Photos by Kevin Jones
The Council of Canadians London chapter took part in a Standing Rock solidarity march yesterday.
About 300 people gathered for the 4-kilometre march.
The Facebook outreach for the march had stated:
Oneida Nation Supports the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, North Dakota
Start at the parking lot of OLG [Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation] Slots at Western Fair District, walk on Dundas Street to Harris Park
Wed. Nov. 9, 2016, 2 pm
As noted on their website, “The Oneida Nation of the Thames, like other Iroquois Nations, is a sovereign independent Nation with its own traditional hereditary and contemporary systems of governance and law. The Oneida people are known within the Iroquois Confederacy as Onyota’a:ka, ‘People of the Standing Stone’. Much like their ancestors, the Oneida peoples of today, maintain a deeply rooted connection to the land and to their Iroquois culture and traditions.”
The Dakota Access Pipeline is being built by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners and Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. The pipeline could carry up to 570,000 barrels per day of fracked oil from North Dakota to Illinois. It would cross 200 waterways, including the Missouri River, which is upstream of Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s main source of drinking water, and the Mississippi River.
Enbridge has a $1.5 billion share in the pipeline, while TD Securities, Scotiabank and RBC have provided project-level loans to the companies involved in it.
Mint Press reports, “About 3,000 people are assembled in the region, divided among five encampments, including three which are largely situated on reservation territory. The gathering of Native Americans representing almost 375 tribal nations and other non-Native American groups is unprecedented in modern history.”
The Council of Canadians first expressed its solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux on August 19 and since then the Regina, Chilliwack, Kent County, Montreal, Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton, PEI, Peterborough-Kawarthas and London chapters, along with staff in Vancouver and Ottawa, have participated in solidarity actions.
On October 30, we sent 1000 pairs of earplugs to the water protectors at Standing Rock given they have been subjected to police use of sound cannons that cause great pain and permanent hearing loss.
There will be a #NoDAPL Day of Action at Army Corps of Engineers on November 15.
The outreach for that notes, “Indigenous leaders are calling on us to take to the streets and disrupt ‘business-as-usual’ one week after the election to demand that President Obama’s Army Corps of Engineers and the incoming administration stop the Dakota Access Pipeline — and all those after it. On Tuesday, November 15th, join a massive day of action in solidarity with those at Standing Rock, and demand the Federal government and the Army Corps reject this pipeline. If you’re planning an action outside the US, you could organize it outside an involved bank building or US embassy.”
The Army Corps of Engineers is expected to begin drilling under the Missouri River for this pipeline within days.
#RezpectOurWater #NoDAPL #DakotaAccessPipeline
