extractivist agenda which we are being sold”
Kim Barlow of Music in Communities and Climate Song Lab said: “Houston’s cuts to music and arts throw us into instability and drain our resources, drawing us into “damage-control” that makes it hard to plan. Connecting people in real time, getting them off their screens and engaging in their neighbourhoods has huge benefits to social well-being, community-building, mental health, our local economy, and helps us building towards peace and friendship.”
Colby Sawler of the Safe And Responsible Resource Development Society (SARRD) said: "For the last year, many of us in East Dalhousie, West Hants, River John and more have come together to protect our communities from uranium exploration. The Houston government is dismantling environmental protections, treaty rights and democracy beneath our feet. We’re joining the Shoulder to Shoulder rally in solidarity to protect our health, our environment, our forests and our waters from dangerous resource extraction and to hold this government accountable.”
Ken Summers of East Hants Fracking Opposition Group (EHFOG) and NOFRAC said: “We’re joining the Shoulder to Shoulder rally because we know what the effects of unchecked resource extraction looks like. We in Kennetcook and Noel were the guinea pigs for Nova Scotia's shale gas fracking experiment. It was bad enough, but fortunately we got only a very small fraction of what fracking imposes on communities. Premier Houston did not get what he wanted from eliminating the moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, so now he has offered at least $25 million of our money as a bribe to someone willing to try it again here!”
Lesly Hartman of the Ingram Action Group said: "We are seeing High Production Forestry already happening in the Ingram River Wilderness area. This is but one of many attacks on the lands, the wildlife and the waters of Mi'kma’ki. What is happening right now with the uncontrolled push across the province for resource extraction and the removal of all safeguards and oversight, will impact all of Nova Scotia for generations to come. This is our moment to make a difference for the place we all call home. We can't do this alone, but shoulder-to-shoulder, Mi'kmaq and settlers, anything is possible."
Mike Lancaster, Executive Director of the Healthy Forest Coalition, said: “We have seen a regression in the provincial stewardship of the Wabanaki-Acadian forest ecosystem in Mi'kma'ki/Nova Scotia. The government is way off its track to meet its legal requirement to protect 20 per cent of the province by 2030. They are even going so far as to dismantle the only branch of government responsible for the management of all wildlife. Biodiversity and ecosystem health are inseparable from human health; their protections are not niceties, they are legal requirements. We have crossed a line in Nova Scotia and we need to let the government know: this is unacceptable"
Rob Bright of Citizen Science Nova Scotia said: "It is very concerning to know that Citizen Scientists are volunteering hundreds of hours to do the work DNR is supposed to be doing to assess forests for biodiversity, Species At Risk, and presence of Old Growth stands before issuing permits for logging on so-called "Crown Land" (otherwise known as Unceded Mi'kmaw Territory.) The fact that proposed protected areas of high ecological value are being targeted for logging instead of being officially assessed for protection is unacceptable."
Participating Organizations
- Action Against Canso Spaceport
- Annapolis Environment and Ecology
- Annapolis Waterkeepers
- Antigonish Coalition to End Poverty
- Antigonish Quaker Worship Group
- Blomidon Naturalists Society
- Bridgewater Watershed Protection Alliance
- Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE NS)
- Centre for Migrant Worker Rights NS
- Citizen Science Nova Scotia
- Citizen Scientists of Southwest Nova Scotia
- Citizens Against Uranium Mining and Exploration in Nova Scotia
- Citizens of Pictou County Against Uranium Mining (COPCAUD)
- Climate Change Task Force Unama'ki
- Climate Song Lab
- Council of Canadians - South Shore
- Diocesan Environment Network (DEN) - NS and PEI
- Divest Dal
- Don't Spray Cumberland County
- Don't Spray Nova Scotia Forests
- East Hants Fracking Opposition Group (EHFOG)
- Ecology Action Centre (EAC)
- Extinction Rebellion Annapolis County
- Extinction Rebellion Mi'kma'ki/Nova Scotia
- Flood Zone Windsor NS
- For Our Kids
- Friends of Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area
- Halifax Cycling Coalition
- Healthy Forest Coalition
- How We Thrive
- Ingram River Action Group
- Juniper Law
- Kairos Halifax
- Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network
- Music in Communities
- Nature Nova Scotia
- NOFRAC
- Not Friends of the New Northern Pulp
- Nova Scotia Bird Protectors
- Nova Scotia Forests Forever
- Nova Scotia Fracking Resource and Action Coalition (NOFRAC)
- Nova Scotia Species At Risk
- Nova Scotia Student Strike
- NS Coastal Protection Act Now!
- People Not Plunder
- Protect Chain Lakes WA
- Protect Eisner Cove Wetland
- Protect Nova Scotia Democracy
- Raging Grannies
- Safe And Responsible Resource Development Society (SARRD)
- Sandy Lake Conservation Association
- Save Dartmouth Cove
- Save Our Old Forests Association (SOOF)
- Save West Mabou Beach Provincial Park
- Seniors for Climate Antigonish Society
- SEIU Local 2, Eastern Canada
- Sierra Club Atlantic
- Snorkel Nova Scotia
- Society for Safe and Responsible Resource Development
- Southwest Paddlers Association
- St. Margaret's Bay Stewardship Association
- Stop Spraying and Clear Cutting Mi'kma'ki (Nova Scotia)
- Stop Spraying and Clear Cutting Unama'ki (Cape Breton)
- Sustainable Northern Nova Scotia (SUNNS)
- Talking Trees of Mahone Bay
- The Dirt Gang
- The Healthy Forest Coalition
- Tusket River Environmental Protection Association
- Water Is Life Mi'ma'ki (Nova Scotia)