Winners Fight for Indigenous Canadians – P1 Morning

It wasn’t exactly easy to get Frieda Huson on. But in the end, I sat there in front of a computer screen in a log cabin in Talpetscua, in northern British Columbia. She has hair that reaches her shoulders and there is a little dim light inside her desk. But that’s the last thing I see for Frieda Husson, internet coverage in the middle of the woods is too sloppy for video calls, so we have to deal with the audio.

We tried Sue hit immediately, but major floods in southern British Columbia in recent weeks have complicated plans. Frieda Husson is one of the leaders of the Witsuits, one of the indigenous peoples of Canada.

Here, 130 kilometers from the nearest town, Hsun has run the Unistoten camp for a decade, a healing center as she calls it. A place where its people can be close to their country, culture and history. Here are several log cabins that are powered by wood and solar stoves.

“We teach our people about our traditions, which we never take more from nature than we need,” she explains.

but according to Frieda Husson is where she calls healing and threatening. Several years ago, she and members of the Witswetten people as well as other indigenous peoples have been actively protesting the natural gas pipeline being built through the territory.

Hassoun believes that the work pollutes the river and land and disrupts wildlife. In mid-November, the police carried out a raid, including saws, against obstructions erected by Hosun’s neighbors to stop work on the pipeline, and several people were arrested.

What is happening now is rekindling feelings from the beginning of 2020, she says, when police forced Hassoun and a group of activists away from another checkpoint they had set up in the area. The intervention created protests across Canada. Frida Husson sees the natural gas pipeline work and police action as a continuation of the hundreds of years of persecution of the indigenous peoples of Canada. The authorities have always forced people to leave their lands due to natural resources and extraction.

But TC Energy has the right to build the pipeline through the British Columbia area, it believes, and the work has been banned by the province’s Supreme Court. TC Energy has also signed contracts with 20 elected leaders of Indigenous groups along the pipeline route who have given their approval for construction.

and more They are clearly positive about the project that they think will create jobs. But Husson and others with her believe that these leaders have no right to make such a decision without the consent of the various tribal leaders in the traditional indigenous power structure. The company and the authorities have decided on their own initiative, who is interested in voting and who is not.

According to TC Energy, they are now halfway through and the natural gas pipeline expansion continues. But the struggle of Hassoun and other activists to stop the pipeline has led to significant delays and costly legal action for the company. And Frieda Husson will not give up. My goal is for the next generation to experience our Earth as it was before, full of life.

in Canada The issue of indigenous peoples’ rights has received a great deal of attention in the past year with a growing protest movement across the country. The revelation of graves bearing hundreds of bodies in the boarding schools where Aboriginal children were forced to go during the 20th century shocked the entire world. Frieda Husson hopes that commitment to this cause will truly lead to improvements in several areas for Indigenous Peoples.

Cecilia Chavar, Washington
cecilia.khavar@sverigesradio