The Walrus: The Hungry People

THERE ARE MAGGOTS inside my gloves—this I discover after a few minutes of wear, when I get a prickly feeling in my fingertips. I quickly take the gloves off, flip them inside out, and rinse them in the river. I’m making my best effort at being tough and unflappable because I’m out with the Stó:lō fishing fleet, and fishers, as a rule, are tough. 

The gloves go back on. I reach into the net and pull out another writhing, surprisingly strong salmon. I’m on a flat-bottomed boat with just enough space for a very large ice-filled fishing tote, a couple of helpers, and the captain, all of us members of various Stó:lō First Nations.

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The Walrus: Terra Cognita Series: Editor’s Note

ANOTHER INDIGENOUS MAN was shot and killed by police a few hours ago. He was the ninth Indigenous person to die at the hands of Canada’s police forces since COVID-19 reached the country in January. 

People were worried about what the coronavirus would do to reserve: as of today, Indigenous Services Canada reports that six people have died from COVID-19 on rez—a third fewer than have been killed by police or after police encounters. I look at my mask and I have to wonder if I’d be better off with a bulletproof vest. It sounds flippant and dramatic, but the reality of it—the absurd reality of it—is that it’s actually true.

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The Tyee: Was It Fair to Criticize Indigenous Stances of Green Party? An Exchange

[Editor’s note: After The Tyee published Robert Jago’s opinion piece “Elizabeth May’s Greens Need to Fix Their Indigenous ‘Vision,’” we received a request from the Green Party to publish their submitted rebuttal. We do so here, followed by a response from Jago.]

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Canadaland: Ginning Up Native Outrage

On the way to my office in Montreal’s Old Port on Sunday, I stopped in at the SAQ at the Complexe Desjardins to buy some gin to restock my office bar. While browsing, I found this: Wendigo gin.

In broken English, the label declares itself to be “Inspired from…the land of the Natives.”

A “wendigo” is a mythical cannibal beast that belongs to the cultures of the Indigenous people across this region. According to Wikipedia, it can possess you and lead you into bouts of insatiable greed and murder, and can even turn you into a mad cannibal — effectively a zombie.

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Canadaland: There Is A Second Photo Of Justin Trudeau In Brownface

By now we have all seen the photos of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in brownface from a school yearbook and in blackfacefrom his high school days. Canadaland publisher Jesse Brown hasasked why no Canadian media had found these before — and there really is no excuse, other than that we thought we already knew everything there was to know about Justin Trudeau, who’s been a celebrity since the day he was born.

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Canadaland: The Reporting Gap In The Wet’suwet’en Crisis

The Wet’suwet’en crisis in BC has dominated the news for the last week. It began with an RCMP crackdown on supporters of a group of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, who oppose the construction of the Coastal GasLink liquefied natural gas pipeline through their territories. The builder of the pipeline, TC Energy (formerly TransCanada Corporation), asserts that they have the right to build it, having first obtained the support of five of the six Wet’suwet’en First Nations. The sixth declined to offer their support as they, in agreement with the hereditary chiefs, state that as an Indian Actband council, they do not have authority off reserve, and that only the hereditary chiefs can determine what happens to unceded, non-reserve lands like those through which TC Energy seeks to build.

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The Tyee: Elizabeth May’s Greens Need to Fix Their Indigenous ‘Vision’

The Green Party byelection victory in Nanaimo on May 6 could be called a breakthrough — it is only their second federal electoral victory, and coming days after the near election of a Green provincial government in Prince Edward Island, it shows that increasingly many Canadians are seeing the Greens as a valid alternative. Among those looking seriously at the Green Party for the first time are Indigenous people — who after a litany of disappointments by the Trudeau government, are looking for a new home for their votes.

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The Nation: Indigenous Rights Are Trudeau’s Last Priority

As we speak, Canadian paramilitary and police forces are occupying parts of the sovereign territories of the indigenous Wet’suwet’en, Gitxsan, and Mohawk peoples. This is their attempt to stamp out the blockades, protests, and occupations that indigenous people and their supporters have set up across the country. Protesters have shut down commuter rail services in Vancouver, parts of Montreal, and Toronto, as well as freight rail services in central Canada, and disrupted the Canadian economy in the process. They oppose the construction of a natural gas pipeline that would run through Wet’suwet’en land in northern British Columbia, a project that the group’s hereditary chiefs have said directly contradicts their own legal right to administer the territory.

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