(Left to right) Idle No More co-founders Nina Wilson, Sulvia McAdam, Sheelah McLean and Jessica Gordon
Idle No More co-founder Nina Wilson discusses with APTN National News the January 11 meeting and briefly why C-45 should be on the agenda at that meeting (and why that legislation should be stopped).
In ‘A Summary of Current Federal Legislative Amendments Affecting First Nations’ by Lorraine Land of Olthuis Kleer Townshend – LLP, it is noted that, “(C-45) removes many fish habitat protections and fails to recognize Aboriginal commercial fisheries.” It also notes under C-45, “Changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act reduce the number of lakes and rivers where navigation and federal environmental assessment is required from 32,000 to just 97 lakes and 2.25 million to just 62 rivers.” This overview document (which also notes the impacts of C-38, S-8 and other federal legislation on First Nations peoples) can be found here.
And CTV has reported, “Bill C-45 was more than 400 pages long and, like its predecessors, made changes to a myriad of rules and regulations. First Nations groups are concerned over changes to the Indian Act, some of which may affect the leasing of reserve lands and how decisions involving band territories are made. First Nations are also opposed to amendments to the Navigable Waters Protection Act, which removed thousands of lakes and streams from federal protection under that law… ‘Bill C-45 specifically attacks the treaty statuses and treaty rights around lands in Canada and therefore we as a people have decided there needs to be mass movements across the nation, helping this government understand we are still here, the treaties are still alive and they need to be abided by,’ Elder Taz Bouchier said.”
For Council of Canadians commentary, please see ‘NEWS: Water protections lost under Harper’s C-38 and C-45’ at http://canadians.org/blog/?p=18415. Also, ‘NEWS: Nishnawbe Aski Nation rejects S-8, says water is a human right’ is at http://canadians.org/blog/?p=13893.
