Uphold the rights of all Indigenous Canadians, not just anti-pipeliners – by Terry Glavin (National Post – February 26, 2020)

https://nationalpost.com/

If Ottawa intends to usurp the rights of all those Aboriginal people who want the pipeline built, then Trudeau should come right out and say so

You’d think the country was convulsing in an apprehended insurrection or something. It isn’t. It is a very big deal, in its way, with tens of thousands of frustrated commuters and ships idled in the harbours and so on.

There’s a lot of public aggravation and a whole lot of shouting and crazy rhetoric. But the flag is still flying on government buildings. People really need to calm down.

So let’s start there, and let’s also remember that while all the roadblock banners and the chanted slogans loudly declare that the point of it all is “Wet’suwet’en solidarity” and “reconciliation” and so on, that doesn’t make it true.

If you’ve found yourself enraged by all this stuff, don’t blame the Wet’suwet’en. And don’t assume that these eruptions are even about Indigenous people, or about reconciliation, at all.

I cut my teeth as a cub reporter up in the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en territories. My first book was about their traditions and their laws and their courageous land-rights struggles.

For the rest of this column: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/terry-glavin-uphold-the-rights-of-all-indigenous-canadians-not-just-anti-pipeliners